Dress-up Friday

I was at work, sitting in my ergonomic eighties chair and if I twisted my neck a bit I could look out over the roof of Starky’s and see that the leaves have changed. Dress-up Friday continues to be a tradition in our office (held only by me and my other female coworker); though its appeal lessens as the days grow colder and biking gets more brutal. I am now wearing gloves when I bike in the morning (though not in the afternoon) and I will soon be layering knee-high socks over my leggings.

Which brings me to my question. When did leggings become pants? I continue to see young and sometimes not so young ladies wearing a normal hit at the hips t-shirt and leggings out in public, not working out or walking the dog, but doing every day life stuff like eating a scone or going to work or drinking beer in a public establishment. Like leggings are jeans or something.

They’re not. Leggings are just footless tights. Only Edie Sedgewick got to pretend that tights were pants and she ended up being a total, utter burnout. Leggings are meant to be worn under things. They aren’t any thicker than tights, they don’t have any structure, unless you are a model or one of those circus people who wears leotards in public (I wash my hands of them; that seems to be political movement spurred by American Apparel and somehow related to the employment of illegal immigrants), you probably shouldn’t pretend that leggings are pants anymore.

Last night I was at Hecklewood’s anniversary party and I noticed a girl in the dreaded small t-shirt/leggings combo but the worst thing about it? These leggings had pockets. Which is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen yet. They were on the butt of the leggings, in jean style fashion, like anyone is ever going to put those pockets to use and risk increasing the overall size or shape of the rump region. And the more sinister connotation was that some designer somewhere said, you know, throw pockets on these things and they’re pants. No. Leggings will never be pants. Pockets don’t make a couple tubes of lycra into a pair of pants. I will fight this forever.