Women and girls of suburban North American, quit it with the
yoga pants as pants trend. Not just because it’s ugly - oh, it is ugly, and the
Fug Girls have been telling you so since 2008, but you clearly never got the
memo that Tights are not Pants, or you just thought it was a cute ironic thing
to laugh at with the girls. You need to stop wearing them because it’s weird.
Sure it’s weird that you want to be seen in the oddest mix
of provocative lack of clothing, and completely sexless unsexy, oh my god, I
can’t even be bothered dressing college student anti-chic. Seriously, you match
them with hoodies. Typically college hoodies. And don’t even get me started on
the ugg boots (Someone in ugg marketing did something brilliant to change that
charming specimen of woolly footwear from cheap Australasian bogan attire to
$150+ upmarket North American department store fare).
But, I’m not here to accuse you of your sartorial crimes. We
all make bad fashion choices at some stage or another, and there’s no
accounting for taste. Girls, I want to know why you’re suddenly dressing like
your mothers.
No, no, no, they’re not dressing like you, my young friends
heading off to Tim Hortons for your second Iced Capp and third Honey Crüller of
the day. Women in their 30s and 40s (and even 50s) have been rocking the
tragic leggings as pants look for years now. It’s the very embodiment of 21st-century
conspicuous consumerism for the leisure classes: Look at me and my wealth. Not
only is the school run a saunter for me, as I drop the kids off, freshly brewed
coffee in my KeepCup, I can then casually head off to the gym, or maybe even a
special hot yoga class at Lululemon, and spend my morning being all healthy and
glowy. While you plebs have to go work or clean your house. I even have plenty
of time for school volunteering, because I’m THAT sort of mother.
Or alternatively, it suggests a contrived air of sporty
casualness: Oh, I don’t need to bother with the restrictions of street wear, I
just live in my yoga pants.
You just worked out in those things. Go change.
Anyway, what sort of homogenous suburban hell have I found
myself in, where 14 and 15 year olds want to dress like their mothers? Or if
not their specific mother, a TV sitcom version of a MILF? Seriously, who are
you trying to impress? Because the easy extrapolation to that question is an
uncomfortable, your Dad?
At this point we can easily point to the infantilising of
Generation X and Y. If my generation actually dressed like grown-ups, the youth
might have a chance to wear their own clothes.
But that’s a lousy excuse. Reject our choices! I can tell
you’re not, because my husband and I don’t especially try on the fashion front,
and my husband has been wearing roughly the same thing since university, and we
still look vaguely hipster. We were in Ann Arbor the other day and conceivably
passed for slightly older students. In Ann-freakin’-hipster-Arbor. We’re 35! We
should look like losers.
You’re too easy on us! Crikey, when I was at university, my
friends and I dressed noticeably different from my elder sister and her
friends, and she was only four years older than us. FOUR. Not 17 years older.
So quit it with the identikit yoga pants you bought on a shopping
trip with your mom. She’s made a bad clothing choice, but you’re a teenager,
you can choose something entirely different. Hopefully something I think is
vaguely shocking.
P.S. Part of me wants to stop and congratulate any high
school student I see wearing something interesting, but it feels
counterproductive that they should need to receive their sartorial
encouragement from a 35-year-old suburban mother.
P.P.S. I've worn legging as pants before. I was on holiday. Note that the children are in their pyjamas.
