Is there anyone who hasn’t uttered the word sweatpants since last March? Likely not. Is there anyone who hasn’t worn them? Well yes, as a matter of fact, that would be me. It’s not that I was trying to make some sort of statement; it’s simply that I don’t, as a rule, wear pants. (For skiing, yes, and I keep a pair of jeans in a bottom drawer for pruning roses because thorns are nasty little things that tear at skin and fabric, but that’s about it.) My coworkers are agog, but trousers just aren’t my thing.
There was a time when pants were part of my repertoire; one of my first big designer purchases was a pair of high-waist, wide-leg pants by Olivier Theyskens. (Team Belgium toujours!) The appeal then was the dramatic swing of the fabric. I’m all for flou. I love things that swish, bend, pouf: the sweep of a skirt, the fall of a tail of a bow, the hang of a drape. The romantic gesture, in short.
There’s not a shred of that in a pair of sweatpants, nor in my eyes, an ounce of femininity. That’s not true of pants in general; I mean the Charlie girl was iconic, but sweats just “ain’t got that swing.”
Stasis set in with lockdown last March, but wearing a dress or skirt was, and is, a way for me to counter it in some small way as fabric moves and brushes against my free and unbound legs. The midi is my preferred length, but I don’t mind going a bit longer, which allows for a skirt to be swept to the side and lifted so as not to drag on subway steps. It’s an old-fashioned gesture that sets the slide carousel in my head spinning. Think Fragonard and Boucher, Madame Bovary in a riding costume, Eugène Boudin’s beachcombers, El Jaleo by John Singer Sargent, and Tilda Swinton grabbing her skirts and running through the garden maze in Orlando.
To wear or not to wear a skirt was not a question for Orlando or Madame de Pompadour. They had no choice. A glimpse of leg was still taboo for Victorians; a few decades later hemlines had risen but Chanel preferred clothes that covered the knees. Legs have always been a symbol of women’s liberty, and sometimes of other things as well. In 1926 the economist George Taylor floated the idea of the hemline index, suggesting that skirts lengthen in a bear market, and rise in a bullish one. A Little Below the Knee clubs were organized in America in reaction to the fuller, longer skirts Christian Dior proposed in his 1947 “New Look” collection, reversing the mobility of shorter skirts women had enjoyed during the war. In 1970 FADD (Fight Against Dictating Designers) and GAMS (Girls/Guys Against More Skirt) protesters gathered on Seventh Avenue to decry the midi. Can you imagine anyone getting as exercised about sweatpants?
Sweatpants (when not worn for sport) are for sofas; they are the slacker uniform. In 2020 they were the butt of endless late-night comedians’ jokes. They raised hackles among the fashion set—but they sold like hotcakes. Not to me, however. A creature of habit, I found comfort in wearing my chosen uniform. Ankles aweigh!
