005: Leggings as Pants
Another hot take on the controversial garment!
It would be remiss of me to begin a discussion regarding leggings without evoking the great Azzedine Alaïa , and so this is how the story begins. During a recent sleepless night, I found myself thinking of the designer, as one naturally does at two in the morning, and how he elevated the controversial basic to the status of couture. I began excavating Alaïa’s modest archives made available to the public, and realized how the designer had largely eschewed trousers, substituting its need with leggings to accentuate his exquisitely crafted tops and jackets in tandem with women’s bodies.
As a woman with hips – and once upon a time I used to say hips with a sort of shame that implied a perversion from the norm and now I state it as a fact, as in I am not built like a pole or pin – the process of finding cigarette trousers that make allowances for its curve is an odious one. Most contemporary designers are oblivious to the notion that women may have hips and thighs and breasts and derrières, and that this may be more common than not, and so this is where I begin to understand the appeal of leggings. A garment that takes the shape of its wearer, and all that is needed is a bit of confidence and some good underwear.
For most of my adolescence and young adulthood, leggings made clothes I would have otherwise not been permitted to wear more accessible. When I was younger (and not yet somewhat empowered by many, many hours of therapy), my family had strict rules about what I could wear. While most people wearing leggings with dresses and skirts were replicating the trend of the early aughts forged by the starlets of Young Hollywood, leggings were the only way I was allowed to dress in anything at or shorter than knee-length. Not to make this sound like a romantic ode, but leggings gave me the ability to flirt with fantasy, to visualize clothes the way I really wanted to wear them.
Soon after their aughties renaissance, leggings began to garner a fair amount of negative press. Fashion publications, their doyennes, and their readership protested that leggings are not pants, and thus needed to follow a code of conduct: to be worn at the gym and at home, and nowhere in between. The bad rap leggings have earned over the years is largely due to its cohorts in athleisure and the curse of reality television; one could not look at leggings without thinking of E!’s first family’s obsession with - ugh - camel toe.
While Alaïa has always stayed true to its alliance with leggings, no designer has staged its comeback for the Fall of 2024 quite like Sarah Linh-Tran and Christophe Lemaire’s Lemaire. Paired with wispy dresses that swish around the ankles like sheer tendrils and tailored culottes, I image Martha Graham and her disciples would wear them today on and off the stage. Lemaire’s take on the garment offers interest not only in terms of dimensionality and texture, but also demonstrates how lighter fabrics can be worn through the depths of winter without reaching for the obvious and conventional tights, switching it up with something delightfully freakier instead. Norma Kamali offers similar leggings to tide us over as we patiently await the coming fall.
Leggings in the manner of Jil Sander and Phoebe Philo’s Céline (both pictured above) are styled closer to how I prefer to wear them day-to-day: paired with long tops and jackets, as I am not yet sufficiently emboldened to wear them the Alaïa way. The leggings pool around the ankles and are styled with longer lines, which call to mind a modern take on traditional churidars and kurtas. The narrow leg offsets dramatic silhouettes up top without either fighting for attention. I thought I’d recreate these styles for our viewing pleasure, and to show off my Mylar-meets-insulated-cooler-bag-chic Dries Van Noten coat, which at first sight elicited an audible gasp from yours truly (the legend is that it took my breath away).
The leggings are from Gil Rodriguez; they’re sturdy, impeccably made, maintain their shape, and have the desired pooling-effect, although I wish they’d cascade down a little further à la Jil Sander. Did my heart stop the second I realized I’d paid $85 for leggings, yes, but to my knowledge their business practices fare better than most. The Céline shirt (look 9, Fall ‘16) was purchased secondhand for an indecently good price. Because I’m no longer a spring chicken, I ended up wearing both looks with sheer black stockings under the leggings (please, let us leave the spirit of Flashdance firmly in the past!).
And if you still remain unconvinced of the allure of leggings, allow me to entice you one last time with this 18th century painting of a blindfolded suitor being dragged and presented before a princess and her confidants, the women dressed in gauzy flowing robes and churidars, not unlike Lemaire’s elegant dancers of today.
Until next time!
Yes! Love the connection to churidars and that painting. So elegant.
Where is this painting from? It looks like the illustration of a book I had as a child and I'd love to find it :)