As the world takes its hesitant steps toward normalcy, and more people return
to the workplace, we need to accept the fact that the era of sweatpants may be
drawing to a close. And yet, do we really want to abandon the freedom and
comfort we have found during this otherwise grim time?
اضافة اعلان
Two years turns out to be just enough time to
convince many of us, especially women over 40, that we need never again suffer
physical discomfort for fashion.
“I don’t have any patience for uncomfortable
clothing,” said Shira Lander, 59, a professor of religious studies at
Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “I got rid of most of my dry-cleanable
clothing, and I don’t worry about a travel steamer anymore!”
Faced with a frightening outer world, who doesn’t
long to burrow under the covers, draping oneself in poofy, flowy, lounge-y garb
that, while meant for waking life, looks and feels like sleepwear, and
sometimes even like actual bedding?
The kinder, gentler side of women’s fashion has been
visible across the spectrum, from Zoom screen up to runway. Back in 2020,
Anna Sui showed floaty prairie-style dresses, and even had some models carry
matching comforters. Prada offered puffy, cocoonlike jackets and belted capes
resembling bathrobes. Jason Wu whipped up airy caftans.
“I love that loungewear has become a prevailing new
category,” said Barbara Lippert, 65, a writer. “During the worst part of the
pandemic, even jeans seemed like an overreach, requiring that complex button
and zipper action. And cardigans were too much work.”
Many women interviewed for this column brought the
conversation around to shoes and the eternal quest for style and elegance for
feet no longer able or willing to contort themselves into unnatural positions.
“I refuse to wear shoes that either hurt my feet or look dowdy,” said Anne
Higonnet, 63, a Columbia University professor of art history. “So, I resort to
the great old elegant English and French flat lace-up shoe brands — Crockett
& Jones and Paraboot.”
Jody Sperling, 51, a dancer and choreographer,
favors shoes that permit movement, pointing out that with her go-to style of
clogs, “you can go outrageous with color, and they’re still comfort shoes.”
Silver Danskos are her current favorite.
Lippert said that she had been wearing lug-soled
boots, but even they “started feeling too restrictive,” so she switched to “step-in
suede booties with faux-shearling linings.”
“No more heels,” echoed Angela Cason, 61, a digital
agency owner who has also succumbed to the charms of shearling. Once you wear
Uggs, she said, you are ruined for anything else.
High-end designers have been conceding this point
for a while now. Witness the endurance of the fluffy or fur-lined flat sandal
craze — most recently, the collaboration between Birkenstock and the former
king of pain himself,
Manolo Blahnik, which blended both partners’ DNA to produce
wide, flat, hippyish sandals in jewel-toned velvet, embellished with rhinestone
buckles. Other name-checked labels for shoes included: Madewell, Aerosoles,
Arche, Aquatalia, Blondo, Fly of London and, for kitten heels (the only heels
anyone mentioned), Isabel Marant.
For more than a century, women’s fashion has cycled
through various attempts at uniforms — from the
Rational Dress Society of
late-19th-century London (which decried whalebone corsets and promoted the
voluminous cycling trousers known as “bloomers”) through Coco Chanel’s swingy
separates, the unisex jeans, and T-shirts of the 1960s, to the power suits of
the 1980s, which offered armor to women newly entering the corporate
battlefield.
Lippert sees a direct correlation between today’s
lounge-y looks and those early suits. “It strikes me,” she noted, “that the
loungewear trend is a reverse empowerment of the ‘power suits’ for an earlier
generation of working women.”
Sperling recounted buying up a series of soft cotton
jumpsuits, in multiple colors and fabrics, all made in Thailand. “I like to
wear clothes I might be able to dance in,” she said. She also cited “leggings
and a tank top with a built-in bra” or a “men’s style linen button-down shirt”
as favorite uniforms.
Alys George, 45, a cultural historian, favors a
similar uniform: leggings and a long, tuniclike sweater or top, all in black.
The height of pandemic lockdowns coincided with George’s recent pregnancy,
which only increased her desire for bodily comfort. Post-pregnancy, she remains
attached to her new look, a bit to her own surprise.
At its heart, relaxed
fashion is democratic,
accommodating changes of mind, body, and culture. It can be gender-neutral; and
it is body inclusive, flattering diverse shapes, weights, and sizes. It’s also
potentially a way to do more with less. Many women mentioned relying on the
same limited number of items kept in steady rotation. Cason returns routinely
to the same five pairs of Eddie Bauer pants in various colors, she said.
In this, relaxed fashion feels very much in keeping
with some of today’s most urgent political and social movements. “What you wear
reflects your values,” Sperling said.
It is hard to say how long we will stay nestled in
our cocoons. Fashion is cyclical. But relaxed fashion was a long time in coming
and responds deeply to both the current political moment and some of our
innermost desires — for comfort, space, and freedom from pain. As a result, I
suspect this cycle will be with us for a long time, for women of many ages.
I myself am now in love with my first-ever hoodie (Tahari,
black, silky jersey). And Sperling said that her 10-year-old daughter, Evie,
recently announced: “I will never suffer pain for beauty.” From the mouths of
babes.
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