Jeggings – For or Against?

A couple of summers ago I remember getting a series of charming emails from a friend who was visiting New York. He couldn’t believe the fashion craze for leggings or tights that was so popular there:

Summer just hit New York and it’s a joy just walking around taking in the beautiful weather – and all the tights… 🙂

He told me lots of stories about the women he had seen with their tights-clad bottoms “churning and winking” in different areas of the city – including this one:

Last night I attended an opening at a gallery Downtown. The artist was a young Hispanic kid who’d made some quite good paintings in a sort of graffiti-style.
But: another guest was a woman in white tights that looked like they were spray painted on her. It looked like she walked around with a bare behind.

And what a behind it was!

And she just walked around, sipping wine, looking at the paintings and chatting with her friends. Someone asked what I thought of the paintings and I murmured something or other. What I wanted to say was:

“The best piece of art in here is that woman’s bottom.”

I think that women dress like that for two reasons: 1. They know they have a great bottom. 2. They like to show it.

I could add a third reason: it helps keep your balance on the subway!

The trend has spread everywhere since making it one of the biggest bottom-centric fashions since…well I suppose since the last time leggings were all the rage back in the 1980s.

Not everyone is so happy about it though. One group of women have set up a website campaigning AGAINST the wearing of tights as outerwear. Their manifesto also arguably explains why the fashion is so enjoyable too. It just depends upon your point of view really.

Let’s Be Clear:

The wearing of tights as pants is an abomination.

Tights are not pants.

Sure in the context of sports, ballet, hair metal, and renaissance fairs, tights function as suitable leg coverings, but still…they are not pants.

No. These are not activities that transform tights into pants; these are historically acceptable acts of Pantlessness.

Tights as pants leave nothing to the imagination. Tights as pants are an affront to those of us who prefer not to know the most intimate details of the neighbor’s bodies. Tights as pants are the fashion equivalent of Too Much Information.

This gratuitous divulgence of assets repels where the tights-as-pants wearer presumably wants to entice. We have tired of tolerating attempts to force tights into a non-native garment category and have decided to do something about it.

Jeggings are an extension of the same trend, a cross between jeans and leggings that must have inspired many a spanking fantasy.

A couple of comedians from appropriately enough, New York, have put forward the PRO jeggings argument in a more entertaining way. Emma & Ari haven’t just come up with a manifesto, they’ve set it to music AND made a spoof pop video to go with it!

The best thing about Jeggings – The Official Music Video (apart from the sound effect of elastic snapping on to butt) is the disapproving mother who chases Ari around while trying to spank her on the seat of her jeggings with a rolling pin!

Plenty of celebrities have embraced the trend including Paris Hilton, Jennifer Love Hewitt and of course Lindsey Lohan who we have to thank for starting it all apparently.

And who, if she is found guilty of the charges of theft that she’s currently facing, should have plenty of reason to regret starting such a spank-friendly fashion!