I say, make like Liz Gilbert and take your wardrobe on a journey of re-evaluation. By adding one item, harem pants – the trousers of the season – you can update your existing pieces and create looks that are perfect to eat, pray and love in.

This latest trouser trend first showed up on Alexander Wang’s spring 2009 catwalk in the form of cuffed and cropped, grey marl sweatpants. And while I can hear your collective shriek of horror from all the way out here in San Francisco, the harem pants, and their many sisters that include the carrot leg, draped and drop crotch, are the fashion equivalent of sweatpants. Except, crucially, they’re much, much sexier. As Ms. Gilbert would agree, taking a fashion risk means sometimes traveling outside your comfort zone. This throw-caution-to-the-wind silhouette is roomy, free-spirited and exotic.

Now I’ve stopped you from rushing into a rebound romance with a whole new set of clothes – that will predictably end up looking just like your old things – here are some tips to ensure your fashion evolution is one women everywhere end up relating to, over, say, Mr. Ali Baba.

Eat. After seasons of skinny pants you finally have a bit more room for the carbs you left behind. Harem pants are incredibly comfortable, but don’t get too comfortable. Keep the waist defined and whatever you wear on top fitting snugly. Same goes with the luggage, a small neat purse works best.

Pray. It’s a truly tricky look to attempt, one that has serious potential for sending you into a corner praying that you hadn’t. Meditate on the oneness of this fashion affirmation, no further style statements necessary. Try neutral colors, no glitz and minimal jewelry only.

Love. If  you decide that celibacy isn’t much of an option after all, it’s essential to opt for a not too-low crotch in these pants. Even the word saggy, is decidedly unsexy – don’t you think? To keep that sexy up you might wear high heels with this look, unless of course like Ms. Gilbert, you know that in fashion, like life, rules are there to be broken!

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The woman in your Yogalates class explaining that the switch from coffee to green tea has changed her life – really “centered” her – she might have it. Your coworker who returned from a two-week service trip to Southeast Asia and promptly bought everyone in the office a copy of Three Cups of Tea – he’s probably got it too. Your friend who just replaced her perfectly serviceable Honda with a brand-new Prius definitely has Eat Pray Love Syndrome. You might have it too.

Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2006 memoir has received equal parts adulation and derision over the past few years, only some of which is deserved. The fact that it’s being adapted into a Julia Roberts vehicle seems cosmically perfect somehow, if by “perfect” you mean “absurdly self-indulgent.” Now – for a memoirist at least – self-indulgence isn’t necessarily a problem; most of the time it’s sort of the point. The problem isn’t Eat Pray Love itself so much as the way its philosophy is filleted and half-digested into a self-help-based approach to healthy and sustainable living.

The next logical step is – of course – turning the movie into a guided tour run by a Vegas-based “spiritual travel company.” Eat Pray Love Bali is a week-long vacation created by Spirit Quest Tours to “enjoy Bali the way [Gilbert] did, like a native,” offering carbon-offset flights, authentic Balinese prayer costumes (available for purchase), and palm-reading by Ketut Liyer, a prominent character from the book. “Don’t forget to bring your copy of Eat Pray Love for him to autograph,” the website’s authors helpfully suggest.

This doesn’t mean there’s something inherently wrong with going on vacation. Western-style tourism has thousands of both positive and negative repercussions, none of which are the point here. What’s disturbing about EPLB is the wide-scale production and packaging of Eat Pray Love syndrome, the idea that sudden insights can be planned and purchased, quantified and reproduced with the developing world serving as background scenery. Rather than considering how the conservation of resources can benefit the planet as a whole, we Westerners all too often merely shift from one method of consumption to another.

My new Balinese sari sure makes me feel enlightened, though and it looks great with my skin tone.

Image: eoinfinnyoga + blissology

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