Jeggings: The season’s hot pants give new meaning to OMG! Optimum mailable garment? Over my girth? Omnipresent mod gear?
I could go on and on, but I will spare you, and simply rant about how the stretchiest jeans for a body-fluctuating planet are an inescapable fashion feature this fall – one invading my space as I prepare my daughters for the school year. Enough is enough. I’m jegging for mercy.
New York Magazine calls it a “collision of trends” – fitted denim meets the leggings phenomenon. If you haven’t heard about it yet, you probably aren’t hip to the 2010 runway: Fifties calf-grazing skirts, lace-up equestrian boots, gauzy tunics and gypsy Gothic black tiered gowns. In other words, you in the dark!
“I’m so sick of salespeople explaining to us that jeggings are jeans+leggings and saying how great they are,” kvetches my high school-bound daughter, adding, “I’ve been wearing them since 5th grade!”
True, I was ahead of the times, and bought her a pair of black stretch jeans with pockets back then, a style that conjured my own beloved 60s peddle pushers. Like jeggings, the black slacks + tights (slights?) were cute under little dresses.
Four years later, skinny-jean-worshiping teens and tunic-clad matrons are drawn to jeggings for the same reasons: They are even skinnier than skinny jeans because they adhere like Crazy Glue to the torso and limbs. They also fit all body types and help suck in the territory Spanx won’t go. They are great for layering and also serve to reveal an enviable hard body when flaunted sans the trusty tunic.
Forget color fads. Girl, give me some Spandex and poly knit that acts like them skinny pants, and I will work it in any shade.
The possibilities are endless, and so, jeggings have jogged their way to retail racks and rounders from Bloomies and Nordstrom (Hue makes them in corduroy) to American Eagle (second pair is 50 percent off), H&M and Target (cheaper but not as long lasting). Hollywood high-end Hudson signature denim designs with pockets can be had for a smidgen over $150. Plus-size brands can be had for a little over $12 at Walmart. Which to buy might depend on what will soon shrink the most, you or the jeggings.
And yes, they have crossed over, now available for the male set, appealing to fashionable fellas who don’t necessarily dance to classical music for a living. But you must be extremely bold. Stylish just isn’t enough when you are pushing the envelope with man jeggings, or rather, meggings.
The question remains: To jeg or not to jeg?
I say jeg if you dig tunics. Jeg if you are under 90 and live in a cold, foggy climate where layering is key. Jeg if you earn a living lifting ballerinas. Jeg if, like my daughter, you go to a dress coded Catholic school that permits any colored jeans other than denim. And, hey moms, don’t worry about over-jegging. Like Australian Uggs, first introduced as apres ski apparel, jeggings are probably here to stay. Eventually, they might merge with Uggs, and be reborn as bootjeggers, or maybe Juggs?
Image: Free People, Denimology, Forum Kiteout