Trendy Sweatpants

Thanksgiving is fast approaching, which means that it's time to broach the subject of elastic waistbands, and more specifically, sweatpants.

I cahn't believe I haven't let my incongruent thoughts flow on the topic of trendy sweatpants yet. I should've done it a couple of weeks ago when one of my friends called on me to find her a pair of neutral-colored, tapered-optional lounge pants. I found a pair from Free People, and I've yet to be reimbursed with the glass of wine-as-payment that was promised. That's okay, the same friend gave me a leopard print dress of hers without me sacrificing anything from my own closet last April, so I think we're even.

I've had a thing for trendy sweatpants since (ugh, here I go again), I went to France when I was 18. The French lycéens who me and my American friends paired ourselves up with in our week-long school exchange taught us three things I'll never forget: one can never wear too much bronzer (debatable), faux fur and pleather are wardrobe essentials, and there is such a thing as trendy sweatpants.

To the French girls, fashionable lounge pants equaled Adidas track pants, which looked really good on them and really bad on me. One of the girls had a pair of neon green track pants with baby blue stripes, which she wore with white canvas sneakers and a baby blue t-shirt. In retrospect, I see how this outfit can be construed as the fugliest thing ever, but at the time, I couldn't imagine my life progressing without a pair of brightly colored Adidas track pants. I got a pair of baby blue ones with white stripes and tried to wear them with different combinations of shoes and t-shirts but nothing clicked. I retired them for good after wearing them with chestnut Uggs. Brutal.

I made another attempt at trendy sweatpants a few years ago after seeing a cuffed heather gray pair from H&M. They were on sale, so I bought them. A couple of hours into the first wear, the fabric had stretched out to give me a very embarrassing case of dumpy butt. My friends noticed it before I did and proceeded to sing Prince Ali whenever I walked by because my trendy sweatpants had reincarnated themselves as Aladdin pants.

After two failed attempts to pull off sweatpants in a non-couch setting, I've given up. I can only hope that the pair that I found for my friend see her off with more luck.