Dubious Fashion Choice

Waiting for a subway train today at North Station, I saw a guy wearing what I would have to describe as "skinny sweatpants." Naturally I think it's bad enough that someone thinks it's okay to wear sweatpants out in public (and by "out in public" I mean "anywhere beyond one's front porch or yard"), but it's even worse that he'd chosen to wear something in public that looked like he'd swiped it from his middle-school-age brother, or possibly his girlfriend.

Didn't guys learn anything from the skinny jeans fad? You are not Mick Jagger. You have not earned the right to dress like him. And now our favorite cozy, indoor lazy pants are being subjected to the same stylistic missteps, which obviously at least one guy thinks is okay.

I'm blaming the designers for this one. They've been meddling with our sweats; I've noticed a recent boomlet of sweatpant offerings from various fashionable brands and labels, with accompanyingly inflated prices. Todd Snyder's collaboration with Champion: $118. (I will admit I like the contrast waistband on those, but...) Acne: $220! (Wow, zippered pockets.) Club Monaco: $389!! (At least they're cashmere. Yup, cashmere sweatpants.) Band of Outsiders: $575!!! (A mostly wool/cotton blend, with cargo pockets. When you put it that way, who could resist?) Even damn Gap sweats are $50 $40. (Anyone who pays full retail for any item at Gap deserves to be ripped off.)

I have two or three of pairs of sweatpants that I wear around the house when it's cold. I'm sure I didn't pay over $12 for any of them, and they aren't crappy polyester blends either. I either got them in cheap stores like Old Navy or I found them on clearance in other, moderately priced stores.

The worst part of when designers get hold of a simple, utilitarian, everyday item isn't the obscene markup itself, it's that there are people who see such an item and think "I need to have a pair of those." And when someone drops $200 on a pair of sweatpants, he thinks he needs to wear them everywhere to justify the expense. What's the next step, designerified thermal underwear?