Hips Don’t Lie, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

May 29, 2015 Victor El-Khouri 0 Comments

What with the wars and the droughts and the new television season announcements, you might have missed this little nugget of news:  Blue jeans are no longer the sine qua non of fashion.  Instead, a new kind of clothing, “athleisure,” (which are, essentially, sweatpants and other stretchy garments) is the new thing.

Denim had a much longer run as fashion than most things.  Sure, it had a role in work clothes for a long time, but by the 1960s, wearing bluejeans was a fashion (and political) statement.  The Seventies saw the beginning of “designer” jeans, and they’ve been on the rich and famous at least that long, even though very few of those people work on a farm or ride Western.  They might wear their jeans to their fabulous jobs in the creative fields, or even on the red carpet.

That’s more than 50 years, a long time for a fashion to stay in fashion.  Still, what changed? Why is this happening now?

I have no evidence, but that doesn’t stop me from having an opinion.  And I think it’s because we’re old and we’re fat.

Well, not everyone is old and fat.  Not everyone is old or fat.

My generation, the Baby Boomers, remain an important demographic simply because we have so much money.  And we are old.  Even those of us over the age of 45 who are not technically overweight do not have the same bodies we had at 25, even if we weigh the same.  Childbirth and menopause and other hormonal changes of one kind or another affect us all, male and female.

Americans, in general, are fat.

For years, I’ve wondered how the average American can get dressed.  Admittedly, in New York City, I don’t necessarily see the same kind of displays in stores that other people see.  Even in our K-Marts, it can be challenging to find women’s clothes in sizes larger than a ten.  The better department stores and boutiques rarely rack anything above a six.  You have to ask for it.

Here’s something I probably don’t have to tell you:  denim, like other cotton fabrics, can be kind of stiff.  You can put on a pair of jeans that fit fine in the morning, and after a long day with stress and sitting and eating lunch at your desk, the waistband will be biting into your mid-section.  You might be willing to put up with this discomfort for an occasion of some kind, but not as an everyday thing.

Hence, jeans are on the outs.  So do other kinds of uncomfortable clothes in general.

Naturally, men are the first to benefit from this, with the latest craze being the so-called “dad body”.  It’s hip for a man to have an doughy extra ten pounds around his waist, and celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio (who isn’t even a real dad) flaunt their flab.

I have not yet heard about a similar celebration of the “mom body,” even though women are the gender that experiences actual physical changes from parenthood.

I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, sweatpants and leggings and yoga pants and hoodies are comfortable, and can look good on a variety of body types.  Deciding whether or not to wear real pants, with real zippers, is one of my daily dilemmas, because I always want to wear something as much like pajamas as I can get away with.

On the other hand, it’s not healthy for us, individually or as a nation, to placidly accept our obesity.  Not because we should all look good in jeans, but because we should all have strong hearts, good blood sugar levels, and the lower risk of cancer that we would have at healthy weights.

Mostly, though, we should get over our Puritanical obsession with thinness as an expression of self-discipline and moral superiority, and we should learn to love the pleasures which our bodies allow us to enjoy.  These can include food, drink, exercise, sex and many, many other activities.

Many of which don’t require pants at all.