was wrong: sweatpants are one of the most perfect items of clothing. Like a crisp white shirt or a pair of indigo 501s or a knife-point stiletto, an elasticated and loose-fitting sweatpant is a neutral scaffolding capable of supporting a whole world of fantasies. That is because there are few garments that unite quite as many disparate groups: slobs and athletes, cantankerous retirees and college jocks, downbeat boxers and employees of Pineapple Dance Studios.
It’s hard to know where someone is from or even where they are going in a sweatpant. But anonymity and effortlessness are, of course, the most attractive qualities a person can possess. I often look at photos of famous men trying to look very alluring at red-carpet events in outfits that have necessitated small teams of full-time stylists and think, “For what?” Have these people forgotten that the purest grade of human desire is, in fact, harboured in a pair of £9.
62 sweatpants from Fruit of the Loom? These are loaded icons, no doubt stemming from our most formative, adolescent memories. Because sweats are the unofficial uniform for all those who sit at the top of playground hierarchies. Boys with big arms who would peanut your school tie and all the popular girls that once encircled them in a cloud of ’s Fierce.
Manicured and Machiavellian. Easy, breezy and bitchy. A sweatpant is a crown, the hard-won regalia of shopping mall queens and locker room princesses.
That is what I have chosen to see in all the peplu.
