Leggings are NOT PANTS

Yes, you heard me yelling that - Leggings ARE NOT PANTS. Nor are they appropriate for women over 16, maybe 17, unless it's for Yoga.

I had a client this evening, a lovely woman who wanted help with her wardrobe. She had seen another Bay Area personal shopper/stylist a couple of months ago and this "professional" actually tried to get her to buy leggings, and not for yoga. They bought adorable wool skirts, and the leggings were, gasp, to go under those. The horror. I'm sorry, this client is a doctor, in her mid-thirties, and she looks young enough to be mistaken for the baby sitter without the sartorial insult known as leggings. THERE IS NO EXCUSE. No grown woman should dress that way, and no one who is supposed to be a professional should be telling a grown woman to dress this way. ugh.

Phew. I've gotten it off my chest.

Now if anyone has made the mistake of thinking you can wear leggings as a substitute for pants, or tights, just head right out and buy some opaque black tights. Leggings cut you off at the ankle or calf, a very unflattering point. Tights, especially with a shoe that's the same color, will elongate the leg.



You can make them fun with a subtle pattern -



I will admit that a friend showed me a good way to wear leggings - MATERNITY leggings, with a long sweater over them with the bottoms of the leggings tucked into her frye boots. That looked stylish, but the leggings weren't very tight, and when hidden on top by a long sweater and on the bottom by the boots, they no longer looked like leggings. And let's be honest, who is going to begrudge a woman with a growing belly a pair of comfortable elastic waist pants? Not I.


Anyone else however, unless you are under 16 or on your way to the gym, just say NO to leggings.

Oh JLH, stay away from Marc Jacobs, his clothes are not for the busty

Do we need yet another photo to prove that Marc Jacobs' clothes are not meant to house boobs? He is just another one of those designers that would prefer women look like boys, and yet I still hope each season that he will be schooled in basic biology, i guess Jennifer love Hewitt does as well -


Now we know what happens when we are blinded by hope- we wear things we shouldn't.

And whoa - her outfit gets even worse as you pan downward and back up,


There are few trends I hate more than the dress-over-jeans phenomenon.

WTF?

Generally I like to emphasize the positive but this 'designer' - a model most famous I think for being the future baby-mama of Matthew McConaughey has launched a line of bags. Now, as you know, I LOVE bags, but not these - this one in particular made me go WTF?

and get this, they are charging $450 for this. Ugh.

Why God? Why?

There are certain moments while shopping when I wonder if everyone, and I mean EVERYONE was asleep at the wheel. I mean really, you are telling me that the designer, the manufacturer, the buyer and the stylists all thought this was o.k? Someone must have drugged them ALL.

Case in Point:







(photo from Nordstroms)
O.k, I'm going to blame the stylists. Leggings are NOT PANTS and a skirt that requires something else to make sure you aren't exposing yourself doesn't really qualify as a skirt in my book. This is not even one of those looks that you can shrug off and say eh, a 16 yr old girl would look cute. No, she would look like a prostitute in an 80's costume.

ick.