Everyone wants to look good. Wearing leggings as pants, though, strikes us and Montgomery County Schools as one of the most unfashionable ways girls can dress.
A student at Rockville (Md.) High School, who wore leggings to school one day, was told she either had to put on an oversize sweater or have her mother take her home, WBAL-TV (NBC affiliate) reports.
Leggings, which are tights, hosiery, and a form of undergarment, are often worn instead of pants and partially covered with a shirt or other top that can extend down to the thighs. They’re specifically disallowed in the school’s dress code. If the top extends beyond the length of the fingertips, tights might be appropriate, but these are technicalities. For example, the outfit at right would not be allowed, because the shirt’s not long enough.
The style has become very fashionable among girls recently, and several websites are devoted to leggings. For example, we found one website that had a slideshow advising girls how to get back into their leggings after possibly eating too much over the winter holidays.
Elle Canada just declared leggings are here to stay: “Love ’em or hate ’em, leggings are here to stay (at least for another season) and, like sunglasses, sandals and sun dresses, they’ve managed to find their way into every girl’s summer wardrobe. … When done right, they can look hip, fashionable and effortless. Done wrong, they are the epitome of tacky, shabby and, at times, vulgar.”
It’s the “vulgar” part that offends many people. If you’re under 12, perhaps wearing leggings as pants can be appropriate, but once girls hit a certain age, wearing leggings as pants becomes more a sign of sloppiness or, as Elle put it, “classic lazy dressing with a dash of indecency thrown in for good measure.”
YouTube’s popular comedian Jenna Marbles tweeted last winter in support of leggings: “We don’t give leggings enough credit. They’re like sweatpants cousin… but more acceptable for fancyshmancy things,” she wrote.
But not all opinion is positive. A 13-year-old girl was quoted on the fashion pages of the Carthage Current as being opposed to leggings with a shirt too short: “If the leggings are thick enough, I feel like it may be OK, but for the most part I don’t particularly like seeing girls just wearing leggings, because most are see-through and unless their shirts are long enough—which usually they aren’t—I find it way too showy.”
Even Elle finds them inappropriate if done wrong, which includes the idea of wearing leggings as pants. That’s doing it wrong. Girls, you need to wear them right and really look good!
