Editor’s Note: A response from Jacques Swartz ’09 may be found on his blog.
Attention all females: tights DO NOT equal pants.
Yes, I am talking about the new fashion trend to hit our campus. This fad consists of wearing tights, leggings or whatever name you want to give the thin stretchy material that reveals the contours of your ass.
Now of course tights can look cute when worn appropriately. Paired with skirts, dresses, or even shirts long enough to cover your lovely derrière are fine. But tights or leggings thrown on with a t-shirt and boots out to class is not okay. They are not a replacement for jeans or even sweatpants.
No one wants to see your ass ladies, so please cover it up.
The only acceptable use of tights as pants is for athletics. Runners’ spandex, for example, is perfectly suitable if you’re heading down to the gym or going out for a run. Horseback riders’ breeches are great when you are riding a horse. Dancers can wear them to dance class and sports teams can wear them at practice.
But to that 9 AM psychology lecture, it is just not right. Even though you might wear only a sports bra at the gym, you surely would not wear it to class. Tights worn as pants are just as revealing.
I recognize that some of you may wear the tights with the intention of showing off your assets. If this is your goal, try to do so in a more tasteful manner. There are plenty of other ways to show off your figure. Layering with a tight skirt can do the trick. Even a form-fitting shirt is fine, as long as we do not see that outline of your butt crack. So just pick a shirt with a few more inches and keep the mystery.
If you must wear your tights in all your glory, at least do something that warrants them necessary. Go for a run or head down to the athletic center. When worn appropriately they can be very useful. As a runner, I prefer my spandex over sweats during the cold winter months. But I am not about to wear that outfit to the mall.
Throwing on a pair of tights may be hassle free, but the worst excuse of all is laziness.
Next time instead of pulling on the black leggings, take the extra effort to use a zipper and wear the black jeans. Cover up that rump and leave something to the imagination, girls.
This trend did not start at Conn and will continue to spread this winter. Let us do our part to stop the fad. Join the movement and check out their manifesto.
Dear Ms. Weiss,
Thank you for your opinion piece. You can avoid tights. You are neither my mother nor my high-school teacher. If you think everyone wears them to purposely reveal their derriere, you might be wrong. There is such a thing as comfort, besides there being other reasons which you could not think of. So thank you once again, but no thank you.
“…which you could not think of.”
Enlighten us then?
Tights are not leggings!
Tights are not socks!
Enough with the articles making fun of clothing trends that are not your own. I have a very intense, specific distaste for those horseback rider boots everyone’s clunking around in. So? I don’t wear them. Simple as that.
OH MY GOD
Hahahah
“No one wants to see your ass ladies, so please cover it up.”
Really? Have you surveyed any guys at Conn, I think they would surely disagree.
Also, just to note, tights NEVER equal leggings.
Repondu: http://www.thecollegevoice.org/jacquesattaques/?p=42
Dear Jacques,
You are one to talk, given your own poor choices in denimwear. Secondly, I must say, having read this article, I am now unclear if you are Jacques or Jacqueline. Maybe the girls of conncoll never wanted you to wear purple scarves, and tshirts featuring forced irreverance, but we didn’t go around whining about it like little bitches, now did we?
“I am talking about the new fashion trend to hit our campus.”
Are you sure that’s what you’re talking about? It sounds to me like you’re talking about an old fashion trend that has been around – and inspiring the same uninspired gripes – since at least 2005. Why don’t you throw in a rant about Uggs (“but they’re ugly!!!”) and hipsters, while you’re at it.
If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s an out-of-date rant. If you must rant about something as stupid as this, please at least have it be current.
Are we just running out of things to criticize at this point? This is SO arbitrary.
Also this:
“at least do something that warrants them necessary”
Since when does there have to be some deeper practical purpose behind everything we wear? By this logic, no one should be wearing jewelry, either, unless they’re planning on also using their neck chain to rig up a pully system once they get out of class. (Unless you’re just using said necklace to draw attention to your chest! How TASTELESS, to be proud of your own body. The NERVE.)
[…] is a long and much-overdue response to an article in the last issue entitled “Tights Are Not Pants!” by Sarah Weiss. Inspiring much criticism (a -6 ranking on The College Voice website), I thought […]
Hahaha, SW, if you think you are an authority on showing off assets in a “tasteful manner” or “leaving something to the imagination”, maybe you should reconsider most of the shirts you wear and whether they are tasteful or not. Thanks.