The thinking shopper

Luxe loungewear, hello… again!

These lockdown wardrobe staples are the ultimate in ‘comfury’, says Emily Cronin

For a spell last spring, I received multiple emails every day promoting cashmere tracksuits – the kind that feel like wearing a luxurious security blanket in lieu of actual clothing – as the solution to lockdown dressing. Then came leggings, then sweatsuits, then blanket capes and fuzzy cardigans and every other conceivable configuration of ‘comfury’ (comfortable luxury).

I resisted. Surely, I thought, it’s not worth spending money on clothes I don’t consider suitable to wear outside in regular circumstances? Surely I’ll be back into silk dresses and blazers and denim and ankle boots with sculptural heels (boots, I miss you!) in no time.

I should have just bought the damn tracksuits.

For right when you thought it was safe to pack away your offduty wardrobe, it got a renewed lease of life from lockdown 3.0. In the first week after lockdown was announced, online searches for leggings surged by 55 percent. Which is impressive when you consider just how many pairs people must have bought in the not-so-distant days of 2020 (at

Cotton sweatshirt, £225, and pants, £230, Veronica Beard (veronicabeard.com)

John Lewis, loungewear and leggings sales rocketed by 1,303 per cent last year compared to 2019).

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably moved from smugness that you resisted investing in what you may have viewed as “slob-wear” during lockdowns one and two, to kicking yourself that you held off at all.

Well, I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news isn’t news at all, more like resignation: we’re all going to be spending more time at home over the coming months than we hoped we might have had to in, say, August. The good news is that this means there’s no reason to wait another minute to reset your loungewear.

Loungewear can be active, passive or somewhere in the middle (aspiring to action, perhaps). The snick of a fresh pair of leggings can be most motivating if you’re planning to finally try that live-streamed barre class. Check out Lululemon’s upbeat new collaboration with British artist Ed Curtis, & Other Stories’ first sustainable yoga collection, or, for a more minimal take, Arket’s seamless separates.

If you’re looking for something a little lower-impact, say hello to the fashion-sloth tracksuit. Sure, you could exercise in Pangaia’s highlighter-bright sweatshirts and sweatpants, or Veronica Beard, Bellemere New York or Labeca London’s elevated loungewear – but if the most activity you can deal with is standing up to find the remote, these outfits can work for that, too.

In fact, I can imagine that I’d be happier to spend a few more weeks indoors, if I could while them away in JW Anderson’s cream and tan tracksuit, part of Net-a-porter’s luxe Sporter collection. What we need now is soothing by any (legal, non self-destructive) means necessary. If luxe new soft-wear does the trick for you, then go on. Relax, already.