Ladies, are we finally done suffering for fashion?
“I refuse to wear shoes that either hurt my feet or look dowdy. So, I resort to the great old elegant English and French flat lace- up shoe brands — Crockett & Jones and Paraboot.” Anne Higonnet, Columbia University professor of art history
As the world takes its hesitant steps toward normalcy, and more people return to the workplace, we need to accept the fact that the era of sweatpants may be drawing to a close. And yet, do we really want to abandon the freedom and comfort we have found during this otherwise grim time? I know I don’t. And apparently, I am not alone.
Two years turns out to be just enough time to convince many of us, especially women over 40, that we need never again suffer physical discomfort for fashion.
“I don’t have any patience for uncomfortable clothing,” said Shira Lander, 59, a professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “I got rid of most of my dry- cleanable clothing, and I don’t worry about a travel steamer anymore!”
Faced with a frightening outer world, who doesn’t long to burrow under the covers, draping oneself in poofy, flowy, lounge- y garb that, while meant for waking life, looks and feels like sleepwear, and sometimes even like actual bedding?
The kinder, gentler side of women’s fashion has been visible across the spectrum, from Zoom screen up to runway. Back in 2020, Anna Sui showed floaty prairie- style dresses, and even had some models carry matching comforters. Prada offered puffy, cocoonlike jackets and belted capes resembling bathrobes. Jason Wu whipped up airy caftans.
“I love that loungewear has become a prevailing new category,” said Barbara Lippert, 65, a writer. “During the worst part of the pandemic even jeans seemed like an overreach, requiring that complex button and zipper action. And cardigans were too much work.”
Many women interviewed for this column brought the conversation around to shoes and the eternal quest for style and elegance for feet no longer able or willing to contort themselves into unnatural positions. “I refuse to wear shoes that either hurt my feet or look dowdy,” said Anne Higonnet, 63, a Columbia University professor of art history. “So, I resort to the great old elegant English and French flat lace- up shoe brands — Crockett & Jones and Paraboot.”
Jody Sperling, 51, a dancer and choreographer, favors shoes that permit movement, pointing out that with her go- to style of clogs, “you can go outrageous with color, and they’re still comfort shoes.” Silver Danskos are her current favorite.
Lippert said that she had been wearing lug- soled boots, but even they “started feeling too restrictive,” so she switched to “step- in suede booties with fauxshearling linings.”
“No more heels,” echoed Angela Cason, 61, a digital agency owner who has also succumbed to the charms of shearling. Once you wear Uggs, she said, you’re ruined for anything else.
High- end designers have been conceding this point for a while now. Witness the endurance of the fluffy or fur- lined flat sandal craze — most recently, the collaboration between Birkenstock and the former king of pain himself, Manolo Blahnik, which blended both partners’ DNA to produce wide, flat, hippyish sandals in jeweltoned velvet, embellished with rhinestone buckles. Other name- checked labels for shoes included: Madewell, Aerosoles, Arche, Aquatalia, Blondo, Fly of London and, for kitten heels ( the only heels anyone mentioned), Isabel Marant.
For more than a century, women’s fashion has cycled through various attempts at uniforms — from the Rational Dress Society of late- 19th- century London ( which decried whalebone corsets and promoted the voluminous cycling trousers known as “bloomers”) through Coco Chanel’s swingy separates, the unisex jeans and Tshirts of the 1960s, to the power suits of the 1980s, which offered armor to women newly entering the corporate battlefield.
Lippert sees a direct correlation between today’s lounge- y looks and those early suits. “It strikes me,” she noted, “that the loungewear trend is a reverse empowerment of the ‘ power suits’ for an earlier generation of working women.”
Sperling recounted buying up a series of soft cotton jumpsuits, in multiple colors and fabrics, all made in Thailand. “I like to wear clothes I might be able to dance in,” she said. She also cited “leggings and a tank top with a builtin bra” or a “men’s style linen button- down shirt” as favorite uniforms.
Alys George, 45, a cultural historian, favors a similar uniform: leggings and a long, tuniclike sweater or top, all in black. The height of pandemic lockdowns coincided with George’s recent pregnancy, which only increased her desire for bodily comfort. Post- pregnancy, she remains attached to her new look, a bit to her own surprise.
At its heart, relaxed fashion is democratic, accommodating changes of mind, body and culture. It can be gender- neutral or nonbinary; and it’s body inclusive, flattering diverse shapes, weights and sizes. It’s also potentially a way to do more with less. Many women mentioned relying on the same limited number of items kept in steady rotation. Cason returns routinely to the same five pairs of Eddie Bauer pants in various colors, she said.
In this, relaxed fashion feels very much in keeping with some of today’s most urgent political and social movements. “What you wear reflects your values,” Sperling said.
It’s hard to say how long we’ll stay nestled in our cocoons. Fashion is cyclical. But relaxed fashion was a long time in coming and responds deeply to both the current political moment and some of our innermost desires — for comfort, space and freedom from pain. As a result, I suspect this cycle will be with us for a long time, for women of many ages.
I myself am now in love with my first- ever hoodie ( Tahari, black, silky jersey). And Sperling said that her 10- year- old daughter, Evie, recently announced: “I will never suffer pain for beauty.” From the mouths of babes.