Any collegiette will testify that leggings are a staple piece in the modern female’s wardrobe. We’ve mastered dressing them up and crafting the perfect athleisure look. Everyone has their favorite brand and style of a classic black legging that they will fiercely defend. I try not to wear leggings every day, but definitely prefer them over jeans any day of the week. Feeling particularly confident in my ability to switch up my usual outfit rotation this week, I decided to banish leggings from my wardrobe and hardly anticipated how difficult it actually would be. With the exception of while working out, I didn’t wear leggings all week and (barely) lived to tell the tale. Here’s how it all went down.
Monday morning, I rolled out of bed particularly excited to start this experiment and was eager to put together an outfit without the usual safety net of leggings and a sweater that I routinely fall back on when I’m lacking creativity. To channel all of the ~fall vibes~, I kicked off the experiment with a pair of rust-hued jeans, a simple black sweater, and my favorite fuzzy coat. I absolutely loved my Monday outfit, so with this strong start, I launched into the rest of the week sure that I would be successful.
Come Tuesday, I anticipated a busy day, but severely underestimated how much I would regret wearing my least comfortable pair of jeans to my 9 A.M. and not being able to change into leggings when I had a few minutes of spare time to swing by my room. I was aggravated with myself for choosing the uncomfortable pants, but they definitely looked cuter than the black Lululemons that I so badly wanted to change into.
By midweek, I learned that my best bet was to plan outfits the night before so that I didn’t become frustrated with the fact that I couldn’t just pull on leggings if I was having trouble choosing an outfit. This pre-planning definitely made getting dressed easier, but I certainly felt stifled by the lack of general comfortability of my week of outfits. I won’t lie, I was tempted to give in and pull on leggings to go to the library both Wednesday and Thursday nights, but for the sake of this experiment, I stayed in my jeans for both study sessions. Was I comfortable? Absolutely not. But, I did find that staying in nicer clothes contributed to an increase in my overall productivity. I came to the realization that doing homework in, essentially, my pajamas, decreased my desire to actually get work done, but being in the same clothes that I would wear to class prolonged my motivation.
Overall, I learned just how much I rely on leggings in planning my daily outfits after choosing not to wear them for an entire week, but some positives definitely emerged from my legging-free week. I was forced to step outside of my comfort zone (literally) and made the most of this opportunity to put more effort into my daily outfits, which helped me gain an entirely new appreciation for my leggings. You’ll definitely catch me in Lulus every day next week, though.