There was a time when suffering for fashion was part of the deal. Remember the early aughts? Great pants were supposed to be rigid. They pinched at the waist, dug into your stomach when you sat down and required the immediate unbuttoning ritual the second you got home. But somewhere between the death of skinny jeans, the rise of sleepwear styling and our collective refusal to be uncomfortable for no reason, fashion changed.
These days, one of the chicest looks in New York isn’t a sharply tailored trouser or stiff vintage denim (although we’ll always love barrel jeans)—it’s a pair of pants that feels suspiciously close to pajamas. They’re also known as “soft pants” and, this summer, I’m seeing them all over New York, a city that has historically favored what I’ll call “hard” clothes. Think: tense denim, tailored trousers and inflexible carpenter silhouettes. In other words, it’s deeply refreshing to see that women are now opting for fluid, forgiving fabrics that deliver that same fashion-forward silhouette (wide-leg, slouchy and sometimes even low-rise)...just without the punishment.
