In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Kellyanne Conway responded to criticism over her eclectic sartorial choice for Donald Trump’s inauguration: a $3,600 “Trump revolutionary” chic Gucci coat paired with bright red accessories, including a $2,000 Louis Vuitton Alma handbag.
The outspoken Conway noted that she was “sorry to offend the black-stretch-pants women of America with a little color.”
The jab could have been called an “alternative apology,” but Conway says she has nothing to apologize for. She has a style all her own and she’s earned the right to don a patriotic designer coat on the day she essentially earned for her boss.
Of course, stretch pants aficionados weren’t as taken with Conway’s comments.
There’s even a protest hashtag: #leggings4freedom.
While I can’t say Donald Trump’s agenda is always (or even occasionally) correct, on this Conway is 100% right: leggings aren’t real pants, and America is wrong to think they are.
Americans have a love affair with yoga pants. And not just women. Apparently, an article of clothing known as “meggings” (aka man leggings) are also gaining in popularity, meaning that the issue transcends the entire “gender spectrum,” as it’s known on Tumblr.
Sometimes, leggings are fine: if you’re at the gym, going to the gym, you just came from the gym or are asleep in your bed, yoga pants are perfectly acceptable attire. On days off, lounging around the house or running errands, leggings are also appropriate provided they are worn with a longer shirt. Extenuating circumstances also apply. We’ve all had those days.
The rationale is that leggings are a gift to humanity—specifically a humanity that no longer wants to wear pants. But like all true gifts and talents, the gift of leggings should not be abused. It should be cherished and reserved for the appropriate time and place. Most of the time, though, you should wear real pants.
Once you get too comfortable, it’s easy to lose respect for your job, your work, your life. It conveys the idea that you’ve just given up, and that you’ve soured on making any effort to pretend you care about other people.
Like her or not, Conway got to where she is by being at the top of her game, including looking the part, and she’s not too shy to call her critics a bunch of armchair politicos, hanging out in their living rooms, making memes about her hard-earned clothing.
So while she may be struggling with alternative facts on her boss’s priorities, Conway is spot on where it counts.