Sweats

After a long day of work without much sleep from the night prior, I quickly changed into my sweat pants before heading back to Davis from the Bay Area tonight. I wasn't planning to leave the car until I got to my Davis apartment. However, I ended up having to go out of the car and walk into starbucks. I have never worn sweat pants or pajamas outside of the house before. I always felt like it was very embarassing and disrespectful to walk outside of the house without putting on a pair of jeans or anything equivalent.
However, when I started my freshman year here at Davis, I started to see more and more people walking outside of their dorms with their pajamas and sweat pants. After reading a section of Kawamura's piece on consuming fashion as a symbolic strategy, I was wondering if this "sweats and pajamas" culture was part of a this symbolic strategy. Kawamura points out that people wear clothes to communicate to others and to create an image of themselves. So do people buy these sweat pants with the idea of wearing them out and sending out a message?
One of the more popular brands that people wear around campus and the dorms is Victoria Secret. Here is an example of one of their sweatpants from their Pink Collection.
What message are people trying to send to the world. Lately I've been tempted to fill my wardrobe with sweat pants and justc comfortable clothes. But I haven't broken my compact challenge just yet. But I think that the first thing I will buy after I finish my compact challenge is to buy a new pair of sweats. All I really care about fashion is really about how comfortable it feels. In an article by Pippie Flanningan, she describes how people try to put more elegant designs into loungewear. This may be a beginning something comfortable yet classy. I think that this will become a great market for people who look to comfort as their first priority when buying clothes.

Sources:
1) Fashion-ology by Yuniya Kawamura
2) Picture from Victoriassecret.com
3) Article "Spend your downtime in Loungewear with an Asian Flair" by Pippie Flanningan
www.stylehive.com/blog

Carmen Yee Blog Entry #3