Ahhh, leggings and oversized t-shirts: the most comfortable staples in any college girl’s wardrobe. Leggings, especially the athletic ones, allow a girl to move about freely while still being somewhat fashionable. The oversize t-shirt serves two purposes. The first is comfort, and the second is covering up all your personal business in those leggings that don’t quite handle it.
Oh man are these outfits some of the best I own. I can go to class, the grocery store, the library, the gym, right into bed…the list goes on. But what happens when you exclusively wear leggings and t-shirts for a week? How about for a month? How about two months?
Please observe this Victoria's Secret model looking especially happy to be wearing leggings and a t-shirt. This is not how I felt after wearing these outfits for a (slightly) prolonged period.
I’m here to tell you exactly what happens. In the interest of full disclosure, I was stuck in leggings and t-shirts for almost two months following a minor surgery last winter. I share this with you because honestly, I might be a little bit biased against a wardrobe made up of only leggings and t-shirts after being trapped in them for a short time.
So at first, I was pretty darn pleased with my easy breezy wardrobe choices. Not only were the leggings more comfortable than my usual uniform of jeans and cute tops, the lazy outfits gave me the added bonus of lazy hair and make-up. When your outfit takes less than five minutes to figure out, taking the same amount of time on a beauty routine just makes sense.
Life was so good. It took me hardly any time at all to get ready in the morning, I could be comfortable in my outfit all day long, and I didn’t have to change clothes before bed. But then, it happened: I ran out of clean leggings and t-shirts. So do a load of laundry, no big deal right? Wrong. It was during this first load of laundry that I realized something very important about my limited wardrobe. It forced me to do laundry far more often than I would have done if I had utilized my entire closet full of clothes.
The next thing that happened was boredom. Not with the clothes though, I got bored of my shoe choices first. Let’s be serious ladies, we only own so many pairs of shoes that go well with the athleisure look. Tennis shoes, maybe a pair of Converse or similar sneakers, maybe a pair of moccasins, Chacos or Birkenstocks, and maybe a few other shoes. Since my leggings and t-shirt diet took place in the dead of winter, I was limited to tennis shoes and moccasins.
Eventually I even got tired of my t-shirt and hoodie collection. I love a good t-shirt and a good warm pull over just like the next person, but only when I’m not looking at the same choices day after day. Sometimes a girl just needs to take a break from her favorite t-shirts so she can continue to appreciate them.
The final thing that happened to me during my experience with the ultra-casual wardrobe is this: I appreciated real clothes more than I ever had before. Not to say that leggings aren’t real clothes, because I will argue all day long that they are; but they feel a little less special when it’s all you wear.
In conclusion, leggings and oversized t-shirts do not a wardrobe make. Unless you’re super athletic and are constantly on the move, the majority of your clothes are probably not athleisure. During my nearly two months of ultra-casual clothing I did way more laundry than I wanted to, missed out on some valuable self-care time from the lack of beauty routine and I longed for the variety that my non-athleisure wear affords me.
Ladies, I am not telling you to abandon your wonderfully comfortable leggings and t-shirts. I am simply proposing that they’re not all we make them out to be. While I will always love my comfy clothes, I’ll never look at them the same after our little adventure together last winter.
