"It’s all really interlinked, choosing a pair of leggings which causes discomfort and which in turn draws attention to the labia and the need for surgery."

Said plastic surgeon Dr. Richard Swift, quoted in "'Designer vagina' surgery doubles in 2022 thanks to tight leggings" (NY Post).

The article repeatedly uses the word "vagina" for "vulva," with ludicrous lines like: "Called a labiaplasty, the procedure shrinks the labia minora — otherwise known as the flaps on the inside of the vagina — with a price tag of more than $4,000."

"[S]o, like, are men going to start wearing leggings, or what?" — asks GQ.

That's the way they talk at GQ now, okay?

At first... women sought to free themselves from the tyranny of the lopsided chaos of pant sizing. But then it was like, why not look like you’re working out all the time? If you can’t spend your day strolling from spin class to the ashram and over to the matcha canteen, can’t your legs look like it?

Men, on the other hand, have always had a healthier relationship with pants, which makes a full-on pivot to the Leggings Lifestyle less likely. Still, leggings are the CBD of clothing—they make everything more zen....

Now, that's funny. I like "the CBD of" formulation, but I don't accept the analogy, since I suspect CBD is a panacea, which would make "The Emperor's New Clothes" the CBD of clothing. With leggings, you're at risk of being considered underdressed by the leggings-are-not-pants crowd, but you're not naked.

I think I've blogged leggings for men before — long ago. Were they called "meggings" or am I just dreaming... dreaming of... see, that's the thing. You're going to need a long tunic or you'll be showing too much interleg bumpiness. For a woman, you can appease the leggings-are-not-pants people with a long top or a skirt of any length — you've already got plenty of these items — or you can just be out and proud. For a man, you'll need... tunics. There's no other way. The question is not "Are men going to start wearing leggings?" It's "Are men going to start wearing leggings and tunics?"

Or... no... I'm continuing to read this silly article, and I run smack into this:

Maybe you will wear them under tiny shorts, or maybe you will be bold and wear them unaccompanied with a giant top!

Maybe you will wear them under tiny shorts! I'd envisioned the "giant top" (i.e, a tunic), but I had not thought of the tiny shorts.  Why tiny, by the way? Why not big shorts? Why giant top but tiny shorts? Oh, the mysteries of fashion!

At the link, we see a male model in leggings and a rather elaborate upper-body get-up. It's about as good as you can do selling the idea of a man in leggings (outside of the ballet and various sports). But the model's legs are awfully spindly for that kind of exposure.

Anyway, I did blog leggings for men back in 2015 — here.

At the Muddy Boots Café...

... you can talk about anything you like... including leggings — already under discussion here — why Meade really wanted to take this picture of me, and whether we could be happily mediocre in southern Utah.

The mud on my boots is not from Utah. Those would be my other boots, the ones with the orange mud. These are my new boots, the ones I told you I was buying from Amazon, and, as you know, I like to remind you to do your Amazon shopping through the Althouse portal.

What's the real story of the 2 teenage girls who weren't allowed on a United Airlines flight because they were wearing "leggings"?

I see the airline is defending the decision of the gate agent that these kids didn't meet the condition that passengers dress appropriately. And I see the internet is expressing outrage. But what I don't see is a picture — or an adequate written description — of how the teenagers were dressed. The word "leggings" covers a lot of ground. Leggings can be very thick or very thin, very loose or so radically tight that they are stretched out to the point where the butt crack is fully on display.

The incident was first reported on Twitter by Shannon Watts, a passenger at the airport who was waiting to board a flight to Mexico.... Watts said the girl’s mother told her the two teenagers had just been turned away because the gate agent said their pants were not appropriate travel attire. The woman had a dress in her carry-on bag that the child was able to pull on over her pants, and the family boarded the flight.

“The girl pulled a dress on,” Ms. Watts said. “But please keep in mind that the dad had on shorts that did not hit his knee — they stopped maybe two or three inches above his knee — and there was no issue with that.”

So... maybe it's time to crack down on men in shorts getting on planes. (Sorry for the reappearance of the word "crack." That looks wrong. Crack down. Yes, my leggings are stretched to transparency but when I get to my seat, I'll crack down.)

The airline's explanation is that that the family in question were "pass travelers" — which means they were using a benefit offered to United Airlines employees and dependents that lets them fly free. These people are seen as "representing" the company and held to higher standards that specifically impose dress standards that don't apply to paying passengers.

Under the pass program, they're only flying standby anyway, so they were not missing "their" flight, only stuck waiting for another flight. In the meantime, they changed what they were wearing.

My only problem with all of this — and otherwise I'd 100% support United — is that the man got to wear shorts.

Also, here's United's Contract of Carriage, Rule 21, "Refusal of Transport," which does apply to all passengers:

UA shall have the right to refuse to transport or shall have the right to remove from the aircraft at any point... Passengers who are barefoot or not properly clothed....

Who came up with that language "at any point"? We're talking about an airplane. Scary.

When you wear leggings as pants, Tim Gunn can read your mind.

"That's the thing about overly casual dressing. It says: 'I don't give a rat's ass about anything.'"

ADDED: Here in Madison, Wisconsin, in the UW campus area, the young women are out-and-proud with the leggings-as-pants look. Nobody seems to remember the old days when you at least felt that you needed some kind of tunic-length top. The full length of legging is exposed, exactly as if leggings were pants. There's no reticence, no sense that this is out there or daring or maybe it's okay if the leggings are really thick and there's some sort of stitched-on pocket-and-placket imagery. I am seeing full-on Leggings Are Pants true believers.

Men in leggings.

Under Armour gets it wrong.

Under criticism, this shirt is yanked.

ADDED: I'll use this opportunity to repeat my most important Under Armour opinion: Basketball players should — like ballet dancers — lose the shorts and just wear the leggings. There should be no under in Under Armour.

"Over the past year, we have arrived at an odd cultural and lexicographical moment: To dress 'normal' is the height of chic, yet to call someone 'basic' is the chicest put-down..."

"Basic, according to the BuzzFeed quizzes and CollegeHumor videos that wrested the term from the hip-hop world and brought it into the realm of white-girl-on-white-girl insults, means someone who owns things like Uggs and North Face and leggings. She likes yogurt and fears carbs (there is an exception for brunch), and loves her friends, unless and until she secretly hates them. She finds peplum flattering and long (or at least shoulder-grazing) hair reliably attractive. She exercises in various non-bulk-building ways, some of which have inspired her to purchase special socks for the experience. She bought the Us Weekly with Lauren Conrad’s wedding on the cover. She Pins. She runs her gel-manicured hands up and down the spine of female-centric popular culture of the last 15 years, and is satisfied with what she feels. She doesn’t, apparently, long for more."

From "What Do You Really Mean When You Say 'Basic Bitch'?," in New York Magazine.

"My Mom thought the cowl looked like a micro-mini skirt!"

It totally fits like that too. Perfect with leggings as an item of clothing I call an asswarmer.

Penis-print leggings deemed "cute."

Emily, disagreeing with Jezebel:

I mean, not as much from a distance, but when you get close so you can really see the penises, you know? I'll put the close-up view at the bottom of this article so those of you who are all into "having jobs" can keep them.

Maybe it's a testament to my overwhelming love of penis? I think of them sort of like golden retrievers -- friendly, reliable, enthusiastic. And who wouldn't want leggings covered in golden retrievers? CUTE!

For the best view of the (subtle?!) print, go here and use the magnifying glass.

I know... cute... magnifying glass... it's not really what you want to hear when you hear from women in cock-praising department.

The Silent Majority Walk and the Naked Bike Ride.

Today at the Capitol Square. Video shot and edited by me. Small glimpses of genitalia from 6:03 to 6:30. Breast alert.

The event I came to see was the Silent Majority Walk, an event planned to show appreciation for Scott Walker and the Republican legislature that passed the Budget Repair Bill this week.



0:00 — The pro-Walker walkers congregate a block away from the square and receive instructions to walk completely silently, confident in the rightness of their position, without response to "any of the mud that going to be slung at us today."

0:28 — The group walks by a sidewalk café (Graze) and an old man on a bench who says "Boo from me. Boo from me. You get a boo from me. You get a boo from me. Hold that flag up straight."

0:57 — More walking, past various street musicians and people enjoying the lovely day. Zero heckling.

2:40 — A young man — wearing capris over leggings — registers some objections.

3:02 — An older couple on bikes call out, naming some accomplishments of the labor movement —"Let's hear it for minimum wage" — then switch to a fairly polite "shame, shame, shame." The woman smiles. I suggest they catch up with the group since they are on bikes. The man says, "No, we're not going to harass them any more." I say, "People haven't really been heckling them at all. I'm surprised how civil people are being." The man says, "For some reason, we just got turned on." I laugh and say, "You're the only ones."

4:28 — A bagpiper gives them the thumbs down.

4:38 — "That's brand new. I'm shocked as shit," says a black man, laughing. I ask him some questions about why he's shocked and try to find out if he might perhaps actually be a Walker supporter himself.

5:54 — We hear a hubbub and I realize "These are the naked bike riders!" They ride by chanting "Less gas, more ass." I continue my discussion with the shocked-as-shit guy, who declares "That's America! That's America! That's the freedom!"

7:48 — An old guy in a protest contraption with pinwheels and palm trees.

8:04 — I talk to a young man who is tending a table marked "Madison Objectivists." "Is there much interest in Ayn Rand here?" I ask.

My vision of the Super Bowl.

The Packers defeated the Eagles and the Falcons, so birds need to watch out. It will be more fun (next week) to see them go after the Bears. "Packers" refers to meat-packing, so I think Bears are more meat than Seahawks. Enough fowl. We want red meat. (So I want the Bears to win today.)

Now, after we the Packers butcher the Bears, it's on to the Super Bowl (which suggests a bird, Superb Owl, but there will be no birds in the Super Bowl). Who will face the Packers: Jets, Patriots, or Steelers. The best image isn't Packers against Jets. Jets are planes. I don't like the imagery. So Patriots or Steelers. Both are human beings. I think Steelers makes for the best imagery, because Packers and Steelers are both working guys. There's a nice parallelism to that, which pleases me.

I also care about what I like to call their "costumes." Certainly, yesterday, the Steelers' costumes were much better than the Ravens costumes. Man, the Ravens looked like they were wearing ladies' leggings. I think you want some color break at the knee, so I was for the Steelers.

I'm all about: How do they look? It's a spectator sport!

(Originally written as a comment, here.)

UPDATE: I'm watching the Seahawks and Bears game right now, and I'm seeing there's a player named Herring on the Seahawks team. That's like having a player named Honey on the Bears team. This reinforces my support for the Bears (this week).

UPDATE 2: The Jets and the Patriots have quite similar costumes. To understand the game, I need to keep trying to remember which team is dark on top and white on bottom and which is the other way around. It's like that "Last Battlefield" episode of "Star Trek" where one guy is white on the left side his face and black on the right side and the other guy is the reverse. To people who aren't intimately connected to the struggle, like Captain Kirk, it just doesn't look different enough to matter. And by the way, that episode of "Star Trek" was bogus as hell unless it's established that these people don't have mirrors. Anyway, I concede that top and bottom are easier to distinguish than right and left, and I also realize the dark color is different for the Jets and the Patriots, but I need more contrast.

"Astronaut Koichi Wakata didn't change underwear for a month."

"Wakata’s special clothing range was designed ... by the Japanese space agency, JAXA, and is known as J-Wear. Made of cotton and polyester with a silver coating that gives it its special properties, it also includes socks, T-shirts, trousers and leggings."

I don't know what your days-old underpants are coated with, but Wakata's are coated with silver!

"I'm sure Macca's new lady-friend Nancy Shevell is a very nice woman..."

"... but she just willingly, knowingly went out in public wearing leggings that might be made out of Miss Piggy."

A little photowalk to test out what my new 24 mm lens can do.

Here's the new lens. (It was the right answer to the question "Notice anything?" — a post that got a lot of comments. It seems you like these puzzle photo posts.)

So I was testing out the lens today. First, as I was sitting in my favorite café, I caught a woman glancing over the top of the NYT to check out the fashion on the street.



Yes, we're wearing leggings in Madison. But the main thing I wanted to test out with the lens was architecture. Like this:



Yes, we're flying the French flag here in Madison. The reason I was concerned about the lens and architecture is that I want to be prepared to take photographs on the Wright & Like tour this Saturday. Check out the houses you can tour. If you come to the right Frank Lloyd Wright house at the right time, I'll be the docent showing off the living/dining area. I won't be combining photography with docenting, but I will on my own go to all the houses and photograph the exteriors (as I did on last year's tour: here). To join the tour:

Tour Headquarters | The Gobbler Restaurant, I-94 and Highway 26 Centrally located in Johnson Creek, WI

The Gobbler Restaurant, a not-to-be-missed futurist style building, will be our one day tour headquarters. The site is located south of Interstate Highway 94 (Exit 267) off Hwy 26 and will open at 8 a.m. for ticket and merchandise sales. Same day tickets are $55 (non members) and $50 (members).

James Lileks wrote about The Gobbler here: "This site is an appreciation of a lost slice of American architecture and design - a period when just about everything had run off the rails, and good taste, restraint and classic traditions were utterly abandoned." Ha ha. Please go over there and click through all the pages. It's hilarious. Anyway, there will be bad taste and good on the Wright & Like tour.

Here are some daisies with an adorable tiny bee:



And here's a fly who has no idea he's not as cute as the bee:



And here's a tree that's not cute either. In fact, it seems vaguely obscene:



Just a walk around 2 blocks with a new 24 mm lens in Madison, Wisconsin.

IN THE COMMENTS: I'm told it's not a bee. It's a hoverfly. I apologize to the flies. Apparently, some of them are very cute. And maybe some insults need to be hurled at bees. Zachary Paul Sire says:

Bees are not cute. They are ruthless killing machines. Trust me on this one.

Revenant say:

bees = the devil

Chip Ahoy say:

We're taught those wonderful bees pollinate flowers and that's a good thing. But then once I noticed one particular bee positively rape a flower bud. It didn't wait for the flower to bloom. It forced open the bud and climbed in, buzzed around inside, bzzzzzz bzzzzzz bzzzzz, came out covered in sticky pollen and looking kind of drunk. Bees are naughty.

"Shuffling phalanxes of men and women with bright orange, yellow and red Bozo feet."

Robin Givhan would like everyone to stop wearing Crocs outside of the sports milieu. There are two big fashion issues here.

1. Comfort:

[T]his is a culture quick to justify wearing virtually anything in the name of comfort -- pajama bottoms as pants, sneakers as business footwear, leggings in lieu of trousers, Uggs with miniskirts -- Crocs now rival flip-flops as the most annoyingly omnipresent style of summer footwear.

I think the Uggs and flip-flops thing went beyond comfort. Women were wearing Uggs with bare legs in the summer. Those things are for keeping your feet really warm in the winter. It was absurd. And flip-flops are only comfortable if you aren't walking very far. I see people practically hobbling along in flip-flops, suffering pain in a place -- between the toes -- where there's absolutely no reason ever to feel pain.

2. Adults dressing like children:

[A]ll those adults walking around in Crocs... look like overgrown children. They are like the workday Peter Pans who carry backpacks in the city. Not grown-up leather backpacks, but the kind made of nylon with water bottles stuck inside a web of bungee cords and a canister of Bear Be Gone hanging off the side.

Now would be a good time to remind adults not to wear shorts (outside of the sports milieu). You look like an oversized child.

Ah, what's the use?

C'mon, guys, wear leggings!

The designers want you to. You might look something like this:



Well, I mean, do you look something like that? I imagine my readers as very good looking. But if you're this good looking, you don't need to wear leggings, you just need to eschew shorts, because, as you know, there is an Althousian veto on shorts (unless it's hotter than 80° or you're engaged in a sport where shorts are required). But should you wear leggings because they are comfortable?

... I know a lot of guys who wear leggings around the home to watch DVDs, lounge around before Premiership games or surf the Internet. But actually on the street, never mind into a nightclub or bar? Yet, the truth is that leggings are way more comfortable than pants and that if we fellows were not all so uptight and worried about our status we would have all begun wearing them a long time ago. So hats off to Castiglioni, and on with the leggings.

Hmmmm.... do you know a lot of guys who wear leggings around the house? I think only guys who say "around the home" know a lot of guys who wear leggings around the house. Or guys who can write things like this:

These leggy knits were paired with mercerized cotton jerkins, snug little Rude Boy with manners jackets and Two Tone era skinny ties – a big Milan trend. Marni shoes were also real winners, knobby workerist boots in bottle green or metallic gray with subtle strips of contrasting color like burgundy.

And I'm going to assume they look astonishing in leggings, so I say, yeah, get out of the house... the home... in those leggings. You'll look like Romeo... or Baryshnikov:

And if you don't, you know you're not wearing leggings around the... house now. You're wearing sweat pants. And if you go outside: Put on some pants.

ADDED: In the comments Palladian reminds us of the joyous expression leggings unleash. [UPDATE: Photo link went dead, and whatever it was we were "reminded" of back in 2007 is no longer there to jog our memories.]

But don't get carried away:



MORE: It worked for Errol "in like" Flynn:

"Is it petty and mean for a dear friend to pull such a woman aside and explain that today, at this moment, she is a blight on the scenery?"

Robin Givhan thinks you're fat. Don't be wearing those leggings, that shrug, or those low-rise pants. And you can lose all that disgusting weight and you still shouldn't wear flip-flops. I don't care how young you are or how cute your feet are. No one gets to wear flip-flops. Thwackety-thwack, thwackety-thwack, thwackety-thwack, thwackety-thwack, thwackety-thwack, thwackety-thwack. Robin does not want you walking anywhere near her in those filthy things.

And what's this thing of men carrying around towels? "The subtext of the sweat rag seems to be that vigorous perspiring is a sign of manliness. Thus a fellow who carries thick, absorbent terry cloth to mop up his sweat must be drowning in testosterone." They are so, so, so very wrong, and Robin's had enough. Get your act together, guys. It's summer. Deal with it. Discreetly.

"Project Runway."

Spoiler alert. Of course!

Oh, that was painful. I hated seeing Nick leave. He was one of my favorites all along.

But what an interesting challenge! They had to design for each other, but they are in competition with each other. How could the hostilities not pop out all over -- bursting and puckering the seams? And the men! They need to design for women, but they have all that horrid hostility toward the women. Meanwhile, the women showed generosity and good feeling toward the men through their styles. Chloe and Kara came out on top. What Santino did to Kara! Unforgivable! I wouldn't want one person to see me sausaged into a jumpsuit like that. Even the color was putrid. Pudenda -- isn't that the name of that color? Oh, the shame swirled around the men tonight!

Nick, who got the kiss off, was the one person who designed for a member of his own sex. And then what did he do? He picked a feminine fabric, a feminine color, a feminine design. A "Golden Girls" jacket, that belonged with leggings, the judges said. Oh, the abject humiliation of it all!

But I was glad Santino didn't get cut. He is more entertaining than Nick. Of all the designers, he's the one whose Fashion Week line I'd most like to see. He's cramped and constrained by the assignments. So let the man loose. Let him fall on his face... or be brilliant.