The New York Times - USA (2020-11-15)

2 ST THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2020

When Vice President-elect Kamala Harris
called to congratulate President-elect Jo-
seph R. Biden Jr. on winning the election
last Saturday, she was wearing what wom-
en everywhere in the United States seem to
be wearing during the pandemic: leggings.
Leggings have been a staple of workouts,
errands and lounging at home for well over
a decade now, but wearing them often came
with a slew of excuses: I just got back from
the gym. I’m bloated. It’s the weekend.
But in the Covid era, the line between
workout clothes and work clothes has evap-
orated for many people — and with it, any
feelings of shame about wearing leggings
24/7.
Indeed, while sales of denim jeans have
fallen since March, leggings have surged 61
percent in Britain and 21 percent in the
United States during the same period com-
pared with last year, according to WGSN, a
trend forecasting agency in London.
Maggie Schneider, 21, the frontwoman of
an Atlanta rock band called Glimmers,
never wore leggings out of the house before
the pandemic. Her look was very ’70s bohe-
mian, lots of jeans and cute, flowy sun-
dresses.
But her last music gig was on March 10;
two weeks later, Atlanta issued a citywide
stay-at-home order. That was also when her
leggings broke free.
“It started as a comfort thing,” said Ms.
Schneider, who studies writing at the Sa-
vannah College of Art and Design. “As time
progressed, the comfort thing turned into
me liking to wear them. And I thought, ‘I’m
going to embrace this.’ ”
Her leggings — she prefers the black
ones from Target — are now her daily pan-
demic look, often paired with a band T-shirt.
She wears them during her livestream
shows, while shopping for vintage clothes
and for her acoustic guitar mash-ups on Tik-
Tok.
The telltale sign of the pandemic legging:
Women who never wore them out of the

house before have caved to comfort.

Even in my suburban New Jersey town

where leggings have been a staple since the

dinosaur age, they’ve become omnipresent.

Women used to change after their morning

yoga class. But now they’re just changing

into a new pair of leggings. Every morning I

see neighbors like Angie Konetzni, a 40-

something distributor for Shaklee nutri-

tional supplements, charge up the hill in a

different pair of leggings with her French

bulldog, Bo.

“I was a jeans person,” she said, “but dur-

ing the quarantine, something shifted. I

think it was my threshold for comfort.”

Leggings have been gaining in popularity

in the last decade, especially among millen-

nials and the wellness set. They have also

created controversy, often for being per-

ceived as too revealing.

Two teenage girls were kicked off a

United Airlines flight for wearing leggings

in 2017. Schools in Evanston, Ill., and Ke-

nosha, Wis., have prohibited girls from

wearing them. Students held pro-legging

protests at the University of Notre Dame af-

ter a self-described “Catholic mother of four

sons” wrote a letter in the student newspa-

per saying that “leggings are so naked, so

form fitting, so exposing.”

But since the pandemic, the debate

seems to have become moot, as leggings go

from merely popular to ubiquitous.

What’s different now? “The unspoken

rules about sartorial standards don’t apply

when nobody is in a social situation,” said

Deirdre Clemente, a fashion historian at the

University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “No one’s

going into the office now. Many girls aren’t

going into school where teachers are telling

you to go home and change out of your leg-

gings.”

“The rules that keep people’s behavior’s

in place, there’s no enforcement for them,”

Ms. Clemente added. “Someone can’t come

through Zoom and say, ‘Take off your leg-

gings.’ ”

Which is exactly why Sarah Seltzer, 37, an

editor for Lilith Magazine who lives in

Harlem, wears her leggings all day, from the

time she feeds her two children breakfast,

to her daily Zoom editorial meetings, to her

walks in the park.

“They’re very trendy apparently,” said

Ms. Seltzer, who often wears a pair that’s

bright blue and tie-dyed by Pact Apparel.

“I’ve seen a lot of young women in my

neighborhood wearing them.”

Laura Yiannakou, a women’s wear senior

strategist for WGSN, thinks the rise is about

more than just comfort. Leggings, she said,

appeal to women who want to celebrate

their natural figure. “It’s not shapewear in

the sense of wanting to make you look three

sizes smaller,” she said. “It’s a parallel trend

of inclusivity and body positivity.”

She also pointed out that legging styles

have evolved beyond the sports depart-

ment and now come in an array of fashion-

able hybrid options, including in faux

leather and with long slits. Fenty, for exam-

ple, sells a pastel-hued floral-print legging

for $300.

“It’s not just about active wear anymore,”

Ms. Yiannakou said. “Leggings are coming

into their own as a fashion trouser.”

You can call this frivolous if you want, this

talk about leggings. But fashion is a moving,

breathing entity and changes whenever

there’s a great upheaval in society, like a

war or a pandemic.

“I don’t think we can separate the pan-

demic from fashion,” said Rhonda Garelick,

the dean of the School of Art and Design

History and Theory at Parsons. “We are

frightened, we are hiding and our bodies

feel deeply vulnerable. But privately, in-

doors, we’ve never been freer.”

Leggings Break Free for a Victory Lap

‘I was a jeans person, but

during the pandemic,

something shifted.’

GETTY IMAGES

By HAYLEY KRISCHER

Age 20

HometownBorn in Shreveport,

La., she grew up in Harlem

(where her mother lived) and

Trenton, N.J. (where her father

lived).

Now LivesA two-bedroom apart-

ment in Los Angeles with her best

friend.

Claim to FameMs. Merk is a

fashion model and singer-song-

writer whose guitar-soaked melo-

dies and candid lyrics about

drugs, mental illness and trauma

describe the darker side of young

adulthood. Her modeling career

took off at 14, when she and her

cinnamon-colored shag landed

modeling campaigns with Pat

McGrath Labs, Gucci and Fenty.

Rihanna “was obsessed with my

bangs,” Ms. Merk said, referring

to a shoot with Fenty. “Every time

I would brush my hair out of my

face she would be like: ‘Oh my

God, no! The bang has to be

perfect.’ ”

Big BreakWhen she was a high

school freshman in Manhattan,

Ms. Merk was recruited by a

classmate and future influencer,

Luka Sabbat, for a modeling gig

that he couldn’t reveal. “I didn’t

even know what it was until I got

an email from Kanye’s people

asking, ‘Can you fly out to-

night?’ ” she said. She ended up in

Arizona to model in Kanye West’s

Yeezy Season 2 zine. “I didn’t see

myself as model material at the

time,” she said.

Between school and photo

shoots, Ms. Merk began recording

acoustic R&B covers using her

mother’s iPhone, releasing them

on SoundCloud and YouTube. She

released a couple of EPs before

landing a deal in 2019 with Field

Trip, a fledgling record label.

Latest ProjectIn August, Ms.

Merk released the single “Fresh

Out,” written a month before she

checked into rehab for drug ad-

diction in March. When she

checked out three weeks later,

New York was under lockdown.

Lyrics like “No plans for the

weekend” and “It’s only six feet

between you and me” were writ-

ten about sobriety but took on

new meaning in the pandemic.

“It’s really just about finding

yourself after a bad time.”

Next ThingA few weeks ago, Ms.

Merk released a six-song EP,

“Strangers,” an anthemic project

in the growing-pains style of SZA

and Soccer Mommy. Working

with Dan Farber, who co-

produced Lizzo’s “Tempo,” each

song is based on a different char-

acter. “For me, I was struggling

with my mental illness and sub-

stance abuse and finding who I

am without outside influences —

or literally being under the influ-

ence,” she said.

Youth Activism Ms. Merk is using

her voice and platform to amplify

the Black Lives Matter movement

and other social justice causes. “I

protested in Beverly Hills, and

that to me was the most produc-

tive protest,” she said. “So many

people were driving by and honk-

ing and yelling things like: ‘Get

out of Beverly Hills! We don’t

want you here!’ And I was like,

this is exactly where this needs to

happen every day.”

MARIELLA RUDI

A Model and Singer

Still Finding Herself

Mallory Merk’s songs about isolation have taken on new meaning.

RIKKI D WRIGHT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

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