Back to the Eighties: My Perfect Sweats.

I’ve written often on the blog about the never-ending trials of finding the perfect jeans. I’ve even been known to compare the endless labour of shopping for jeans to the punishment meted out by the gods to poor Sisyphus. You know, the mythological king who so angered the gods he was sentenced to push a rock uphill, only to have it roll back down. Every time. For eternity. Just like jean shopping. Sigh.

Don’t laugh.

I seem to have solved my jeans problem, for now. By buying two pairs last summer. But I’m sure that solution will be temporary when Paige stops making the ones I like. Which, let’s face it, is inevitable. But I’m sanguine about that. Mostly.

What’s really been nagging at me for a while now is the problem of finding the perfect sweatpants and sweatshirt. I’ve worn sweatpants and sweatshirts as leisure-wear for years and years. Long before the current “athleisure” trend. Since way back in the eighties when my friend managed a lovely little store here in Ottawa called “Cotton Ginny.” Cotton Ginny made cotton sweatpants, sweatshirts, tee-shirts, and other causal wear. They made the old fashioned style of sweatshirt and sweatpants. At the time, I had a closet-full of matching sweat tops and bottoms, red, pink, black, grey, you name it.

Perfect for wearing over one’s bodysuit and leggings to dancercise class. Ah, remember dancercise?  My roommate, Debbie, and I signed up for classes. We bought the outfits, of course. We were determined to get fit. But then, we’d be so starving after every class, that we’d throw on our sweat pants and drive directly to MacDonald’s. Every time. Ha. What an exercise in futility that was. Pun intended.

A couple of years later, when I finally became serious about exercising, and started running, my Cotton Ginny outfits came in handy. I also wore them for lounging around the house, doing my lesson plans, marking, reading a book, cooking dinner. Whatever. Then Cotton Ginny disappeared, at least here in Ottawa. And I started shopping at Au Coton for my sweatshirts and sweatpants. Then they disappeared as well. And I couldn’t for the life of me find a store that sold sweatpants or sweatshirts which fit me. Or suited me. The pants were always too short, too baggy, and too sad looking on me. The sweatshirts too huge, with ginormous hoods, too many logos, or way too short in the sleeves and the body. So I made do with the sweatshirts and pants I already had in my closet. For years.

Then with the rise in popularity of yoga, came the Canadian store Lulu Lemon. Which has beautiful things for exercising and for lounging, if a bit too expensive for my taste. Still, I caved and started wearing yoga pants or leggings, instead of sweatpants. Then Gap and other chain stores got in on the yoga thing, and I bought more yoga pants, much cheaper than at Lulu Lemon. But really, in my heart of hearts, I’ve never been a yoga pants person. Or a yoga person, for that matter. I missed my old sweat pants. If only I could find a pair that fit… and suited me.

And of course you know where this is going, or I wouldn’t be writing this post. I clicked on an e-mail ad from Aritzia a couple of months ago, and there was an array of sweatpants, and sweatshirts that suited me down to the ground. I ordered on-line and, since Aritzia uses Canada Post to deliver, I had no issues with courier delivery, which, as I’ve written about before on the blog, can be problematic when you live in the country. And no issues with returns since you can take merchandise back to the nearest store, which is preferable to having to ship something back to the vendor.

My new Adidas sweatpants with a Vince tee and my Stan Smith sneakers

Layered up in Covent Garden, London

Reading and relaxing while you know who is in the kitchen.

Here are the links to the items I bought on the Aritzia website: Lilac Sanoh sweatshirt, grey Ginsburg hoodie. They don’t have the Adidas track pants on the website anymore, although they have lots of other track pants here.

What about you folks? Any items from your wardrobe’s past that you’ve revisited lately?