Yoga pants

Yoga pants are high- denier hosiery reaching from ankle to waist, originally designed for yoga as exercise and first sold in 1998 by Lululemon, a company founded for that purpose. They were initially made of a mix of nylon and Lycra; more specialised fabrics have been introduced to provide moisture-wicking, compression, and odour reduction.

The market has increased both through the popularity of yoga and because many women wear yoga pants as casual everyday dress. This is part of a long-term "athleisure" trend of increasing informality in dress, threatening sales of traditional jeans.

In the United States, the wearing of yoga pants other than for exercise has aroused controversy, both for school use and when worn by women. Global sales of yoga clothing have all the same grown rapidly, reaching some $31 billion by 2018.

Origins

Yoga originated in India as a spiritual practice. In India in the early 20th century, the postures of medieval haṭha yoga were combined with movements from gymnastics, creating a new tradition of postural yoga.
By the 1990s, this had become a popular form of exercise across the Western world, especially for women.

Yoga pants made of nylon and Lycra appeared on the market in 1998, sold by Lululemon in its first store in Vancouver, Canada as suitable attire for the yoga studio.
Lululemon's founder, Chip Wilson, is said to have attended a yoga class in 1997 where the instructor was wearing "slinky dance attire" that fitted like a second skin, reportedly inspiring him to found his yoga fashion business.
In 2005 Lululemon introduced a stretch fabric (Luon) with more nylon microfibre and less polyester, followed by several more specialised fabrics: a four-way stretch moisture-wicking fabric (Luxtreme), a compression fabric (Nulux), and an odour-reducing fabric containing silver as an antibacterial (Silverescent). Yoga pants increased in popularity, to the point where by 2014 American teenagers preferred them to jeans; the jeans manufacturer Levi Strauss, threatened with "an existential crisis", was obliged to make some of its jeans stretchy. Yoga pants took some years to spread around the world; the first Lululemon store in Europe opened in 2014, in London, England's Covent Garden.

Numerous competitors entered the market, some of them such as Nike, Adidas, and Target also offering specialised fabrics.

Types

Many styles and brands of yoga pants are available at a wide range of prices, determined primarily by brand: in 2015, a high-end pair from the specialist retailer Lululemon cost $98, whereas a less well-known brand sold by the general retailer Target cost $20. By 2018, there were over 11,000 types, according to Bloomberg, with a style by Lucas High on sale for as much as $230.

Styles include the traditional boot-cut and flared yoga pants with a flat waistband. Basic yoga pants are black, tight-fitted, boot-cut, flared, and reversible; they are made of a four-way stretch fabric, with a flat elastic waistband at the top. They provide flexibility and comfort, wicking moisture away from the body and helping to keep the wearer cool and comfortable. They may be made from blends of cotton, Lycra spandex, nylon, polyester, wool, or similar light and stretchy synthetic material giving the pants a soft, smooth finish.

Usage

Yoga pants have migrated from the yoga studio to the high street; from the early 2010s, they have increasingly been used as everyday casual wear.
Some women wear them around the house, as maternity wear, and for dancing and going to clubs.
Yoga pants have even been adopted as office wear; in 2014, Betabrand's " dress pant yoga pants" became its bestselling product. ''Fortune'' suggested that these could be paired with high-heeled shoes and a smart blouse to help them fit in.
Jessica Grose, writing in ''Slate'', responded that whatever was done to yoga pants to make them look more like dress pants (business suit trousers), they were still leggings.
Suzanne Wexler, writing in the ''Vancouver Sun'', agreed, calling yoga pants with heels and blouse "a fashion faux pas