The world as we know it has turned into one big remote office, taking traditional work-life balance

and turning it on its head. But the work-from-home phenomenon isn't all bad. The daily commute has
been shortened to the few steps it takes to get from your bed to your laptop (assuming there are any
steps at all). The coffee is (hopefully) to your liking. Best of all, the dress code is amazing.

Check out everybody you follow on social media: They're all wearing sweatpants. Even those guys
with executive polish on that video conference call are actually sporting a “business on the top,
comfort on the bottom" look—a designer shirt and swacket, but sneaking a pair of sweats for their
off-camera comfort.

In general, sweatpants have gotten a bad rap. They're shapeless. They're baggy. They're derided by
the fashion cognoscenti.

“I was congratulating myself on wearing blue jeans while working from home," says Valerie Steele,
director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. “I told myself, 'At least I'm not wearing
sweatpants.' But today, I gave in and changed into a pair when I got back from the grocery store. Go
online and they're showing pictures of Hollywood stars, and they're all wearing sweatpants. It's
hilarious. Karl Lagerfeld said, 'Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you
bought some sweatpants.'"

Back in the 1990s, Jerry Seinfeld echoed Lagerfeld's lament, advising his friend George Costanza, “You
know the message you're sending out to the world with these sweatpants? You're telling the world, 'I
give up. I can't compete in normal society. I'm miserable, so I might as well be comfortable.’"

Jerry, we disagree. Today's sweatpants are kind of amazing, and they come with an excellent
pedigree.

Gray men's sweatpants

L'histoire du sweat
Like so many wonderful things—the Statue of Liberty, Champagne, Marion Cotillard—the French gave
us sweatpants. The design is credited to Emile Camuset, the founder of clothing, footwear, and sports
equipment brand Le Coq Sportif. His simple, knitted gray jersey pants were created for athletes in the
1920s. They kept muscles warm and comfortable, and offered stretch for ease of movement. By the
late 1930s, the French dubbed the sweatsuit “the Sunday uniform." In 1926, Russell Athletic came up
with the idea of replacing the itchy wool jersey that was used for most sweats with soft, comfortable
cotton. About a decade later, Champion created the Reverse Weave sweatshirt, turning the fabric's
grain 90 degrees, thus eliminating vertical shrinkage. By 1952 the brand introduced its Reverse Weave
sweatpants.

Sweatin' to the oldies

Throughout post-war America, jocks from Ivy League sports teams to back-alley boxing gyms were
wearing sweatpants for their warm-ups and workouts; but the pants didn't quite get the respect that
sweatshirts did. “Sweatshirts were a big part of Ivy League style because, like T-shirts, they'd have the
name of the college or university on them. College men might wear their Yale sweatshirt instead of a
sweater with khakis or jeans," says Steele. "But at that point, they weren't wearing full-on athletic
gear when they weren't actually in the gym." After all, the 1950s—while not exactly Victorian—still
had high standards for dressing, especially for work.