I'm reading an article on the Winnipeg Free Press about a high school's decision to ban their students from wearing yoga pants, leggings, or tights.
I frowned, looking down on my own pair of comfortable lululemon yoga pants. Good thing I graduated from high school five years ago, I thought, wiping the sweat off my brow.
Yoga pants, leggings, and tights are not new to the scene. In high school (that would be 2005-2008), every second teenage girl was rocking a pair of the aforementioned. At first, the form-fitting alternative to pants frightened me - almost as much as when skinny jeans arrived to the forefront of every retail store - but now they've grown on me (the yoga pants, not the skinny jeans).
I can begin to understand why St. Boniface Diocesan High School banned these articles of clothing. Tights, for example, are tricky. This is only my opinion, but I agree that they are in no way a substitute for pants; the thin material resembles a more pantyhose-like garment. There's even a website dedicated to the cause. Read the manifesto; even if you don't agree with their mission, it's quite entertaining.
To me, I don't think this is news. Dress codes (and bans) are frequent in adolescence - and I think they always will be. In the '90s, platform shoes were supposedly sent from hell a la Spice Girls.
I felt like this could have been a news story which focused on shaming the bad teenage girls for choosing such scantily clad clothes, but I applaud Gabrielle Giroday for interviewing a retailer, a representative from a school board, someone who has been through a similar situation in the past, and someone who could be affected by this decision now. That made this a well-balanced story - it covered all the bases on a topic which apparently doesn't cover enough skin.
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