Pride & Joy Day 8: Grey Sweatpants

[Today’s donation was made to Center for Black Equity. Click here to see my Pride & Joy Project 2020 Daily Donations List.]

I live in sweatpants. I was lucky enough to have jobs that didn’t require me to wear formal clothes, although back in Jakarta, I used to work as a PR executive for a five-star hotel and I wore a suit every goddamn day. Now that I’ve been working from home, there’s absolutely no reason to wear clothes.

But back to sweatpants. How can you not like them? True, you may not be able to wear them everywhere, but there are stylish, skinny sweatpants that could technically pass as, well, trousers.

Sweatpants were invented about a hundred years ago (just like the romper!) by Émile Camuset, founder of the sportswear brand Le Coq Sportif. The first sweatpants were grey and served as the day-wear for athletes when they were training. The “sweat” in “sweatpants” means they’re designed to absorb sweat, not necessarily generate it.

Over time, sweatpants became synonymous with joggers and later with track pants.

I was looking for stylish sweatpants to wear to work and by chance found this pair from River Island, via ASOS. They’re seamless, which means not only are they ultracomfortable and lightweight, but they also unabashedly show off your curves. And you know what they say about grey sweatpants.



The rainbow only has five colors: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. Purple is missing. I guess that makes these pants not spiritual.

Photography by Yuska Lutfi Tuanakotta.