In Regards To Sweatpants

“Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants.” – Karl Lagerfeld, RIP

Nods while wearing a recently-purchased pair of grey sweatpants. I bought a black pair too. They were cut and sewn in Canada and I spent $95 apiece.

  • In before everyone says it’s my privilege, as a remote knowledge worker, to wear egregiously pricey sweatpants basically any time I choose. I know.
  • An earlier version of me posted the Karl Lagerfeld quote on Facebook or similar back in the day. I was only partially wrong then.
  • But here’s the deal: as with denim, every incremental $25 spent on sweatpants delivers a product with materially better, er, material and fit-and-finish.
  • Unlike denim, the quality of sweatpants levels off at a lower price point.
    Before veering off into pure fashion and status signaling, the best-quality sweatpants money can buy are probably at or around the $100-125 price range, whereas the best denim I’ve ever bought was somewhere in the $275 range, which in all practical terms is the upper limit on denim when quality and construction are the only parameters.
  • I’m of the “spend all of the money once or twice” school of consumerism, and I believe in repairing high-quality clothes. So, my bet is that the $200 I spent on two pairs of sweatpants once is gonna deliver a better value, over time, than the dozen (or more) pairs of cheaper sweats people might buy over the same period of use.

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