Yoga pants

Ladies of the yoga-pants-as-streetwear persuasion: Don’t get it twisted.

You’re just as bad as the pajamas-as-outerwear People of Walmart, except you have a 401K and a will to live. In fact, you live the hell out of your life. You’ll sleep when you’re dead.

Meanwhile, you’re overscheduled and you don’t want anyone to forget it. You’re far too busy with carpools and important deadlines at your WFH consulting gig to bother changing out of your workout gear.

Because, oh yeah, you work out. The yoga pants say so.

You know your way around a Pilates Reformer and can stay in Crow pose for more than a minute in your hot yoga class. Yoga pants are your way of broadcasting that you—and your toned ass—are better than me.

Yoga pants, camel toe, and a messy topknot announce to the world that you’re fit, body and SoulCycle. On the flip side, however, you might be of the yoga pants subset who wears them despite having never stepped foot in a yoga studio. You don’t live the hell out of your life. You just live for an elastic waistband, bless your heart, and you’re not quite ready to make the leap to maternity pants, the ones with the stretchy panel.

Regardless, if you insist on wearing your Lululemon outside of the gym or yoga studio to go shopping or out to lunch or even to a business meeting, men should start wearing some OG David Lee Roth spandex action. Because, you know, everyone wants to see that, too.

(Photo: betabrand.com)

Platform shoes

To know me is to know I love shoes.

I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 pairs, stored in clear boxes with laminated photos of them taped to their outside. I love, love, love them. I want to hug them and pet them and call them my own.

Most of all, I like to wear them. I love how long and sinuous my gams become when I slip into a stiletto, or how badass I feel when I zip up a pair of calf-hugging sky-high leather boots. Shoes can make me feel like a Hitchcock heroine, a dominatrix, or a straight-up lady. I’m down with all of that.

What I’m not down with is hobbling around like a 19^th-century Chinese woman with bound feet. 

Which is what platform shoes turn women into. I don’t care if you’re Beyoncé, Dita Von Teese, an elfin Olson Twin, or the celebutard du jour, there’s no way you can walk easily, let along comfortably or safely, in these mobile diases. When I slip into a spendy designer platform pump or a cheap hooker shoe, I might as well be toiling away inside a Pearl S. Buck novel, what with my crippled feet. They turn your dogs into horse's hooves.

And why is it so important to be six foot four? I have a hard enough time dating. I don’t need to elevate out prospective men with my glamazonian ways. Kick off these torture devices and kick them to the curb before you become an actual fashion victim.

(photo: compulsivestyle.com)

Women who play with their hair

You are amazing. Smart, stylish, a polished public speaker who demands attention with your passion, insight and—wait!—what were you were saying? I was distracted by your lustrous locks…and not in a good way.

You had me wrapped around your little finger, but I was swapped out for a lock of your hair. I see woman after woman playing with her hair like a nervous tic, tucking it repeatedly behind an hair, twirling it around a finger, pulling long locks from one shoulder to another, as if in an attempt to find a best side. You’re not Mariah Carey and your hair isn’t a binkie. If you continue to use your bob as a security blanket, I’m going to have to split…and you’re going to have a shitload of split ends. I speak the truth.

(photo: whatwomenlike.net)