THANK YOU, American Apparel!

Wrong. Bad. Bad. Wrong. No. No. No.

The leggings topic is stalking me.

Fellow PR chick KA sent me a media request from HARO for VIVmag.com. (Sidenote: Ideeli, this is where you advertise?! Our readers are much more your target audience and our rates are incredibly reasonable.) The request read:

I'm looking for fashion experts who can offer advice to women 35+ on how to make the leggings trend work for them. For women who think they're too old or too short, who think they're legs aren't good enough, or their style is too traditional, what are some tips to adding leggings to their wardrobe, including the best brands, styles, patterns, colors to wear.

Well, Shelley Levitt, reporter for VIVmag.com that gets advertisers that it totally doesn't deserve, I don't know that I can be considered an expert, but allow me to take a stab at answering your questions.

First, there is definitely too old to wear leggings--you don't want to look too trying-hard-trendy. Age appropriately. This is why Vogue does the age issue.

There is also definitely too short. Short girls have to be very careful not to cut off their height with leggings.

As for good legs, well, here I have a question: when we say "leggings trend" are we talking leggings as pants or are we talking leggings under skirts? Leggings under skirts can actually hide bad legs pretty decently, but you have to be able to pull off the look, and there's an age limit on it. If we're talking leggings as pants, well, if you have fatty legs, don't fucking wear leggings as pants. In fact, even if you just have normal legs, most times you shouldn't wear leggings as pants. (And yes, acknowledged, many would say never to wear leggings as pants.)

Brands? Well, they're f'ing leggings. Basic black from Old Navy for $6 will work. Just wash them in cold water. Don't wear patterns. Or I'll find you. Just to be safe, as AO advised, just wearing tights...not as pants.

I kind of want to check for this article when it comes out...but I don't want to drive up VIVmag.com's viewer numbers and subsequent advetising rates. Hmmm...

Spotted: DC Fashion Crimes - Butt Edition

The weather in DC is currently fabulous. Not too hot, not too cool and (thank fucking god) not too humid. As we draw towards the end of the recess (and seersucker season...seriously, not after Labor Day), it's a nice time to take a long lunch and an accompanying long walk before we all have to actually work again.

My co-worker and I took such a long walk to a long lunch today. On the way back, we first encountered this...

In case my blackberry isn't making this clear enough, that's ass cleavage. Hard core ass cleavage. And it's wrong. Shockingly, upsettingly, terribly wrong. It's also accompanied by grey fashion-victim-trying-to-wear-as-many-second-hand-designer-labels-at-once Uggs. It's still summer. Cooler temps or not, it's not time for Uggs. (I leave it open to debate whether there's ever a time for Uggs.)

Next, as if our eyes had not been assaulted enough, we were greeted with this...


Those, my friends, are purple leggings, worn as pants, with darker purple flowers on them. I know. Trust me, I know. Now, leggings as pants is controversial to me. I worship the Fug Girls and respect their opinion that "LEGGINGS ARE NOT PANTS!!" and I once had two beers (not one, two) poured over me in a bit of a bar fight because I told a size 8 that her thighs look huge when she wears leggings as pants. (That bitch cut the bathroom line at a crowded bar, you can't blame me.) On the other hand, having spent my undergrad education in California, I'm forced to admit that I believe that a very few people can pull of leggings as pants (WX, I'm looking at you) and perhaps worse still, I have to say that I think Lindsay Lohan looks alright in them (I know, I know, credibility gone).

BUT most people, myself included, look like they have huge thighs when they wear leggings as pants. And NO ONE--I repeat NO ONE--looks good in light purple leggings with dark purple flowers on them. I defy you to disagree.

And I still hate DC.