Those women who like wearing sweatpants, sweatshirts, and hoodies, why would they not ask garment manufacturers to make some suitable as formal wear?

Why wouldn’t men do the same thing?

@janbb We could wear coveralls to funerals.

Can you cite some source that shows women want to routinely wear such clothes? Some women may choose to wear such items when it’s cold and they’re at home and some might even go to the shops in their tracky dacks, but it’s a bit of a stretch to suggest women want to wear them for all occasions and as formal wear.

Do you dress formally when you’re at home on a Sunday? Or slip into a three-piece suit to go to the local store to get milk? People dress in a way they feel is appropriate to the activity they’re undertaking. I do understand some people appear to never get out of their trackys but that could be a lack of understanding about social graces, lack of money, lack of style, lack of care about fashion or many other reasons. You’ve specified women in your question, do all men dress appropriately at all times?

I see plenty of men who dress badly. Dressing inappropriately isn’t specifically the domain of women.

I don’t think there’s really a dialogue between women and the garment industry. Moreso I would guess that designers keep up on what people wear on the street. And there has been a move towards more comfortable clothing. It’s quite normal to see women wear dressy sweatpants these days. A lot of high end designers do some version if it as well.

Lanvin
Alexander Wang

You know it’s hit the main stream when Gap does it.

Gap does $50 fancy sweatpants.

@Earthbound_Misfit [… but it’s a bit of a stretch to suggest women want to wear them for all occasions and as formal wear.
I never said they wanted to wear them all the time or for every occasion, but what I got from a recent thread was some women liked wearing them often because they are supposedly comfortable and non-restricting. My thought is if they found them so comfortable they would want to have a form of them where they can wear them outside the house sometimes to a nice dinner and not lookj like a ”hood rat”, or white trash.

Or slip into a three-piece suit to go to the local store to get milk?
I know guys who might not go as far as a three-piece suit, but they do not like leaving the house if they are not in dapper togs, I almost want to call them metrosexuals. If there was a way to have an alternative to wearing a monkey suit I would take it, especially if it were comfortable and made it so I could wear them with other than patent leather shoes

It’s a huge stretch to go from, “I like feeling comfortable in my trackys” to “I want to dress in tracky-daks when I go to formal events”. I’m quite happy to wear track pants while I’m at home in the winter and there’s just me and my family here but I always dress nicely when I go out. Personally I wouldn’t be seen dead in a pair of tracky-dacks at the local shops! There are clothes for dossing about at home, clothes to wear when I’m out and about doing business, or having fun, work clothes and then getting dressed up clothes.

I do get there are women who don’t do this, but I doubt many women want to wear the same type of clothing they’d wear to lie around watching TV to go to a wedding, or out to a formal dinner.

I’d guess a three-piece suit or even a shirt and tie isn’t the most comfortable clothing. However, social and work conventions mean we accept some lack of comfort in order to look stylish or to fit in with our peers. So too, some clothes women wear when they go out dressed up aren’t the most comfortable. However, they look smart and perhaps accentuate our best figure features so we’ll live with the lack of comfort to look good. It’s all about context @HC.

I thought women wanted to wear their Victoria’s Secret collection 24/7. ~

Hoodies rule. I like putting the hood on my head and then yanking the strings. It’s all soft inside.

but I doubt many women want to wear the same type of clothing they’d wear to lie around watching TV to go to a wedding, or out to a formal dinner.

Oh how I wish I could wear my favorite hoodie to a wedding. I believe I was the inspiration for this question.

In general, we are a less formal society than we were 50 years ago. Look at photos from the 40’s and 50’s. Ladies wore dresses every day with heels, gloves and hats. Men wore suits and hats with dress shoes. Only in the late 60s did people start wearing jeans and tee shirts and that has continued to today. When I was younger, just about every woman would wear a dress to a wedding. Now women wear pants to weddings all the time. Women used to be required by many work place dress codes to wear skirts daily. Now that is not the norm. Where I work, both men and women dress fairly casually all the time. If this continues, people will be wearing hoodies and sweats to weddings in a decade or two!

I remember in the early 80’s men wearing sweatsuits everywhere. Adidas was one of the more popular.

I love fashiony sweats (although, I refuse to buy Juicy Couture, which is one if the better known companies that capitalized on the fashion for women, because the name bothers me so much) but I don’t want to wear sweats to anything formal.

Edit: there are knit dresses suitable for semi-formal.

As I recall from the many hours of research I’ve done on the Rockford Files (1974–1980), the eponymous PI almost always wore a collared shirt with a sport jacket.

Taking a Quantum Leap forward to the later 80’s, we see a somewhat more casually attired Magnum, PI.

@Earthbound_Misfit It’s a huge stretch to go from, “I like feeling comfortable in my trackys” to “I want to dress in tracky-daks when I go to formal events”.
But the sweats you would be going out in would not be your ”Rocky Balboa charge to the top of the stairs” sweats, but something in silk, leather, satin, mink, etc., so they will be comfortable but still not tacky, supposedly.