Cheerful friends showing off their ugly sweater while enjoying Christmas party at home
A few years back, actress Eva Mendes upset some people when she said that sweatpants ruin marriages. Her comments were followed up by Bustle contributor Aly Walansky who wrote in defense of sweatpants as being good for marriages. While their debate still rages, here is something else to ponder: sweats are the comfort food of clothing.
If you don’t know what that means, do a little research on comfort food. The rest of us will wait while you get yourself up to speed. If you are already familiar with the comfort food concept, read on. You are about to embark on a whole new understanding of sweatpants and cheap custom hoodies.
-
It’s More Than Memories
It has been said that the key to a given food being a comfort food is its ability to spark memories. It is true that memories may be part of the equation, but they are not what make comfort food what it is. Think about it. It’s in the name, for crying out loud.
Comfort food is what it is because eating it brings you comfort. Your favorite comfort food may indeed be something from your childhood. And in that sense, perhaps eating it brings back some pleasant memories. But you can be comforted by food you didn’t first eat until your 28th birthday.
You don’t know me, so I feel safe in writing that my two big comfort foods are pizza and wings. Pizza was a rarity in my house when I grew up and wings didn’t come into play until I was a young adult. So my intimate relationship with these two foods has nothing to do with memories. They are comfort foods because they make me feel good. And that, dear readers, leads us to sweats.
-
Let the World Fade Away
There is something satisfying about putting on comfy clothing at the end of a long day. Sure, any loose-fitting clothes can be comfortable. But snuggling up on the sofa and letting the world fade away is a more ethereal experience in sweats. It is not the same thing in a pair of jeans and a sweater.
Sliding into a comfortable pair of sweats is like putting on your own personal cocoon. There is safety in your Plurawl LatinX sweatshirt and mismatched sweatpants from a set you bought years ago. It doesn’t matter that the two pieces were purchased separately and years apart. They still make you feel like a million dollars.
Sweats bring so much comfort that people are willing to wear them in the middle of the summer. It doesn’t matter. When you want to relax and let your hair down, the only thing better than wearing sweats is wearing nothing at all. But that’s a different topic for a different post. To finish off this one, there is one more idea to blow your mind.
-
Combining the Two
Think about combining your favorite comfort food and your favorite sweats. Imagine how that feels. Imagine curling up in cozy sweatshirt and sweatpants with a bowl of your favorite ice cream, streaming your favorite TV series. That is living. Now imagine trying to experience that same level of comfort wearing a fancy dress and eating caviar. It doesn’t work.
Sweats are the comfort food of clothing because they make us feel good. No matter what is going on in the world outside, a comfortable pair of sweats can make it all go away. That’s what makes them so awesome. If you don’t agree, have you ever spent 24 hours in a pair of sweats? Try it sometime. It will literally change your life.
