The world, India included, will be reminded of the importance of keeping the mind-body union shipshape through yoga today. But what about the less ancient invention, yoga pants? True, this athleisure apparel may have less spiritual or mental aspects to it, and there is no separate World Yoga Pants Day. But its growing popularity can’t be overstretched in a market that was valued at $31.3 billion in 2018. It is, however, in the expanding mindspace that the legwear has grown in stretches and bounds. Yoga pants first appeared in the cosmos in 1998 courtesy not some ancient Vedic design but when Canadian yogawear retailer Lululemon opened its first store in Vancouver, Canada. Taking the 80s aerobics ‘uniform’ of the Lycra spandex to its next ‘yogic’ level in North America, Lululemon founder Chip Wilson invented yoga pants apparently after attending a yoga class in 1997, where the instructor was wearing a comfy ‘slinky dance attire’.
Today, yoga pants are no longer confined to yoga. By 2014, US teenagers were found to prefer them to jeans. Since the 2010s, they have also moved from yoga sessions to casualwear, at least in the West. So, today, even as folks ‘celebrate’ yoga, spare a thought for the 25-year-old stretchy-feely invention that has piggybacked – piggylegged, actually – on the Big Y and made an asana for itself.
