Fashion Forward Fridays: Wearing Leggings As Pants

Alright, alright, I know there is much debate on whether or not women should wear leggings as pants. Blah, blah, blah. Personally, I don't care what you're wearing as long as they are not sweat pants or GOD FORBID pajama pants in public. I also know that people are busy (and lazy) and I have been guilty of wearing yoga pants to work just so I could force myself to actually go to the gym afterwards too. So yoga pants, leggings, workout pants, whatever you call them (they are all basically the same) as long as the rest of your outfit is golden, they are all okay in my book.

For today's Fashion Forward Fridays, I've styled the same pair of workout pants in three different ways that you could "get away" with wearing them to places other than the gym. The typical argument about these usually comes down to keeping your butt covered, which with leggings (typically made out of thinner fabric than yoga or workout pants) I get that. But the other two (usually) have a decent kind of fabric that won't let everyone see your whole booty if you bent over. I'm not even going to get into the discussion about whether or not you should wear these for "modesty" reasons either, because I get dressed for me and if my cute butt is too distracting, that is not my issue. I'm distracted by guys who wear nice, fitted suits to work but you don't see me complaining that I cannot get my work done because of it.

I have literally worn these exact outfits before, which is why I know they work and look good. On a side note, if you're going to do the workout pants to work look, proceed with caution. There is a serious debate about these pants even if you haven't heard it, trust me, it's going on. I have worn this exact work look (shown last) to a corporate office before and no one thought twice about it because of the way it was styled. Your nicest workout pants should be the ONLY ones that you consider wearing to work. They should also be plain, no logos or visible patchwork to them and the rest of your look, including hair and makeup, should be polished. Otherwise, be comfortable! That's why we're wearing these pants after all, isn't it!?

Which look is your favorite?

Chels & the City Favorites

Happy Monday, friends! For the November Blogathon, today's prompt is to share your 3 favorite posts from your archives. (You'll notice that three is the theme of the week.) So here are three posts that I think are some of my best, and oddly enough, there is one from each year that my blog has been around, which was unplanned but a nice little surprise for myself.

2014 - Bad Things Happen When You Wear Sweatpants In Public
The story of an unfortunate event that I, of course, blamed on the fact that I was wearing sweatpants in public while it happened. My one and only fashion rule is to never wear sweats/pajama pants in public and I feel like the universe was getting back at me for shaming people who do. Lesson learned.

2013 - Hazard Yet Forward
A note to the Seton Hill University community after a serious tragedy. I graduated from SHU in 2011 and it will always have my heart, so this post was important for me to write and is one of my most-viewed of all time. It was one of those posts that you promote once by posting the link on Facebook and it was shared and passed on a countless number of times. I hope that means that the women involved and their families were among those views and that it helped them heal a little bit.

2012 - Cupid: as portrayed by Chelsea
I love this post. It was one of my first posts on this blog and I think I nailed it haha It's actually a really long post but I wanted it to be worth the read. I came up with date night ideas for people in the Pittsburgh area for Valentine's Day and based each idea on the Five Love Languages. Good, right? Like, you wish you were following my blog back then good. At the time, my readers were pretty much just my friends and family and I cannot tell you how many texts/calls I've received since then about people asking me to help them plan a night out or date night in the city, and they reference this post. Thanks, friends, I'm here for you!

Do you have favorite posts from your own blog?

Or a favorite from mine that's not mentioned?

Bad Things Happen When You Wear Sweatpants In Public

If you guys know one thing about me, you know that I think wearing sweatpants in public is a sin. I don't care if you're not wearing makeup, your hair is looking a hot mess or there is a stain on your shirt, but if you are wearing sweats in public (or GOD FORBID pajama pants) I will be secretly judging you. I have come to terms with the ideas of wanting to be comfortable and that sometimes jeans are just a tough decision to make, I get it, I wear leggings in public which I realize makes some people judge me. So while I understand why you would wear them in public, I cannot bring myself to do so.

You can blame Stacy and Clinton. Or the strict dress code that Ellwood City school district established during my freshman year of high school. But honestly the last time I remember wearing sweats in public was on the way to the WPIAL Fastpitch Softball Championship in my sophomore year, and we lost. See, bad things happen. So I should have thought of all these things on Monday.

Monday morning, my brother needed me to follow him to the mechanic to get his car fixed so he would have a ride home and not have to wait there while they worked on it. No big deal, and since it was early when we had to leave the house, I thought to myself, "It's okay just wear the sweatpants because no one is going to see you and we're coming right back home after dropping his car off, you can just get ready for the day when you get home." However, Eric and I decided to go through the drive-thru of McDonald's on our way home for breakfast. Still thinking, no big deal, it's a drive-thru, the only person seeing me in sweatpants is my brother and I wear these around the house, no problem.

Problem...bad things happen when you wear sweatpants in public. If you're around Erie during this time of the year, you know that no one cares about plowing the roads until there's some "serious snow" on them, meaning apparently at least eight inches. Well, on our way to McDonald's I started to break early for a red light, knowing that the roads were getting snowy, but got caught on some ice and hit the car in front of me which was already stopped at the light. Don't be worried, everyone is fine, the accident was more of a love tap between our cars. I happened to be driving a Suburban though so there was less damage on my end, considering Suburbans are ridiculously large vehicles, made for inclement weather. Way to suck in this incident though, Chevy.

Anyway, if you've ever been in any kind of minor traffic incident you (should) know that you have to get out of your vehicle, make sure the other car's passengers are okay, take pictures of the cars and area, get local police to report it and swap insurance info. The woman I hit kept saying she didn't know what to do because she was never in an accident before, yet, I have never been in an accident either and still knew what to do. Isn't this part of driver's ed? Anyway, multiple people saw the pants of shame. I guess this is karma for spreading hate for public displays of sweatpants for the past ten years, but let this be a lesson to you all. Wearing sweatpants in public leads to bad things, even if they're the "nice" sweatpants you got from your graduate school.

Don't forget today is the final day to enter the Firmoo glasses giveaway!

I'm picking 5 random winners at midnight so be sure to enter while you still can.