Meggings: Marvel or Monstrosity?

Meggings – a term that invokes sheer fear within me, to the extent that when Armani sent their models down the runway for their Autumn/Winter 2013 Milan show, I felt like I was watching ‘The Exorcist’. I’d always hoped meggings (men’s leggings for those of you not in the know) were a joke, a big April fool, but Armani have proved that this is the latest trend to sweep the world of fashion and meggings are in fact becoming the next big trend in menswear. Already a concrete trend in New York and being sported by celebrities such as Justin Bieber, they’re now set to hit the UK too, with Topman discussing their viability and Uniqlo selling out on their UK website.

Their emergence as a trend is all very well, but I have two major gripes with meggings. First of all, trying to masculinise them by swapping the ‘L’ for an ‘M’ just doesn’t cut it with me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking a stab at men adapting women’s fashions- just look how skinny jeans have improved the world. Well, maybe not such a bonus for men’s nether regions, but for their style at least. But men, if you want to adopt the meggings trend, have the courage to embrace the spandex and admit that what you are rocking is a pair of leggings.

My second problem with meggings is a more general one: leggings as trousers. Girls or guys, I’m afraid that there are some things in life I just don’t want to see and that much skin-tight crotch action is one of them. To the glamazon guys and girls with fabulously toned figures, I’ll let you off (as long as there’s no VPL going on), but to the rest of society, who, like me, have some (to quote Beyoncé) extra ‘jelly’, I beg you to either pull on a pair of trousers or get down to the gym! All being said, I am now an avid supporter of men in skinny jeans, so maybe this time next year I’ll be singing the praises of meggings. But, if Bieber and Boy London are representing this trend, is it not just another sign of the individuality and uniqueness we are losing within fashion?