It didn’t take long after I became a fitness editor for me to accidentally also become a leggings collector. Part of my job is to know about and test out new athletic apparel so that I can decide what’s worth telling our readers about. Since brands are constantly putting new products on the market, there's a lot to consider. One delightful benefit of this duty is that my own dresser drawers have become jam-packed with everything from sports bras to running socks to leggings.
The problem is that I've never had much of an "out with the old, in with the new" mentality. I just keep bringing in the new, and so thanks to the steady influx, my leggings collection in particular has gotten a little out of control. It’s grown so large—I counted 96 pairs the other day, and that wasn't including what's currently in my laundry basket—that I literally cannot fit them all into my drawers and instead have resorted to folding and neatly stacking them in piles on the floor next to my dresser. (And yes, typing that out now just made the absurdity of it so much more clear.) After a few days of rummaging through the stack of pants to find the pair I’m looking for, the neat piles turn into an area rug of spandex and Lycra.
In an effort to get me to pare down, my very patient fiancé suggested (more like pleaded) that I go through my excessive inventory of leggings, ID the ones I actually wear regularly or will wear again soon, and then get rid of the rest, for the love of god. And that got me thinking: While some pairs still have the tags on them and some only make appearances on a special occasion (because they match with a specific pair of sneakers, which is a problem for another day), there is really only a handful of leggings that I wear over and over again. Before this, I really thought I didn’t choose favorites. But it turns out I have my trusty go-tos that deserve to take up space in my apartment…and many of the others adorn my floor more often than my body.
After doing some soul searching and also literal pile searching, I came up with a list of the ones I wear the most and that have therefore earned their spots in my actual drawers. That is, until another great pair shows up to steal their spot.
Here are the nine pairs that I find myself wearing over and over again—for various workouts, for lounging on the weekends, and, yes, even to work—and why they're so great, IMO.
