I own two pairs of leather pants. Let me show you the first pair. I don’t wear them.
Here they are (in a photo shoot I did last fall for Kipling; I don’t typically stand in the middle of extremely busy and car-laden streets waving bags around) .
The reason I do not wear these pants is because they are blue, and there are like three places on the planet for which blue leather pants constitute appropriate attire. And none of them are in the suburbs.
(OK, I wear them once in awhile, mostly because I don’t care very much whether or not my attire is appropriate. But not as often as I probably should considering how silly expensive leather pants are. These were a gift, which is nice and also makes me feel guilty because I should probably have glued them onto my legs in gratitude for the exorbitance.)
Anyway, let me now show you the other pair that I own. I wear them ALL THE TIME.
God I love them. (I look like a completely different human being in this photo because it was taken about a century ago, on my UES rooftop, and apparently during a time when I thought it would be a good idea to accessorize my leather pants with ugly shoes, a vest, and every piece of jewelry I own. #memories)
Evidence of this love: I even wear them ice skating.
Just practicing our swizzles at the Westchester Skating Academy.
See? (You can’t really see, as the point of this picture was family joy, not leather pants. But I promise, they’re there.)
If that sounds bizarre, let me assure you: not. Because the key to these leather pants is that they are not full leather. They are only leather in the part that matters, which is the front part. In the back part, they are all cotton and stretchy and wonderful, and so what it all amounts to is that the things feel like actual, sitting-on-the-couch-eating-pasta-straight-out-of-the-Tupperware LEGGINGS.
Leggings. That look like leather pants. And even – technically – are.
YES.
(If I haven’t convinced you yet, here is another selling point: you know what you get when you get pants that are half-leather? Pants that are also half-as-expensive-as-leather. Still expensive, but not, like, full-leather expensive.)
Some Favorite Half-Leather And Full-Leather Options (the latter for those of you with large wallets and a high tolerance for discomfort):
