Those pants

This morning I was all, today's the day I'm going to pitch my grand theory of Lululemon! Expanding, of course, on thoughts here. And then I came across Noreen Malone's excellent Lululemon essay, and, I think that work may be done. Malone gets at the essential - that the appeal of the pants is precisely how they speak to women who aren't endlessly wealthy and who don't look flawless in regular yoga pants. Their existence inspires neurosis in women on the cusp of being effortless wearers of these pants. More importantly, though, Malone's grand theory, unlike mine, addresses what it means that the forces behind haute-hippie-dom (Lululemon, Whole Foods) lean libertarian. I'd always been struck by that, but never knew quite what to make of it.