How To Get Away With Wearing Sweatpants In Public (VIDEO)

How To Get Away With Wearing Sweatpants In Public

Plenty of fashion rules are meant to be broken. No white after Labor Day? Please. Don't mix gold and silver jewelry? A thing of the past. But wearing sweatpants in public? Not unless you want to look like a shlumpadinka – or at least, that's what we used to think.

In fact, sweatpants can be stylish, says style expert and O magazine creative director Adam Glassman. But before you break out the gym clothes, he explains the right way -- and wrong way -- to rock this trend.

In his new #AdamSays series on Oprah.com, Glassman meets with celebrity hairstylist Kiyah Wright, who works on her feet all day and wants an easy, relaxed style. She thinks she's found the holy grail of comfort: harem pants.

"I can do yoga, I can sit on the plane -- they're just comfy!" Wright says.

Glassman begs to differ, calling them "droopy drawers." Wright admits her boyfriend feels the same way.

"He's like, 'What are these, like poo-poo in your pants?'" she says. "My butt is flat, he just hates it."

While Glassman gets the need for comfort, he can't get on board with harem pants. "I like them for meditating," he says. "I don't like them out in public."

Instead, Glassman introduces Wright to a new trend: sweatpants in a slim, sexy silhouette. "They're like a sweatpant … but they're skinny and they're sexy and they're not the kind of schlumpy thing you're going to sit around the house watching TV or doing laundry in," Glassman says.

He shows Wright a pair of sleek black joggers by Armani Exchange. The key, he explains, is to balance the look with dressier separates. "Hard and soft -- so we could do a structured jacket with a soft pant and then a fun top and dress it up," he says.

Wright puts on the outfit and admits that the new sleek, streamlined sweats do a much better job of showing off her figure. "And you know what, they're super comfortable," she says.

Want to replicate the look? Below, Glassman and his fashion team share five sweatpants that are perfectly suitable for public:

Stylish Sweatpants

Before You Go

Julia Roberts in NYC, August 1998

Celebs In Sweatpants

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