Lululemon pants? suitable for europe

If you are at a yoga conference they might fit right in.

"Europe" is a big place which includes punk rock concerts where spray-painted combat boots are the norm and royal weddings where extremely silly hats are expected. As a tourist doing touristy stuff though you'll very rarely have to comply to such specific "dress codes," the no-bare-shoulders rule of Italian churches maybe the most encountered. If you like to wear black Lululemon pants, wear black Lululemon pants.

Yoga pants are the best thing to happen to women's figures since the bustier. Having said that I know nothing about what you should wear in Europe. My wife wears them all the time and I am encouraging her to take a pair. Who knows, she may find a French Yoga class to take while we are there.

I am a huge fan of Lululemon and have a couple pairs of their pants, but I don't take them with me traveling to Europe. However I did take them with me on other trips and I wore a pair as I loved them on the plane and the places I went to were very casual (camping or active holidays).

I wear mine to the grocery store here but I wouldn't be caught outside my hotel room anywhere in Europe in them.

OK. Again, no one in Europe cares what you wear. Wear shorts. Wear jeans. Wear yoga pants. Absolutely no one cares. At the sites you'll be visiting will be throngs of tourists from around the world. Many happily wearing umbrella hats and white knee socks. It is not worth time, bandwith, or website storage space to worry about what is "acceptable" in Europe. It's your vacation, after all! They know it, they're glad you're there. Apart from churches and five star restaurants, they couldn't give a rip what you wear.

It's Europe - they wear them there. Why would you even think it would not be ":acceptable" for YOU to wear them? To the best of my knowledge - the European fashion police is an urban legend.

"To the best of my knowledge - the European fashion police is an urban legend." Oh, they exist. They're on this website, but none of them live in Europe. I call them the "fascionistas".

I wore the Lululemon dance pants all the time. They're not only very stylish, but also very comfortable to travel in. Because of their material, they're also very easy to wash and dry overnight.

Black yoga pants( I am not a slave to any particular brand) look basically decent to me if worn with a more "normal " ( as opposed to a yoga sport type top) top .
As pointed out they are lightweightm, easy to pack ( no wrinkles) and easy to sink launder and dry . You will look fine.

As long as you don't wear them with white tennis shoes...or plastic flip flops. Seriously, there isn't a European dress code. However, if you are self conscious about standing out, or having your clothing scream "I'm an American!" then you might want to make sure they're paired with nice shoes and a nicer top (rather than an athletic top or plain T-shirt.) I recently returned to the US for a visit after having been away for over a year. I find that women and men in the US overall dress more casually (not that there's a problem with that) and that a surprisingly number of American women (mostly younger ones) have mistaken dressing trashy for dressing sexy/alluringly. Even the high school students here don't have their bras hanging out of their shirts or pants so low cut they reveal their backsides when they bend over. In France, at least, I find the women dress a bit more feminine than American women.

I wear my Lulu pants on the plane over and back. Haven't taken them out to wear while in Europe yet, thought I'd wear them for dinner sometime, but didn't. I do find them very comfortable for the plane ride, no binding at the waist or elsewhere. I've been on at least 5 trips overseas and wore my lulu's every time for the plane. They are black pants, so I see no reason why you couldn't wear them all day while touring - other than you might get a bit warm, they are pretty heavy weight fabric.

I bought my wife a pair of yoga capris with an eye toward packing them for travel. She was initially skeptical but very happy to have packed them after our trip. Actually you can get in trouble with the police for wearing the wrong thing. The French have banned the Burqa and Belgium is ready to pass a ban too. Apparently, it's worse to wear too much. If you wear too little you might be asked to cover your shoulders or leave a church.

I don't know if it's my Russian upbringing, but I personally would never go out in public in sweatpants/yoga pants unless I was going to the gym or something. A pair of dark jeans is my casual go-to. HOWEVER...it's not like there is a continental dress code, and no one will say anything to your face, if that's what you're worried about. Wear what you feel confident wearing. If that means sweatpants, more power to you (except in Moscow, where I can vouch people will side-eye and talk smack about you).

Would rather see someone wearing these, then the girls I have seen wearing a sundress and Uggs. In the summer. Seriously, do wear what ever floats your boat. @ Tom, as James said, great answer.

Eli is spot on about the plane. Just visit the arrivals hall in any major EU capital when all the transatlantic planes arrive. It looks like refuges fleeing the homeland. It's incredibly easy to pick out who has the maroon passports and who has the navy ones. Nice pants fit all the same places as sloppy ones do.

What on earth are you all talking about?

They're called "leggings" in English-speaking europe and IMHO should be illegal in anything larger than a (British) size 12. Roger

Hmmm....black pants that are comfortable, light weight, pack easy, will cover your knees in churches, will wash and dry easy....sounds good to me. Ditto Tom and others: no shorts, really short skirts, or bare shoulders in church. Otherwise, wear what YOU deem appropriate and comfortable.

But what if you're at the beach in France topless (legal) wearing a veil (illegal) and these yoga pants (potentially unacceptable)?

I don't go out in sweats or yoga pants unless I am going to the gym. My daughter wore some in Brittany this past winter, and because she's like a size 0, and wore them with a long sweater, and tall boots, it worked. It's good to have rules about what to wear in a church. I just wish there were some rules for the airport/plane. It's actually getting worse. I am all for comfy, don't get me wrong, but one can dress and look quite chic and comfy at the same time.

We leave tomorrow, wife just packed her yoga pants. She wears them all the time here so I think she should bring them. Besides I found a yoga studio a few blocks from the hotel and thought she might like to take a yoga class in French, we'll see.

LOL!!

I took my Lulu leggings to Italy this past Christmas holiday. Wore them all the time with my tall boots and long sweater/coat. In Italy, athletic wear is worn for lounging around, not running errands. I guess it all depends on when you are traveling. In Winter, no one really sees what you have underneath you coat...so spend some $$$ on a nice coat and go from there. In Summer, I think it will be too hot for these pants. Spend the $$$ on some nice skirts/dresses and awesome sandals/shoes. Please no flip flops. Jeanss, t-shirts, scarf, great shoes/purse....you will be just like the locals.

I am amazed at how many questions there are on this forum about clothing and whether or not such and such is acceptable in Europe. Unless you are going to a different climate wear what you would normally wear. My brother wore his kilt in Athens in August and obviously that was just plain stupid.

I think a lot of people ask what to wear because they don't want to disrespect the sensibilities of the local culture which I would think is an admirable thing. It's easy to pick out the "nobody cares" "wear only what's comfortable" mindsets. And to their respects, this is mostly true, but it is not universally true. You get much better treatment if you dress like the locals and are more likely to make some personal contact (I know this, experienced this, and observed this many times). I'm personally glad there's others of us out there that try not to look like we are fleeing the homeland on laundry day. North Americans are regarded as some of the worst dressed on the planet for a reason. Good for the poster for checking in and if she cares enough to ask the question, she will keep her pants in the hotel unless she is a size 2 and under 30 then she won't get any slights.

Dress like the locals? Would that be like any of the locals or just the fashionable locals? (I'm thinking of the European trend of black socks with sandals.) I'm in agreement with Shoni on this....I don't get why there is so much angst over what to wear in Europe.

"You get much better treatment if you dress like the locals and are more likely to make some personal contact". You mean, dress like people who are going to work while you´re on vacation? Or dress like Europeans who are on vacation, who remarkably, dress very similar to North Americans who are on vacation? My wife uses an analogy that I find very funny. She says that American women who try to blend in while on vacation are about as convincing as if she wore a cowboy hat in New York. And finally, let me drive one more stake into the heart of the "Europeans don´t wear shorts" myth... if they don´t wear them, than who´s buying all the shorts you will find in clothing stores?

Shock! Men don't have the same opinion on fashion as women do! I'll tell my French mother and my sister living in Belgium that they have no idea what they are talking about and they should ask some American dudes living in Germany before forming opinions on all things clothing related. Just kidding. This shows the universal truth that men don't get why women care about this stuff.

To answer some questions I'm a Canadian 0, so a british 4. I understand about the plane but dont really want to take up room for just that purpose in my bag

Jayne, if you're coming to the UK, I promise you can wear them and you'll look like just about every other young woman! Don't worry too much about what other people think. Most of the time, they don't. I hope you have a wonderful time and enjoy yourself.

I don't think it is as much about what other people think as it is about how you feel. Think about it...go out without makeup, hair a mess and sweats and see if you don't feel different when you go out looking your best. I don't do a ton of planning for my trips before I go...but the one exception is what I am going to wear...maybe shallow, but its partly about the clothes. You get to try out things that you might never wear in the US. The whole experience of traveling to Europe is a fantasy, including the clothes....and if you think there aren't a lot of European women who don't check out what you're wearing maybe its because you're not wearing anything interesting... most of the European women certainly portray far more fashion sense and style than I have seen in the US, and it is fun to partake in that part of the European experience...to each his own, but all my friends travel with really cute and fashionable clothes and accessories and have fun doing it...and the trick is to travel light yet look great.

I'm headed to Italy this fall and I'm definitely wearing my Lulus on the plane, and maybe for train travel and/or touring depending on the temperatures.

I'm returning to Europe this summer and haven't been there in about 20 years. I went to Google Cityview to see what people were wearing in the Netherlands. All I saw were blue jeans. Go figure. All my European Facebook friends' photos of them at dog shows in the summer show them in khakis.

Roger - yoga pants are not the same as leggings. Leggings are tights. Tights and leggings are NOT pants despite what today's 16 year olds might say. Yoga pants are. Very, very different. Yoga pants: http://smarkas.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/yoga_pants.jpg Leggings: http://www.stylepalace.com.au/assets/products/large/High_Sheen_Leggings_Black_2.jpg Sorry OP, can't help with the original question, but I didn't want any confusion in the discussion that the question might be pertaining to leggings :P

Leah ... my wife is a yoga teacher!
Roger