Have leggings been cancelled? 

Trends change, but this athleisure staple has staying power

The big leggings debate isn’t that big. At its core, it’s about evolution, not revolution — committing to silhouettes that reflect who you are now and how you move through the world. Picture: iStock 

PARIS, 2009. I’m sitting at a fashion show wearing black head-to-toe. I look faintly miserable. A brush with food poisoning has left me subsisting on water, salted crackers, and the comfort of my trusty leggings. Weeks wasted fantasising about what I would wear — 2% elastane is all I can manage as I run between deadlines.

Fast forward to 2026. Leggings have gone from a humble basic to a market-share behemoth, valued globally at almost $23bn. Phrases like barre-to-car, studio-to-street, and desk-to-dinner pepper the popular lexicon, collapsing the gap between performance, lifestyle, and fashion categories — and encouraging that crucial click-to-cart.

Even ubiquity has a tipping point. According to a 2025 report by The Business of Fashion, leggings began to decline after the pandemic as wide-leg silhouettes surged in demand. Oversized joggers and the Big Workout Pants (dubbed by The Wall Street Journal) became the new normal, particularly among younger buyers. By contrast, millennial-coded skinny jeans were evicted almost overnight: In 2021, Gen Z shamed the once-implacable silhouette, while leggings quietly ceded dominance as baggier bottoms captured lockdown comfort. Utility replaced style as the cornerstone of cool.

Retail analysis shows leggings’ share of activewear bottoms fell from roughly 47% in 2022 to 39% in 2025, even as total revenue continued to grow. In other words, leggings haven’t left the building — they’ve simply moved to another floor.

Cork fashion designer Angela O’Donnell (Yawuw) felt this shift in consumer sentiment personally and professionally. After three and a half years developing what she describes as the world’s first 100% recycled spandex textile, she decided to cancel the product line in June 2024.

YAWUW design from Cork fashion designer Angela O’Donnell. Picture: Miki Barlok

“I was watching the market closely, and there were clear indications it was about to crash,” she says, citing Nike’s near-50% global sales drop, with leggings — a core category — as a key warning sign. “This is fashion. It comes in waves.”

Lockdown may have inspired the stay-at-home silhouette, but these looser bottoms are very much an aesthetic.

“Your silhouette is now a fitted piece on top and a looser piece on the bottom,” she says. Think “bumster” pants (low-slung waists) and boob tube or tank top pairings, popular with Y2K girl bands. “If you look at the vintage, second-hand wholesale market, that product line from that time [late 2000s] is booming. So, if you take those silhouettes and see how they cross into athleisure, that’s where I think it’s coming from as well.”

Fashion leaves its imprint wherever it goes. The real question is whether this post-covid pivot has made its way into the wellness space.

Sian Horn is a Cork-based pilates instructor and business coach, and a former fit model. Having worked in the industry since 1997, she has seen fitness trends evolve in real time.

As for looser styles in the studio?

“A lot of women who are coming to pilates are standing their ground on continuing to wear leggings. The Big Workout style is more fashion thing I personally think. They’re not going to the gym in that.”

Crop top (€11) and wide-leg athleisure pant €15), Penneys.

Unable to find what she wanted in leggings, Horn looked to launch an athleisure-inspired range in 2018 — something she would still like to do.

“For nearly three decades, I’ve been facilitating operating and teaching in this world and certainly for the first 20 years, I never felt that I could wear what I wanted — clothes that complemented my body and represented women of my size,” she says.

“I want women to get to a place where it’s about your body and what you look best in. It’s not about the demise of the leggings, but the rise of women purchasing stuff in which they feel confident and comfortable.”

Horn is effusive about the breadth of M&S sizing (UK 6-24). Its GoodMove spring-summer 2026 collection features various iterations of athleisure bottoms — leggings, palazzos, harem joggers, and wide-leg styles. She champions Lululemon’s bestselling Align leggings not for sculpting or performance (that belongs to Wunder) but for their second-skin softness and choice of bootleg, cropped, and short leg lengths. For the fashion-conscious, she cites brands like 4TH ARQ, Edit Row, GGG Activewear, and Gym + Coffee for that 90s-inspired university look.

If budgets are tight, both Penneys and F&F at Tesco have dropped matching sets in an equally broad selection of silhouettes, including a happy medium: Kick flares.

Seam scuba top (€16) and barrel leg trousers €22), The Edit @ Penneys

The lesson in leggings is clear. Familiarity breeds contempt. We get too used to something. Too comfortable. Soon, we begin to resent it. Before you know it, sartorial saviour in Paris devolves into “that old thing”, worn only on Saturdays when cleaning the house.

No doubt, second-skin leggings still hold agency in a studio, on long-haul flights, and paired with intention (this season’s cape, for instance) rather than autopilot. The contrast of wide-leg trousers, palazzos, and kick flares? That’s a taste-led offering, not generational combat.

The big leggings debate isn’t that big. At its core, it’s about evolution, not revolution — committing to silhouettes that reflect who you are now and how you move through the world.

When someone says leggings have been cancelled, fear not. There’s only one thing fashion loves nothing more than a dramatic exit: An equally exciting comeback.