Today, no woman’s wardrobe is complete without a pair of stretchy pants. They’re as common as designer jeans; even non-yogis are buying them. Versatile, comfortable and available in an array of colors and styles, the pants have become the go-to item for more than solely the gym or yoga studio.
The days of getting home from a long day and changing into a pair of comfortable jeans is gone and has been replaced by pants with an elastic waistband. 
A Yoga In America Study found that Americans spend an estimated $10.3 billion each year on yoga-related items, primarily on “must-have” apparel. This number has been steadily growing in response to the flourishing interest in yoga; 20.4 million people practice as of 2012, according to a Yoga Journal survey.
The first yogis wore wide-leg linen pants, a bit different than today’s skintight leggings. So, where did our “yoga” pants come from? The answer is more complicated than you may think.
Lululemon athletica, Nike, Adidas, Gap and other athletic-wear companies put their own thumbprints on design and cut, but begin with the same material: spandex. These synthetic fibers were engineered by four chemists: Wallace Carothers, William Hanford, Donald Holmes and Joseph C. Shivers, starting in the 1930s. These fabrics were the beginning. Without them, there would be no yoga pants.
Materials? Check. Now, what about the figure-hugging design?
After surfing the web and shuffling through an array of woman in tight yoga pants, I kept finding Ryan Mclatchy’s name. Although not confirmed, it seems the general public credits him for the evolution of the yoga pant from the loose, relaxed fitting of the first yogis to the second-skin, tight legging of today’s yoga lovers. Countless blogs, chat rooms and websites pay him homage for his “gift” to the human race, mainly men, but the internet speculation isn’t completely conclusive, so we can’t quite give him full credit for the invention.
However, that hasn’t stopped their booming popularity both in and out of the studio. Yahoo searches for “yoga pants” were 42 times higher in 2011 than in 2010. 
Whether you’re working out, running errands, grabbing lunch, or heading to work, yoga pants are becoming more and more acceptable. According to a 2011 WGSN trend forecasting report, 4 percent of women in the U.S. wear strict business attire to the office and many are opting for yoga pants. High-end designers, such as Alexander Wang and Michael Kors, are even incorporating luxury exercise-geared stretchy pants into their collections.
That being said, this is not a free pass or permission slip to wear yoga pants to your next interview or to an office environment that demands business attire. Keep that in mind when you slip into those comfortable, now more acceptable, wardrobe staples.
Nicole Soyka can be reached at soyk9466@stthomas.edu.