For years, the visual shorthand for women’s workout clothing has been remarkably consistent: close-fitting leggings, a fitted top, and enough stretch to move from a yoga studio to a grocery store without changing clothes.
That uniform may finally be loosening.
On September 3, 2026, Lululemon reported results for its second fiscal quarter, which ended August 2. The company generated approximately $2.4 billion in net revenue, down 4% year over year, while comparable sales declined 9%. The weakness was more pronounced in the Americas, where revenue fell 8% and comparable sales dropped 12%.
Inside those broader numbers was an especially relevant change in women’s activewear: Lululemon management said legging sales declined approximately 20% during the quarter.
At the same time, the company says customers are responding to what it calls “away-from-body” bottoms. Recent examples include the Groove Wide-Leg, Align Foldover Jogger, Breezily, and an updated Dance Studio Pant.
The shift is significant because Lululemon helped make skin-tight technical leggings an everyday American wardrobe category in the first place.
But are women moving toward loose workout pants because they function better?
The evidence supports a more nuanced answer.
Loose-fitting sportswear can offer practical advantages in some conditions, particularly by changing airflow, skin-to-fabric contact, and thermal comfort. But looseness alone does not make clothing better for exercise. Fabric construction, air permeability, moisture behavior, garment coverage, movement, and the specific activity all matter.
For walking, mobility work, warm-ups, casual strength training, and some studio activities, away-from-body pants may be a genuinely functional alternative to leggings.
For cycling, running, equipment-heavy training, or exercises where loose fabric can interfere with movement or machinery, fitted clothing can still have clear advantages.
The emerging story is therefore not simply loose pants replacing leggings.
It is activewear becoming less dependent on one silhouette for every activity.
Lululemon’s Numbers Show A Real Shift Away From Leggings
The commercial change is difficult to ignore.
According to Lululemon’s official second-quarter 2026 results, net revenue declined 4% from the comparable quarter of 2025. Gross profit declined 1% to $1.5 billion, while operating income decreased 13% to $453.7 million.
The company finished the quarter with 825 company-operated stores after opening nine net new locations.
But the women’s-bottoms discussion during the company’s earnings call provides more context than the headline revenue figures.
Management said leggings had performed below expectations during 2026, with sales declining approximately 20% in Q2.
At the same time, Lululemon reported encouraging demand for several looser styles.
That does not mean American consumers have suddenly stopped wearing leggings.
Lululemon itself emphasized that leggings remain an important category, particularly for activities including yoga and Pilates.
It does indicate that the assumption that women’s technical activewear must fit tightly from waist to ankle is weakening.
And that opens a more interesting question than whether wide-leg pants are fashionable:
What changes functionally when workout clothing stops clinging to the legs?
“Away From Body” Is More Than A Fashion Description
Loose workout pants create a fundamentally different clothing environment.
With leggings, most of the textile remains in continuous or near-continuous contact with the skin.
An away-from-body pant creates pockets of air between fabric and skin. That space changes how the garment moves, how sweat interacts with the textile, and how air can circulate underneath it.
Sportswear researchers sometimes describe the conditions between the skin and garment as the clothing microclimate.
A major review of sports clothing and exercise thermoregulation explains that fit, knit structure, air permeability, wicking ability, insulation, and coverage can all influence that microclimate.
That means changing from leggings to loose pants does more than change appearance.
It changes the physical relationship between body, textile, air, and movement.
Loose Clothing Can Improve Airflow
One of the strongest functional arguments for looser clothing involves ventilation.
A 2022 narrative review published in Sports Medicine – Open examined 32 studies involving sports clothing, comfort, thermoregulation, and exercise in different environmental conditions.
The authors noted that tight clothing can reduce the volume of trapped air between fabric and skin, while tight-fitting garments may also limit convective heat loss depending on their air permeability and construction.
The review reports that loose-fitting clothing may improve heat dissipation and thermal comfort in moderate heat by increasing air permeability and airflow across the skin.
The complete sports clothing and thermoregulation review also makes the limitations clear: surprisingly few studies have directly compared genuinely loose and tight sportswear under realistic exercise conditions.
That caveat matters.
It would be an overstatement to say wide-leg pants are scientifically proven to keep every exerciser cooler than leggings.
They are not.
But there is a plausible functional mechanism for greater ventilation when fabric can move and air can circulate.
Loose Does Not Automatically Mean Cooler
This is where activewear advice can become misleading.
Consider two hypothetical garments.
The first is a very lightweight, highly air-permeable pair of fitted shorts.
The second is a heavy, loose pair of full-length sweatpants.
The second garment is looser.
It does not follow that it will be cooler.
Total skin coverage, fabric thickness, knit or weave, air permeability, moisture absorption, color, environmental conditions, and garment construction can all influence thermal comfort.
Research on exercise clothing has repeatedly shown that textile performance is more complicated than simple marketing categories.
The same 2022 review found relatively few consistent differences in physiological or performance outcomes when researchers compared natural and synthetic fabrics.
In other words, neither “synthetic is cooler” nor “loose is cooler” works as a universal rule.
Fit is one variable within a larger clothing system.
Tight Clothing Can Change Thermal Comfort Too
Compression research provides another piece of the puzzle.
A study published in Materials tested three tight-fitting sportswear systems with different compression levels during treadmill running.
Only four participants were included, so the findings should be interpreted cautiously.
Within that small experiment, however, greater compression was associated with higher skin temperature and more intense sweating.
The researchers concluded that compression affected clothing-physiology comfort.
The compression and physiological comfort study does not demonstrate that ordinary leggings are harmful or that loose pants improve performance.
Nor can a four-person treadmill experiment answer what millions of consumers should wear.
What it does reinforce is the broader point that garment pressure and fit can affect the experience of exercise.
More compression is not automatically more functional.
Skin-To-Fabric Contact Changes Too
Thermoregulation is not the only practical difference.
Leggings continuously move against the body because the fabric remains closely coupled to the skin.
Loose pants behave differently.
Fabric can drape, swing, fold, and make intermittent contact.
That can feel less restrictive for someone who dislikes constant fabric pressure.
It can also create new friction points.
A loose inseam can move repeatedly against the thighs.
Excess fabric can bunch behind the knees.
A wide hem can brush the ankle or shoe.
So reducing skin-to-fabric contact in one location may increase fabric movement somewhere else.
This is why “loose equals comfortable” is no more reliable than “compression equals supportive.”
Comfort depends on the garment’s pattern and the activity.
Wide-Leg Pants Change The Body-Contour Question
There is another functional and psychological dimension that should not be ignored.
Skin-tight leggings reveal the external contours created when a highly elastic fabric stretches across a three-dimensional body.
That is simply how fitted clothing behaves.
Away-from-body clothing behaves differently because the fabric hangs from the waist and hips rather than continuously following every surface underneath it.
For some people, that may reduce concerns about visible underwear lines, fabric pulling, localized contouring, or whether leggings look different while squatting than while standing.
That does not mean loose pants are inherently more body-positive.
Nor does choosing leggings indicate greater confidence.
People should be able to choose either silhouette without their clothing preference being interpreted as a judgment about their body.
For the body-neutral approach used throughout cameltoe.org, the useful question is whether the garment provides the comfort, coverage, mobility, and function that the wearer wants. Read our guide: How to Wash & Care for Activewear.
The body does not need to be corrected to accommodate the clothes.
Loose Pants Can Reduce The Importance Of Perfect Stretch Opacity
One practical difference is opacity.
With fitted leggings, fabric stretches substantially around the hips, thighs, knees, and seat.
The amount of extension changes as the wearer squats or bends.
That can alter how much light passes through the textile.
Away-from-body pants generally do not rely on the fabric stretching across the entire leg to create their silhouette.
That can make stretch opacity less central to the design.
But it does not eliminate coverage problems.
Thin woven fabrics can still become revealing under strong backlighting.
Loose fabric can shift during movement.
Wide legs can move upward during floor exercises.
The engineering problem changes rather than disappearing.
Waistband Fit Still Matters
Replacing tight legs with loose legs does not solve every familiar activewear problem.
The waistband still has to keep the garment in position.
In fact, loose pants can make waistband engineering particularly important because the fabric below the waist contributes less circumferential tension.
A wide-leg pant may therefore depend heavily on:
waistband elasticity,
drawcords,
panel construction,
rise,
fabric weight,
and the relationship between waist and hip measurements.
A waistband that is too loose can allow the entire garment to migrate.
One that is excessively tight can undermine the comfort advantage someone hoped to gain by choosing a relaxed silhouette.
The ideal loose workout pant is not a pair of leggings with the legs enlarged.
It needs to be patterned as a different garment.
Strength Training Is An Interesting Middle Ground
Loose workout pants can make considerable sense for some forms of strength training.
A person performing dumbbell presses, rows, lunges, or moderate free-weight exercises may not need fabric tightly coupled to the legs.
An away-from-body pant can offer mobility while reducing the sensation of continuous compression.
But gym equipment introduces additional considerations.
Fabric can brush benches.
Long hems can approach the floor.
Very wide legs can obscure foot placement.
Loose pockets containing a phone can swing during dynamic exercises.
Barbells may catch or drag against excess material depending on the lift and garment.
This does not make wide-leg pants unsafe for strength training as a category.
It means silhouette needs to match the exercise environment.
Cycling Still Favors A Very Different Garment
A stationary bike immediately changes the calculation.
Loose fabric near pedals, crank arms, or other moving components is undesirable.
Cycling clothing has historically become close-fitting for multiple functional reasons, including reducing excess material and controlling garment movement.
Someone using loose workout pants should therefore consider whether the legs or hems can interact with equipment before beginning.
The same principle applies to any machine with exposed or moving components.
This is one area where a fitted silhouette can be functionally useful independent of fashion.
Running Creates Another Tradeoff
Running makes fabric move thousands of times during a workout.
That makes loose clothing neither inherently better nor inherently worse.
Lightweight running shorts demonstrate that away-from-body construction can work extremely well when the garment is deliberately engineered for running.
Full-length wide-leg pants present a different problem.
Additional material can move with each stride.
A long hem can interact with shoes.
Wet fabric can become heavier.
Wind can influence the garment.
The best running clothing therefore depends on more than whether it touches the skin.
A lightweight tapered jogger can offer a looser alternative to tights while keeping fabric controlled around the lower leg.
A dramatically flared fashion pant may behave very differently.
Pilates Does Not Require One Uniform
Lululemon specifically noted that consumers continue buying leggings for yoga and Pilates, even as away-from-body silhouettes gain traction elsewhere.
There are functional reasons fitted leggings remain popular in studios.
They stay close to the limbs.
They do not drape toward the face during certain floor positions.
There is less loose material around reformer components.
Some instructors and participants also prefer being able to see limb positioning clearly.
But none of that means tight leggings are mandatory for Pilates.
A well-designed jogger or tapered studio pant can accommodate substantial hip and knee mobility without excessive fabric.
The important considerations become cuff or hem control, stretch, waistband stability, seam comfort, and interaction with equipment.
That gives consumers more than one workable silhouette.
Walking May Be Where Loose Activewear Makes The Most Sense
Walking presents fewer clothing constraints than many sports.
There are no pedals.
There is usually no floor contact.
There is less need to control fabric during explosive movement.
For everyday walking, loose technical pants can therefore combine activewear features with a relaxed silhouette particularly effectively.
Breathable fabric, pockets, stretch, adjustable waistbands, and lightweight construction can all matter without requiring skin-tight fit.
This may help explain why the boundary between activewear and ordinary clothing continues to blur.
A technical pant no longer needs to look like traditional gymwear to function during light physical activity.
The Trend Is Probably Not Purely Functional
It would be tempting to interpret Lululemon’s numbers as proof that consumers have discovered a technically superior way to exercise.
The evidence does not support that.
Fashion cycles matter.
Silhouette preferences change.
Consumers may simply want something new after years of leggings dominating casual clothing.
Loose pants can also move more easily between work, travel, errands, walking, and casual social settings without reading visually as dedicated exercise clothing.
And Lululemon’s financial performance reflects many factors beyond women’s pants.
The company’s September report showed declining Americas revenue and comparable sales alongside international growth, revised expectations, tariffs, product strategy, marketing decisions, and broader competitive pressures.
Legging weakness is part of that story, not the whole story.
September 2026 Marks A Significant Moment For Lululemon
The timing adds another dimension.
Lululemon’s official Q2 announcement said the company was preparing to welcome incoming CEO Heidi O’Neill, who takes over on September 8, 2026.
O’Neill arrives while the company is trying to strengthen product offerings and navigate changing consumer preferences.
The shift toward away-from-body bottoms therefore matters strategically.
Lululemon is not abandoning leggings.
Instead, it appears to be broadening the definition of what a technical women’s bottom can look like.
That distinction may ultimately prove more important.
Fit Should Follow The Activity
The emerging activewear wardrobe may contain both silhouettes rather than forcing consumers to choose sides.
| Activity | Loose Pants Can Work Well When | Fitted Leggings Can Be Useful When |
|---|---|---|
| Walking | Lightweight, breathable and hem length is controlled | Wearer prefers close fit or reduced fabric movement |
| Strength Training | Fabric stays clear of equipment and feet | Precise fabric control is useful |
| Pilates | Legs are tapered or loose material stays controlled | Reformer interaction or garment movement is a concern |
| Yoga | Fabric accommodates full range of motion | Inversions or transitions make loose fabric distracting |
| Running | Garment is lightweight and appropriately tapered | Reduced fabric movement is preferred |
| Cycling | Loose material is kept completely away from moving components | Close fit controls excess fabric |
| Warm-Up/Recovery | Relaxed fit provides comfort and layering room | Compression sensation is personally preferred |
This is why asking whether loose pants are “better” than leggings misses the larger change.
They solve different clothing problems.
More Fabric Can Also Mean More Heat
Loose clothing can increase airflow, but wide-leg pants also contain fabric.
That matters in warm environments.
Research on exercise thermoregulation consistently emphasizes total coverage and clothing properties alongside fit.
A review in Sports Medicine explains that clothing can act as a barrier to both heat transfer and sweat evaporation during exercise in warm conditions.
The research on clothing and exercise in heat emphasizes that construction, fit, and fabric all affect thermal balance.
So someone exercising outside in hot weather should not automatically choose full-length wide-leg pants because they are loose.
Lightweight shorts may provide much greater exposed skin area.
A thin, breathable loose pant may work well for sun coverage or personal preference, but clothing alone does not make dangerous heat safe.
Environmental conditions, exercise intensity, hydration, acclimatization, and individual factors still matter.
Fabric Technology Matters Regardless Of Silhouette
The most interesting outcome of the loose-pant trend may be what happens when brands apply serious performance-textile engineering to silhouettes traditionally associated with casual clothing.
A technical wide-leg pant can potentially combine:
four-way stretch,
high air permeability,
quick drying,
low fabric mass,
secure pockets,
a stable waistband,
and controlled drape.
Those properties do not require the garment to compress the legs.
Likewise, leggings can combine excellent moisture management, stretch recovery, durability, and low bulk.
Technical fabric and tight fit are separate concepts.
The activewear industry spent years visually linking them.
The current market may be beginning to separate them again.
Leggings Still Solve Problems Loose Pants Cannot
The approximately 20% Q2 decline reported in Lululemon’s legging business should not be interpreted as evidence that leggings have become obsolete.
Close-fitting garments offer genuine functional advantages.
They control fabric movement.
They make it easier to layer other garments.
They can keep hems away from equipment.
They reduce loose material during running and other repetitive movement.
They can be practical during exercises involving substantial floor work.
They also remain a preference for many people who simply like how leggings feel.
The important change is that those benefits no longer justify treating leggings as the default answer to every workout.
Loose Workout Pants Are Expanding The Definition Of Performance Clothing
Lululemon’s Q2 2026 results provide evidence of a commercial shift: legging sales fell substantially while several away-from-body styles gained traction.
Sportswear research provides some plausible functional reasons consumers may enjoy the alternative.
Looser garments can alter airflow, thermal comfort, skin contact, and the sensation of restriction. Research has also shown that greater compression is not synonymous with greater clothing comfort.
But science does not establish that loose workout pants are universally superior.
The activity matters.
The environment matters.
Fabric matters.
Garment construction matters.
And personal comfort matters.
For someone walking, warming up, doing selected strength exercises, or simply wanting technical clothing without continuous fabric pressure, a well-designed loose pant can be genuinely functional.
For cycling, running, equipment-heavy exercise, or activities where excess material becomes distracting, fitted clothing may remain the better tool.
The larger 2026 shift is therefore less about replacing leggings than about ending the idea that one silhouette has to dominate women’s activewear.
That is a useful development for body-neutral fitness clothing.
Instead of asking whether a body looks better in tight or loose pants, shoppers can ask a more practical question:
What does this garment need to do during the activity I actually perform?
Once that becomes the standard, skin-tight leggings and loose workout pants can coexist for exactly the reason performance clothing should exist in the first place: different movements create different clothing needs.