Lanvin Does Laps Around the Competition

For those living the Kafka-esque life, in cubicles amongst co-workers, freelance writing sounds like the height of luxury. Speaking from experience, the reality can be far from glamorous. Even fashion freelancers fall victim to the temptation of total frumpiness. With no separation between work and home, financial flux and a sofa for an office, otherwise chic scribes slip out of normal society and into sweats. “I would show up at fashion shows in Converse and Kmart T-shirts,” confesses Porochista Khakpour, once a freelance fashion and culture writer for Flaunt, Paper and others; now am acclaimed novelist and professor. It’s only a year ago that YSL took sweatpants up-market. Leave it to Lanvin to lionize the chavs among us, and offer wireless brains more worldly allure. This season, Alber Elbaz put men on his catwalk in slinky grey, blue and camel sweat-pants. Infinitely more intellectual than Juicy Couture, these flexible and slinky little numbers might be priced out of many freelancers’ budgets, but they are worth the investment. Admit it freelancer: you’ll probably be wearing them to work every single day.