A yoga outfit fail last week! I was coming straight from work, in a huge hurry because we’d had an end of financial year celebration (involving a soft drink only for me, in my yogic virtue 🙂 ), and when I got to the changing room with minutes to spare before class I realised I’d forgotten my yoga vest! I had just a moment to check in with a female teacher who happened to be attending class to see what the studio protocol was in practising in bra plus leggings, and after a pause she said it would be OK — but only because the rules were unclear! Tops on for gents, but no specific rule for the girls. Actually it was a pretty warm day and I wasn’t the only one dressed like this, it turned out. I wonder if they all asked…
And even so I felt the need to cover up by wearing my office top for the start and close of the class. Am I weird to think it isn’t quite right to sit essentially in my undies for chanting OM? — even if I might be OK with being like this for the physical practice, and with a male teacher.
I’m probably overthinking it. I know I do find the whole yoga fashion phenomenon sightly ridiculous. Sure, it can be kind of fun with all the prints and the styles and that, but I can easily come over all serious and fundamentally I am uneasy with yoga being too much about the look of the thing. The girls I go to class with regularly freak me out with the number of personal comments they make about my hair and clothing and the stuff I have (seriously, my lunchbox was a daily topic of conversation during teacher training!!), and they unerringly spot when I’m wearing something new. I get irrationally irritated when someone says they like my outfit: I’d prefer that they complimented my focus during practice, my graceful transitions, or the evenness of my breathing!
Though to be fair to my lovely yogini friends, they do that sometimes too!
babycrowyoga 
I remember my teacher saying once – what would her first teacher (Swami Vishnu Devananda) think about the way people dress for yoga class today, coming, as he did, from a much more traditional culture… For myself, I try for a balance between practical comfort, modesty, and – I’ll be honest here – camouflage of certain aspects of my 58 year old body!
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yes. And that’s a far cry from Hubby’s gym-based teacher who tells everyone (mostly girls) to practise as though they’re naked — i.e. desperately holding their bellies in. Hmm..
Funny that now that I’m teaching I appreciate tight clothing in a whole new way — much easier to observe alignment!!
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