Does this Spandex Make me Look Fat?

Unfortunately, I've become an avid mountain biker in the past year. I say unfortunately because it's yet another activity that requires wearing a skin tight outfit.

It was already bad enough coming home from the barn every day in my riding clothes and mustering up the courage to stop at the supermarket where invariably, some mid-30 year old male asks "have you been out riding?" which he asks as a way of excusing himself from staring at my backside in ultra-tight breeches. What Mr. Supermarket fails to realize is that NOBODY wants attention drawn to them in their riding clothes. Terribly outdated in style, uncomfortable, and awkward, riding clothes definitely rank at the bottom of the fashion ladder within the sporting world.

I used to think dismal fashions applied only to my discipline of dressage. But after closer inspection, I concluded that, no, the horse world in general looks straight out of Vaudeville.

Whenever I start to really lament the necessity of tight breeches for English riding, I go and watch a Western class at a show. Now, those riders have some funny outfits. Shiny belt buckles the size of dinner plates, enormous hats, gaudy shirts, flapping fringes dangling off nearly every surface from saddle to pants to gloves. To me, they look like they belong more in a parade-- or circus-- than in an equestrian competition. And this does my heart good because my outfit seems a lot less strange.

Of course, Western apparel pales in comparison to the cabaret styles on display in a Saddle Seat class. Probably not since the 1940s have so many people under one roof donned derbies and tailcoats. Neon-colored tailcoats, I might add. However, those styles might seem positively modern compared to what carriage driving folks pull out of their closets. I grew up on the back of my father's carriage and I probably never stopped asking him the purpose of his lap robe or "apron" as drivers call them. Weren't aprons for kitchens? How did they contribute to one's driving skills? It's just part of the outfit, my Dad always replied. Also part of the outfit was a funny looking straw hat, a blazer, and thick leather gloves. Whoever introduced carriage driving to this country was obviously a huge fan of The Great Gatsby.

Equestrian apparel remains far beyond my mountain biking outfits in terms of absurdity. But it also has something really good going for it, in my opinion. Once you get past the discomfort of artificial fabric materials and the fact that they cling to you in all the wrong places, riding apparel forces us to give up being so self-conscious. You get past any shyness about wearing tight clothes or looking silly, because after all, you're wearing the threads necessary to do what you love.

So, when Mr. Supermarket asks me his ridiculous question "Have you been out riding?," I look him square in the eye with my best sarcastic tone and answer "Well, I sure didn't put on this outfit just to come to the store..."