Why Is Every Dancer on Instagram Wearing These Urban Outfitters Sweatpants?
It started, as so many rabbit holes do: with my Instagram algorithm. Having deduced that I’ve been taking dance classes, it proceeded to serve me a series of Reels from professional dancers, often featuring the recognizable red backdrop of Millennium Dance Complex in L.A. (if you know, you know).
At first, I watched the videos as merely an appreciative eye, admiring the dancers’ quality of movement, their musicality, and their timing. But my shopping writer brain cannot be turned off, and after a while I noticed that a lot of these dancers seemed to be sporting a certain pair of pants. They were usually navy blue or heather gray, trimmed with white contrast piping down the sides, and baggy as all get-out. They also had a small, subtle logo on the left thigh. Determined to track them down, I took a screenshot, zoomed in and squinted. Through the blurry pixels, I made out the words “Iets Frans.”
Where did the pants come from?
A Dutch phrase that translates to “something French,” Iets Frans is Urban Outfitters’ in-house athleisure and streetwear label, offering up sporty hoodies, tank tops, and, of course, plenty of sweatpants. The pair in question were the Harri Wide-Leg Jogger Pants, a slouchy, very oversized style that launched in late 2023 — though it wasn’t until the summer of 2024 that “everyone started posting in them,” says Isabelle David, a student at the University of Illinois and president of the school’s dance crew, ImagiNation. Like me, she originally encountered them online. “I love watching dance classes from big choreographers in L.A. and New York,” she said, “and I remember seeing them and thinking, Wow, they look really good when you dance.”
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From there, they spread like wildfire. Dancers made meme videos poking fun at their own propensity for the pants. Urban Outfitters released them in more colors, from forest green to berry red, and sometimes modeled them on breakdancers posed mid-air or upside down. An out-of-the-loop Reddit user posted in r/dance with a screenshot, asking for an ID, and someone commented that “every dancer under the sun owns these” and “it’s a cult at this point.” Mariel Santos, a dancer, nurse, and content creator based in L.A., estimates that out of 100 students, at least 60 percent of them are wearing the Harris. “Every time I go to Urban Outfitters, the sweats are the first thing I see at the entrance,” she says.
The pants even caught the eye of Charlotte Seet Mun, a dancer and content creator based in Singapore, who also first spotted them on TikTok. However, there are no Urban Outfitters in Singapore, so when she visited L.A. this past March, acquiring a pair was at the top of her to-do list. As it turned out, their surging popularity had made them tricky to come by at the time. “My dad drove me all over LA to different Urban Outfitters and they were all sold out. It was really hard to get them,” she told me, though she did eventually track them down — and now owns five pairs.
What is it about the Iets Frans pants specifically?
Loose, oversized clothing has always been the unofficial uniform for dancers, especially for hip-hop and street styles, to help emphasize and accentuate their movements. “In hip-hop, the movements are very big and explosive. If you wear tight-fitting clothes, you won’t look as big on stage,” Seet Mun explains. But what is about these specific pants that made them catch on so intensely within the dance world? David theorizes the specific cut and material are especially suited for high-intensity movement. The 100-percent-cotton fabric “isn’t too thick where it has a very rigid structure,” she says. “It flows, and that’s visually appealing.” Plus the comfort and breathability of a big, baggy pair of pants can’t be beat. “I hate when sweatpants stick to your skin. These give you a lot of breathing room and don’t feel overly heavy,” says Santos. She’s in the studio five to six times a week, and wears them to pretty much every class. “I own eight, nine pairs,” she confesses. “I have almost every single color.”
At $59, the pants are relatively affordable, even if they aren’t cheap. And the fact that they hold up over time (“The quality is really good, and the color doesn’t wear off,” says Seet Mun), and can be worn casually outside of the studio make them well worth the price tag. David wears them straight from her academic classes to her rehearsals, and Santos has styled them with everything from a leather jacket to a bikini top. “I guess I can either, for lack of a better word, swag them up or swag them down,” she told me.
I’m now a convert myself
After hearing these testimonials firsthand, I needed to find out what was so special about these pants, what gave them their je ne sais quoi, that somehow imbues a dancer with more: more power, more grace, more confidence. I called in a pair in navy, size XS. They ended up being a few inches too long (I’m 5’3”), but since the pants have an adjustable drawstring at the ankle to cinch the hem, that solved the issue. I wore them to a hip-hop class — which, having grown up training purely in classical ballet, is the genre I struggle with the most. When I glanced at myself in the mirror, I was struck by how much I looked the part: like a cool hip-hop dancer, fluid and assured rather than stiff and clumsy, as I usually feel. All that excess fabric acted almost like a security blanket, blurring and obscuring any awkward movements — and, by extension, the awkwardness I felt executing them.
It wasn’t just the pants, per se. It was the positive feedback loop generated by the pants: I looked cool in the pants, I felt cool in the pants, and thus was empowered to dance bigger, bolder, less self-consciously.
“When you look and feel good, you dance the best,” Santos told me. Sometimes it’s as simple as that.
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