Tegan and Sara: Who Wears the (Sweat)Pants in the Family?

By the time they become international stars, most musicians have developed "a look." For KISS it's menacing makeup and spandex, for Amy Winehouse it was her signature beehive, and for Lady Gaga it can be anything from dresses made out of prosciutto to dresses made out of Kermit the Frogs.

For indie pop twins Tegan and Sara, their look may become... sweatpants. Just don't tell that to Sara Quin. The pair have a well-earned reputation for occasionally being quarrelsome with each other, and apparently the wearing of sweatpants is one issue where Tegan and Sara will never see eye to eye.

"Oh my god," starts Sara, telling Spinner about the newest cotton-fleece blend piece of Tegan and Sara merchandise. "Tegan became really obsessed about six months ago about doing sweatpants. Like, seriously, I can not tell you how many emails went back and forth between our management office and our art director and Tegan about sweatpant. I was like, 'Is this part of some sweatpant Olympics?' Like, I don't understand why this is such a high priority right now?"
Somewhat more useable than a KISS Kasket, the Tegan and Sara sweatpants come in plain black with the band name in letters across the left leg. The pants retail for $44.99. Sara says the whole point of doing the pants was to come up with merch items that are useful.

"I feel like we're always trying to come up with things that are not wasteful," says Sara. "I mean this very sincerely. We're very involved in our merch company and we're always. 'What are other things besides the t-shirt?' Sweatshirt, obvious staples... what else can we do? We try not to waste too much money or too much time, but the truth is that I actually think there's a certain demographic that loves sweatpants. Especially that letter on the butt here's-my-college or my boyfriend or whatever vibe, so we just want to get in that market. We gotta get in there."

Don't, however, expect to see Sara rocking the sweats. That's not her style.

"I am my grandmother's daughter," she says. "My grandmother was such a snazzy dresser up until she was in her 80s and she always looked cool and contemporary. And I live in New York so everybody looks like a million bucks every day. There are certain cities, naming no names, and I walk around thinking 'Really, sweatpants?' and I'm like, 'Put a blazer on if you're going to walk around like that.' C'mon. Like, let's step this shit up. C'mon!

"I think it was David Sedaris that wrote this amazing essay about people looking like complete shit in airports and just... and I mean I could be butchering it, but it was like, this used to be like flying travel was for the super elite and now it's the greyhounds of the sky and everyone looks like shit. There's a lot of sweatpants at airports these days."

Wearing sweatpants at an airport is a divisive issue for Sara. She's clearly against them. And if a recent Globe and Mail story about how flight attendants favor well-dressed passengers is to be believed, she's got the right idea. Sara agrees that dressing up for flights does yield better treatment.

"Oh fuck yeah," she says. "We travel all over the world. I've flown to Australia many, many,many times. I've flown to India. I've flown all over the world. I swear to you I always dress for success. I do not, people do it... Tegan does it, she'll come out in her hammer pant sweatpants thing, an eye patch and a neck brace and I'm just like, 'No, sorry. It's not going to happen.' I'll just put my coat over my head and buckle up and, like ,goodnight.

"I still wear proper slacks or pants or jeans or whatever. I am not going to put sweatpants on. It's not going to happen."



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