Pleated Sweatpants Recast Athleisure as Soft Power Dressing This Spring

Highsnobiety published early March 2026 and named a new spring trend "soft power dressing," identifying pleated sweatpants, drawstring-fastened wool trousers and bathrobe-like coats as the clearest markers reshaping streetwear this season. The bulletin frames the shift as a design migration: tailoring adopting loungewear construction, loungewear taking on tailoring silhouette cues.

The piece defines the trend bluntly as "a mutation of athleisure that blends soft, sporty sets with conventionally-at-odds designs," and insists the look is "inconspicuous at first glance." Highsnobiety argues this iteration is not the same as "the various iterations of Lululemon for the even-richer," and that what matters is the mix of soft, sporty pieces with tailored elements rather than logo-driven trackies.

Runway and collection examples anchor the argument. At Dries Van Noten, Highsnobiety says the brand "went full business up top and slumber party down below," pairing "colorful ties, deep Vs, and double-breasted jackets with ribbed-knit, elastic-cuffed bottoms." Hermès, under Veronique Nichanian, produced what the bulletin calls a "cruelly cozy-looking ensemble of pinstriped, fuzzy wool that neatly blended in with the severe suits and high-collared leathers also shown," a juxtaposition the note highlights as part of the tailoring-loungewear crossover.

Highsnobiety also points to Calvin Klein, which "sent out" a "teasing trench-covered onesie along with a bathrobe-resembling wrap-coat," examples the bulletin uses to show how outerwear forms are softening into lounge silhouettes. The piece flags celebrity street and off-duty styling as proof of the trend’s cultural velocity, citing "Jacob Elordi's Arc'teryx, cascading sweats, and Saint Laurent scrunchy slide-ins combo" as a visible, if "perverse," enactment of soft power dressing in public life.

Beyond surface looks, the bulletin tracks construction changes: "sweatpants now come pleated," "Wool trousers are no longer buttoned into but fastened by drawstrings," and the "preppy venture capitalists’ favorite, previously slim-fitted quarter-zip is turning frumpier and comfier by the minute, more home-office hoodie than Hamptons." Those shifts matter because they reposition materials and closures—pleats, drawstrings, elastic cuffs—toward comfort-first tailoring.

Highsnobiety forecasts this as an early but durable move: "We’re still in the early stages of this trend, but the creative potential of such lounge-ish-wear has the makings of slow-burn, long-term style infiltration as it moves closer into focus." The note emphasizes that consumers are repurposing sleepwear aesthetics too, "not limited to consumers guerilla-repurposing TEKLAor Schostal pajama halves or Charvet-like (house) slippers for regular ‘fits."

Styling takeaways are clear from the examples offered: pair a structural jacket and colorful tie with ribbed, elastic-cuffed bottoms; let a trench conceal a onesie silhouette; counter draped cotton-jersey joggers with a clashing dress shoe for the cap-crowned Gen-Z uniform the bulletin describes. If spring 2026 proves anything, it is that pleated sweatpants are less a momentary novelty and more evidence that "In 2026, tailoring is increasingly built like loungewear, and loungewear is increasingly cut like tailoring.