As promised, here’s the second half of my store try-ons at lululemon. (Here’s part 1.) In this half, I’ll go over some recent pants releases.
Reviewed in this post:
Align pants – black
Tight stuff tights – wine berry
All meshed up tights – bordeaux drama
Wunder under pants *stripes – bordeaux drama
Wunder under pants – space dye twist regal plum
For reference, I am 5’3″ and typically wear a lululemon size 2 in both tops and bottoms.
Align pants – black
After all the hype over the new nulu fabric, I was expecting to be blown away by the greatness of these pants. So, I went in with high expectations. I pulled them on, waiting for the angels to sing…
And OMG, instantly hated these pants!!!! Not what I was expecting my reaction to be at all. One of the biggest issues is that the rise is WAY too high for me. For whatever reason, I’ve never been able to deal with high rise anything (even when I was a kid), but I can live with something a bit below my belly button if the fit is right. These are aggressively high rise. I could not stand the look or the feel of the waistband. Something about the overall look came off as 80s/90s to me.
The fabric also felt different than I expected. It has a soft yet somewhat slick handfeel. It’d be a little bit like if rulu and luxtreme had a baby, minus any semblance of compression. I also found the fabric to be a bit revealing. They were totally opaque on me, so that’s a plus, but it hugged all the contours of my bum in a way that I didn’t really care for. They aren’t kidding when they say naked sensation.
Overall, I felt like I was wearing pantyhose (or something?) that happened to be opaque. I had been waiting for a non-black color to come out to try these out, but now I know I can take these off of my list. I’m sure my reaction wouldn’t have been so strong if I had no expectations going in, but all the hype totally did these in for me. Of course, these aren’t necessarily bad pants, and I’m of course not hating on those who love them, but they were super wrong for me! That leaves more for you guys. ;)
Tight stuff tights – wine berry
Now for another try at another one of lulu’s new “engineered sensations”. My first impression was that these pants were, well, tight. I had to shimmy my way into them a bit (which inspired part of the last lulu problems), and even the hem was hard to get around my heel. Once I got them on, I didn’t really like the feel of these. It didn’t feel like compression in a good way; the feeling seemed closer to being constricted than being “locked and loaded” (though granted, I could still move around just fine, and didn’t feel like I was going to rip the pants if I squat). I like pants with compression to still feel like they’re molding to my body, and these didn’t deliver there. Lulu’s site says that these are best in your true size, so I don’t think sizing up would’ve been helpful. On the plus side, they weren’t sheer, and the cut is pretty flattering, so it may just be personal preference that I didn’t like these. But overall, very underwhelming for me, especially with a $148 price tag.
All meshed up tights – bordeaux drama
These were actually surprisingly nice. They fit very well in my true size (aside from the usual slightly baggy ankles), and the luxtreme offers a moderate amount of compression that feels quite nice. They weren’t sheer on me. I like the details like the diagonal zip waistband pocket, seaming, and flash light accents. The mesh isn’t as overdone as some of the other mesh bottoms lately. I actually like these significantly better than the tight stuff tights above, and they’re a solid $50 cheaper to boot. I don’t really have a need for them, but I think these are a decently good buy for those interested.
Wunder under pants *stripes – bordeaux drama
The seams are fun and frame the booty nicely, but stay out of the way of important areas like the knee. They’re cotton so they’re quite comfy, though between the stripes and the fabric, there was something about these that still looked very, very casual, almost pajama-like. I was pleased to find that they were opaque, though (I had great luck with opacity this round!). The fit was also quite comfortable, not too tight in my normal size.
Wunder under pants – space dye twist regal plum
Rounding out the accidental burgundy theme, space dye twist! The weave of this fabric felt tighter than my other WUPs. It’s not nearly enough to size up, just a subtle difference I noticed. I’m not sure if this is true of all space dye twists, since this is the only pair I’ve tried. These were the first pair of WUP iii’s I have tried on, but other than the overall tighter fit (which I assume is due to the specific pattern), I didn’t notice any real difference from previous WUP’s. They were opaque, though you can see the pattern does not line up on my pair. I couldn’t quite decide how much this bothered me, though obviously lining up would be preferable. The colors in this pattern are quite pretty, though I do wonder if the reddish tones would make this a bit difficult to match in practice.
I too had high hopes for the Align Pants but was disappointed with the fabric, compression and the one I tried showed my pantry lines :( I went home with the black SE WU instead!
Yeah, I’m sure they would’ve shown awful lines if I hadn’t been wearing something seamless underneath. They seemed so revealing. SE WU sound like a much better choice. ;)
I tried on my usual 6 in the align pants and it felt like they would fall down. I never tried a 4 because 6 was all they had but it made me appreciate the compression pants!!
I bought and returned the Align twice. Like you said, I’m sure it’s awesome for some people (which is why I kept trying it…) but something about the fabric wasn’t for me. I also think it’s not flattering compared to lulu’s usual. Lots of people rave about the Tight Stuff Tights, but that’s another one where I feel like I am at least as happy with my Speed Tights and they’re $50 less.
Have you tried the Toasty Tech Tight? I think they feel crazy nice. Plush. But they also feel different so I can see it being a preference thing.
I had heard some raves about the tight stuffs too, but I just don’t get it at all! Money saved at least–glad my faves are cheaper. ;) And I did get the toasty techs! I freaking LOVE them. “Plush” is spot on. I got them in bordeaux but am debating whether to get them in fuel if that color comes to the US.
Yes!! I’m excited that you love them, too :D I think they’re my best lulu purchase in a long time. I got them in black. Been wearing lots of black lately. But the fuel is mighty tempting.
I did not love Align, Base runner, and some other popular lulu pants. The Toasty Tech tights are coming tomorrow so we will see how they work out. The newly released Runderful pants on the UK site have potential. Hopefully it is not ridiculously long on me (5’1″) and staticky like dog runner. My favorite winter pants are lined Studio pants. A pair of skinny legged, lined pants will be a great addition to my lulu collection.
I really love my toasties! I hope you like them too. :) The runderfuls have the drawstring at the bottom, so I’m hoping that will work out to manage the length. I never actually hemmed my dog runners, I just tie off the drawstring and tuck it under. The plus side is that it actually helps keep the cold out that way. Hopefully that will look ok with the runderfuls too.
Thanks for the reviews! The aggressively high rise made me laugh out loud ?! I really liked the look of the last two pants on you, did you get any of the ones you tried?
Nope, I didn’t get anything this time. I did order the toasty techs online though, and I really like those!
Great! I’ve been eyeing those! Any chance of a review ??
Yup, I’m hopefully almost finished with it. :)
Thanks for the review! I haven’t tried on any of the new pants and was wondering how they’d fit. Sounds like it’s worth sticking to my tried and true Lulu favorites.
Yup, same here. Just as well, I don’t need more “needs”. :)
I returned Aling pants when they first came out, but went back to get them after a week. I love them. I wear them casually, they feel AMAZING
Fair enough! You can have them all to yourself. ;)
The align pants never appealed to me either. FWIW, I got the tight stuff tights in a 6, but I wear most other tights in a 4. I remember breaking a sweat getting the TST over my feet and calves LOL. They’re definitely unusual ;-)
Haha I felt like I was breaking a sweat too! I don’t have very much patience for try-ons (especially since the stores are always so busy when I’m there), so I just couldn’t get up the motivation to try on a size up, especially since I was “meh” about them already.
Haha oh man I love the aligns!! Although I will admit, the fabric seems so delicate I’m pretty sure I’ll only wear them casually.
Yeah, the fabric felt a bit delicate to me too. Enjoy yours though, you can have them all, haha.
My first pair of Lululemon Wunder Unders.