It is rare for any item of clothing to be both a timeless fashion essential and inherently linked to a particular era. However, leg warmers manage to be both, in no small part because they are exceptionally versatile.
Whilst they can be worn for aerobics or as part of a distinctly neon-tinged look, leg warmers can be worn as an accessory to a wide range of different styles.
In 2025, it has become a key part of the balletcore aesthetic, but they can also be worn as comfortable loungewear or paired with oversized sweaters.
Whilst the fashion credentials of leg warmers are appreciated today, they were initially made for dancers and athletes to help avoid injury.
A Rehearsal Essential
When undergoing intense practice sessions and rehearsals, dancers need to ensure that their lower leg muscles are kept warm enough as they warm up to avoid straining and injuring themselves.
Socks were not ideal, given that this could affect a ballet dancer’s balance in extremely thin-soled shoes and would be difficult to remove once they got too warm.
In the 1970s, there seemed to be a solution in the form of thick, baggy leg warmers. They could easily be put on and taken off as needed. They were also stretchy enough to be used to cover anywhere from the lower calf muscles to the lower thigh.
Dancing Into The Zeitgeist
They quickly spread as an aerobics essential, since they also helped stop cramping during stretches, and by the late 70s, they became a more widespread fashion essential thanks in no small part to an aerobics craze that coincided with it.
Whilst credited to actress Jane Fonda and her highly popular workout videos, there were a wide number of factors that combined to make leg warmers an almost inescapable trend in the 1980s.
In 1980, there were two films that managed to bring leg warmers from the Bay Area of San Francisco and turn them into a global trend, both released within months of each other.
They Will Be Worn Forever
The Alan Parker film Fame was technically the first, and as a film about a performing arts academy, it gave a lot of people their first glimpse of leg warmers as part of fashionable practice gear.
Just as important as Fame was their stylistic use as a fashion accessory in the Olivia Newton-John fantasy musical Xanadu.
By the time 1983’s Flashdance was released amidst an entire aerobics craze, leg warmers had become the style accessory of the entire decade, aided by the fact that they were being sold in increasingly varied patterns and shades.
Whilst there was a slight lull in their popularity by the end of the 1980s as more muted and simplistic fashions became popular again, they never truly went away, and by the 2020s have become more popular than ever.
This was started by a retro revival trend in the late 2000s which happened to coincide with remakes of Fame and Flashdance, but it took on a life of its own after this, aided by the rise of athleisure fashion that was perfectly suited to leg warmers.
