I adore embroidery, and I also love doing yoga. It was a natural that I would seek out embroidered yoga pants to wear, and Hard Tail had a set of capris! Here is my review of them.
First, they are easily the most expensive yoga pants I own. Their list price was $65. Normally I would choke at such an outrageously high figure for a pair of pants, but in this case I had a $50 gift certificate that I'd owned for years without finding a purpose for, for Nordstrom. One day on a whim I went digging through their yoga area and found these pants, and they were on sale. The gift certificate barely covered the pant cost, but since I hadn't found any other use for it, I decided to splurge.
I've worn them many times now. They do make me happy, because they are so pretty. However, on the down side, I'm always nervous when I wear them, because I worry about ripping them or getting them stained or so on. With a regular $6 pair of yoga pants it's not a big deal. If they end up destroyed I am OK buying another. With this pair it's like wearing a fancy dress. I worry about damaging them. And since yoga is a fairly active activity - and one I like to do outdoors - it adds a level of stress which seems counter to the point of doing yoga.
They are certainly comfy, but I have several pairs of cheaper yoga pants that are more comfortable, both for just walking around in and also for doing poses in. So they don't have some sort of exceptional level of comfort to go with the price.
Most importantly, this large embroidery work right across the back of the pants means when you're doing poses on your back - like bridge pose - that you have a hard ridge of bumpy stuff digging into your back and spine! That was a real surprise to me. These are yoga pants. They're meant for doing yoga in. They shouldn't interfere with the very purpose they were made for.
I get the sense that these pants are actually "pretty pants for people who want to show they're interested in yoga, to wear when they're not doing yoga." I do admire the embroidery. I do think they're pretty. But I imagine they're best for a special night out dancing, to show off your form. And also, you need to wear a short top with them, so the embroidery can even be seen.
