Once you’re hooked, climbing and bouldering can be pretty expensive sports. Climbing boots, chalk, ropes, crash pads…the equipment list is pretty long. Then there’s clothing, the branded gear can easily get into hundreds of pounds. I’m yet to find my pot of gold or money tree, so I’ve worked with my budgets and finally got a comfortable and practical climbing wardrobe.
I’m more of an over sized t-shirt and jogger bottoms kinda gir
l when it comes to exercise, as that’s what I feel comfortable in. However I always felt a bit awkward nipping to the supermarket post climbing dressed like that, you can get some weird/suspicious looks even when you tell people it’s just chalk. So when I saw a female climber crushing all types of problems in climbing jeans and a shirt, it was like a whole new wardrobe was shown to me on a climbing wall catwalk. Internet research told me that climbing denims are pricey because they are hard wearing like jeans, but they also have some spandex technology so you can stretch and climb without restriction. So I found a cheaper alternative – jeggings. After some retail therapy and a little trial and error I discovered Next denim leggings, and these are what I’ve been wearing to climb ever since.
I really like how they still fasten like jeans but have plenty of stretch for high foot moves, or when you have to be extra flexible. These pants seem hard wearing so far, having slid down the walls and whacked my knees more times than I would care to admit, no rips have appeared. They’ve also been very warm these last few wintery months, and they are not too tight to get some thermals under if needed. Plus for £24 they are nearly half the price of some branded climbing jeans. As if that wasn’t enough, an extra bonus for the shorter ladies out there is that they are available in petite so no hem rolling is necessary, but I just like how it looks so I do it anyway!
I feel happy and confident bopping around in these denim leggings both pre and post climbing session, I simply pair them with a regular t-shirt and layer as necessary. Overall I’m extremely pleased with these as a cheaper alternative to climbing jeans, and I can see myself purchasing another pair soon.
I’ll leave the link to them here, please share any climbing attire tips in the comments as I would love to read them!
A Girl Who Climbs 