Oops! I Can't Stop Dressing Like A Chef

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If I were to do an “Outfit of the Day” TikTok on any given day, it would probably star something from my growing collection of chef pants.

I’m not a chef, nor have I ever been one. I do work in food, and I taste-test, toy around with recipes, and write about hard-hitting issues like whether the Jonas Brothers have ever eaten at Waffle House and why groceries seem to be very horny lately. But I’m calling it now: chef pants are the only way I wish to live, dress, and go about my day.

My chef pants collection started as an accident, and then snowballed into a full-blown lifestyle. As a prodigious lifelong thrifter, I go into the stores with a plan of attack: focus on fabric quality rather than brand names. This rule of thumb led me to a particularly stretchy (yet structured) pair of black chef pants made by Newchef. I practically slam-dunked them into my cart. On we go, my new perfect pair of pants! Imagine me holding a pant leg, as if holding hands, and frolicking out of the Goodwill and you’ll get the gist of how this romance started.

A new uniform rapidly formed. Chef pants with tank tops, bodysuits, sweaters, T-shirts. Top it off with a pair of clogs and a jacket and maybe even a bandana, and there was very little the day could throw at me.

In my chef pants, I can kick. I can jump. I can bar-crawl and go on dates and breeze through airport security (they are the only pants to be wearing while constricted on planes, full stop). In my chef pants, I can sear scallops with my right hand and reach my left foot to pick up a piece of dried pasta that has rolled underneath my stove. I can do all things through chef pants that strengthen me.

Now I scour the internet for new chef pants like a sneakerhead waiting for new drops. My favorite brand of late is Cookman, a chefwear store based in Venice, California, that offers anything from sauce-splashed overalls and peachy-hued chef pants to freezer jackets and baker’s skirts. It might not be long until I have a full closet of clothes bought entirely from chef-supply stores like Chefwear (adding these overalls to cart immediately), and Service Works (this deep-freeze fleece).

It’s almost too simplistic to call this just another symptom of being obsessed with The Bear and wanting to cosplay as a restaurant worker. And anyway, didn’t we all dress like skaters without skating at one point in time, too?. Truth be told, I’ve barely watched the show—I was a waitress and grew up in restaurant kitchens, and so the few episodes I’ve watched have been Too Real to be enjoyable. But chefwear has been the solution I’ve long been looking for that has actually sorted out my closet.

I’ve struggled with shopping, often thinking, “Why does everything in my closet suck all the time?” and “Why are all the new clothes made so poorly?” I have outsourced my clothes shopping to rentable clothing companies and subscription boxes, buying things that were never more than just okay. And still, with a full closet, I’d feel like I had nothing to wear every single day. This was Before Chef Pants (BCP), of course.

So if Steve Jobs has his black turtlenecks, I have my bodysuit/tank top + chef pants combo to simplify my day and help me go from writing about inflation to taste-testing and photographing—and accidentally smearing myself with—dozens of frozen chicken wings. Some people are self-described functional eaters who live to dress up. I’m the complete opposite, I’ve found: A functional dresser who lives to eat.

Also, the clothes are, actually, just super cute? Sometimes things can be as simple as that. I mean just look at these gingham chef shorts?!

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