• USA Today, Tuesday, December 7, 2010 10:45 AM

My sister-in-law sells the "Carol Anderson by invitation" (CAbi) line of clothes so I learned about jeggings during last spring's show and now they are everywhere! They are leggings made from denim (jeans; hence, jeggings) and Lycra, and retailers can barely keep up with demand. Apparently, Conan O'Brien is obsessed with them.

"It's the next evolution of the jean," says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group, which predicts that jeggings could follow $100 designer jeans, which grew from 2% of the market to 8% in five years.

Just as $100 designer jeans grew from 2% of the market to 8% in five years, jeggings could see the same growth, Cohen says. In fact, the hot item could be the $16 billion denim industry's lone growth category for 2010. While the women's jean market was flat for the past year, sales of jeggings have more than doubled to $178 million.

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