Track suit pants are supposed to be the ultimate slob garment, yet jogging bottoms can also be seen on the catwalks of fashion shows in Paris and Milan.
Designer Stella McCartney has integrated sweatpants into her 2014 urban-wear sport outfits.
Tracky daks, it seems, are in.
Confused?
Stay with us - here are four reasons for a fashion-conscious person to wear jogging pants in public and four reasons to avoid them.
FOR
1. There's nothing more comfortable.
"Relax and wear your jogging pants the whole day to school or to work," was the invitation from the organisers of a recent Jogginghosentag (Sweatpants Day) in Germany on January 21. Thousands of fans signed up to a Facebook page dedicated to sweatpants.
2. Jogging bottoms are unconventional. "Sweatpants Day was a protest against the conventional idea that you can't wear them in public," said the day's co-initiator, Matthias Strohmeier. "It's like Casual Friday."
The head of Germany's Fashion Institute, Gerd Mueller-Thomkins, says jogging pants have always been a "provocative" form of clothing.
3. Jogging pants can look stylish - on women.
"If you want to look smart in public with jogging pants then you need to wear a pair of high-heeled elegant shoes," counsels stylist Ines Meyrose. "In branches of work where there's no dress code, 'jogpants' can look stylish when combined with something like a blazer."
4. Sweatpants are proof you are an individual.
Meyrose says creative industries are a great place for women to make a statement with elegant designer jogging bottoms. Mueller-Thomkins says stylish variations on the classic jogging pants offer lots of opportunities to mix and match with other clothing.
AGAINST
1. There's a time and a place to wear every type of clothing. Jogging pants are only for exercising.
"Jogging bottoms will always be jogging bottoms, even if they've been made by a fashion designer," says Agnes Jarosch from Germany's etiquette association, the Deutscher Knigge-Rat. "They belong in the gym."
2. Jogging pants imply you belong to the low-rent world.
"Jogging pants had their origins in amateur sports before they became popular in gyms," says Mueller-Thomkins.
3. Men look sloppy wearing sweatpants in public.
Meyrose says men should get a pair of baggy linen trousers if they want to wear something really comfortable while out and about. "In winter you can wear a pair of corduroys."
4. Jogging bottoms may offend people.
"Clothing can be a sign of respect for an occasion and a host," says Jarosch. If you wear sweatpants to a wedding, you are being disrespectful.
CONCLUSION: Sweatpants have partly lost their working class reputation - if worn by a woman. They remain off-limits to men, however. But it must be said that denim jeans began life as the pants of choice for gold diggers in the 19th century before they became widely accepted. "Maybe sweatpants will have the same fate," says Jarosch.
