Today is the only day of the year that I am absolutely happy with the completely hellish weather, because tonight I am getting on a plane to warm and sunny Vietnam. That initially means surviving a flight of about 13 hours, and that means: easy and comfortable clothing. I know it's forbidden to dress for comfort, but these kinds of situations call for a different approach. My outfit today consists of a not-so-charming but oh-so-comfortable pair of stretch jeans, a large white T-shirt from the men's section of H&M, and over that a hoodie. To the great displeasure of my partner and travel companion who has been saying all day about everything I do, “with your hoodie.” Which is strange, because this is the same man who gave me a leopard-print onesie for Sinterklaas and should therefore be reasonably okay with such clothing, but nothing could be further from the truth. When I ask why he finds my hoodie so disgusting, I get “because it looks like you’re lying on the couch hungover,” which I find a highly unsatisfactory answer because I am not lying on the couch hungover, I am writing this piece. Nonsense, then. Anyway, now with the holidays, many will probably be lying on the couch hungover, and so I wondered, why do we actually love wearing such a tracksuit so much? And that onesie, where does that hype come from? Who comes up with something like that? And what are the rules for going out in such an outfit?

Anyone looking for answers to such questions quickly stumbles upon the Viva forum, where thousands of women engage in discussions about important issues. For example, there’s ‘persephone83’ who indicates that on a hungover day she is perfectly fine going out in her tracksuit, but not further than 500 meters, then she puts on jeans. ‘Lapin’ has 8 tracksuits and takes the dogs out every morning in such an outfit. Without underwear underneath. So. The topic then takes a rather bizarre turn when someone says that you can only wear a tracksuit if you are size 38 or smaller, and everyone then starts shouting murder and fire. So I just click away the Viva forum and look for answers elsewhere.

So I find out that 2010 was the year of the tracksuit. The AD informs me that “thanks to the emerging hip-hop culture” the gray tracksuit is completely in vogue again, which was reason enough for FunX presenters Vincent Reinders and Delano Limaheluw (who doesn’t know them) to set up their own line of sweatpants. And successfully, within half a year about half of the Ajax and Feyenoord squad was spotted in them, which only increased the success of the tracksuit. The trend also spread to women's wardrobes in the form of harem pants made of sweat fabric (I showed my travel companion some pictures of these pants and his judgment was very surprising “disaster-ly awful. As if you pooped in your pants”).

I showed my TRAVEL COMPANION some pictures of these pants and his judgment was very surprising “disaster-ly awful. As if you pooped in your pants.”

The strange thing is, of course, that a tracksuit is basically meant to jog in. But strangely enough, there is no piece of clothing on earth that is jogged in as little as a tracksuit. Nevertheless, you might still feel the pressure to do something sporty in such an outfit, and the story goes that this was the reason for the creation of the onesie. About five years ago, there were three Norwegian friends who, with a terrible hangover, felt terribly guilty for lounging on the couch in their sportswear. And they were also not at all pleased with the tight band around their hips. The solution, they thought, was to remove that elastic band and sew the top and bottom together, and voila: the onesie was a fact. They started a company, OnePiece, launched an aggressive and successful advertising campaign, and within a year and a half about 21% of the Norwegian population was wearing a onesie. Soon the outfit spread to the celebrities of the earth, including Cara Delevingne. The model loves to be photographed on the street in onesies with elephant ears or something else weird, and with each photo, the popularity of the onesie increased. When One Direction, David Beckham, Justin Bieber, and Ed Westwick were also spotted on the street (!) in the outfit, the damage was done: the onesie is here to stay.

As I said, my partner gave me a onesie for Sinterklaas, as a joke. He doesn’t mind that I actually wear it indoors when he’s around, even finds it quite funny, but I shouldn’t dare to go outside in it. ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind but I would walk far enough behind you on the street that no one realizes we belong together.“ Clear language.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind but I would walk far enough behind you on the street that no one realizes we belong together.”

It’s pretty clear to me. Within the walls of your own living room, anything goes, but outside not so much. The thing is, a tracksuit is so strongly associated with drunkenness from the night before that you might as well go out on the street with a big neon sign above your head saying HELLO WORLD I DRANK THE LIGHT OUT OF MY EYES LAST NIGHT. And that’s not very classy. So, to summarize, enjoy processing that Christmas meal with a cone and in a onesie, but for a walk to the pharmacy for extra paracetamol, do put on a different pair of pants. Oh, and regarding that hoodie, it is extremely suitable for the airplane. Guys, have nice days.