out of curiosity

i don't really ask the question of whether something is socially acceptable, its fairly easy to tell if something should stay at home or can be worn out but with these I had to know. BUT this is a whole different story (and has its own story)! What do people think of these.. I don't even know what they are.. sweatpants of our generation or something? I know its an old "trend", and to be honest I wasn't smitten when it first appeared. I had just finished uni for the semester, wearing sweatpants when I had the opportunity to wear some interesting pieces really wasn't appealing so I just passed on it, quietly watching as every magazine did the whole sporty luxe thing. A friend bought a similar pair from bassike last month, but I still wasn't thrilled. Until I went back to uni. I sat through a two hour seminar in a ridiculously good looking blouse that I was ecstatic about buying and couldn't wait to wear. Three people from my eleven people seminar stared at my general chest/blouse area. Not at my chest since they were all girls.. I thought maybe I spilled something down my shirt, but OH NO, it was that unmistakable "you are HIDEOUSLY overdressed for a seminar about the great depression" look. Horrid little judging individuals that should have been concentrating on Faulkner but dosed off and their thoughts were swayed.

Not ready to wear uggs to uni (I'm not sure if I'll ever be) and huging my dear blouse to sleep reassuring it that I'll only wear it to the most fitting occasion, I stashed it a little further out of reach. That day I also found the picture of Christine Centenera. Tapered sweats styled to perfection at paris fashion week (i think?) must surely mean it is ok to wear something really similar to uni right? Not that I would wear heels, or think I am a total beaaassst for recreating this style, just be warm & cosy and not look like a slob (many believe this is an oxymoron) pairing it with black ballet flats, black leather jacket and some sort of shirt. So I decided to try. I went to Myer and tried some Bonds sweat pants. They looked horrid on the hanger, the waist of the smallest size looked enormous, they looked too long. They're supposed to be cropped, they were too long for me anyway being height challenged and all. However they looked pretty good, maybe 5cm of drop-crotch, tapered legs etc. Well they were as good as a pair of sweatpants can be, they do nothing for the butt, but too much butt at uni is A VERY BAD THING. That's a whole different story. ANYWAY. I came out to show my mum who happened to think shopping with me would be a good sunday activity, I was feeling pretty good about myself. Her mouth dropped, not in the good way. She thought they were absolutely horrid and she'd probably be embarrassed wearing them around the house, in her words. I know we have different styles, but in my opinion they didn't look that bad. I'm supposed to be the good little visual merchandiser and stylist and understand that taste is subjective, but I think I might have got lost amongst people telling me "we are paying for YOUR point of view" so now I'm just confused about a fairly cheap pair of pants. I guess a big part of it comes from a notion that most things, styled the right way, can be worn in a completely different context. For every one person I know who agrees, I know 5 that disagree. So the question stands, how do people see these horribly comfortable verging on the edge of trendy tapered slouchy insert more adjectives into a sentence pants. anybody? oh, and what are they called?