The German Etiquette Society supports a ban on sweatpants in schools. “Jogging pants are, as the name suggests, functional clothing that is worn for sports or for the relaxation phase afterwards,” said a spokeswoman for the German Press Agency on Thursday evening. “Athletes wear their jerseys as a work uniform on the sports field and jogging pants in their free time after the work is done. School time is working time, so jogging pants have no place there.”
Most recently, a ban on jogging pants at a school in Wermelskirchen near Remscheid made waves. The school said on Wednesday that it wanted to maintain the dress code “despite criticism in the media”. The students should be encouraged to wear clothes that don’t tempt them to “chill out”. The school also said that it was important to move away from jogging pants in order to prepare for professional life.
The German Etiquette Society does not want to see a new convenience that has crept in through times of home office being transferred to the outside world: “Working from home has given many a certain carelessness and comfort outside of their own four walls not working,” the spokeswoman said.
Work clothes, uniforms and dress codes have grown socially. “Clothing expresses a specific task, authority, or affiliation. Based on this wealth of experience, jogging pants cannot be assigned to a valuable task in everyday life and meet with resistance.”
The German Knigge Society would like to spread the ideas of Adolph Freiherr Knigge, who died in 1796, and which are rooted in the Enlightenment and humanism. She advocates perfect style, reliable knowledge of current manners, moral self-responsibility, morally impeccable behavior and a situationally appropriate, tolerant and easy-going way of dealing with one another.
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