During our talk, she turned her embarrassment beam upon her older son, Jamie, who has recently taken to wearing a towelling sweatband similar to the one John McEnroe used to sport in the 1980s. She sighed exasperatedly. "I'm like, 'Jamie, it wasn't a good look on McEnroe, why do you think it's a good look on you?'"

It's a fair point. The sweatband is not the easiest item in the sports wardrobe to wear, beaten only by school hockey knickers and those awful black plimsolls that make you look as though you're wearing built-up shoes. The sweatband, however, does have its uses. Or rather, use. Because let's face it, if you work out you're going to sweat.

The problem is that sweat never is, never was and never will be glamorous. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise has spent too long watching films with names like "Ebony and Ivory" on the Men & Motors channel at 2am. And the worst of it is that no-one is immune to the instant de-attractifying effect of a little rime of sweat on one's forehead or, indeed, anywhere else.

Any glimpse for me of Gwyneth Paltrow these days – which is irritatingly regular right now thanks to the media's inexplicable obsession with her vertiginously high heels – is always slightly sullied by the memory of a photograph of her taken several years ago, emerging from a yoga session with a sweat patch in a place of only Chris Martin should be aware. It doesn't matter who you are, sweat just ain't sexy.

So what to do? Sweatbands do at least go some way to alleviating the problem. But can you really wear a sweatband without looking like a complete idiot? Well, there are several ways to test the waters.

There is the overtly sexual "it's pink because it matches my leotard and legwarmers" look, which really requires an enormous perm and lashings of green eyeshadow; there's the all-out-ironic look, as sported by Luke Wilson in the movie The Royal Tenenbaums and is best worn with a corduroy suit and a beard, or there's the "this is a practical item, and so what if it makes me look a bit 80s, I'm hot enough to get away with it" look, as demonstrated by Jamie Murray and the delicious Roger Federer.

So, if you fancy going down the sweatband route, then why not? It'll keep the perspiration out of your eyes and it might even suit you.

Just don't ask your mum what she thinks about it.

• NEXT WEEK: The right equipment