Tracksuit party will jog your hip hop memory

The first person I clap eyes on as I bound into The Paradise is the Radio 1 DJ Sara Cox, sporting a natty pair of green leggings and white hi-top trainers. "Ooooh, I'm so glad you're wearing a tracksuit too," she foghorns at me, as though across a market stall in Bolton, not a fashionable pub/club in trendy west London. "Why are all these people here not wearing tracksuits? Can I dance near you all night?" she asks.

She needn't have worried — just a few minutes later the pub is teeming with party people clad in all manner of nylon and velour leisurewear, not all of them carrying it off quite as well as Cox.

We're here for Tayo's Tracksuit Party, a kitsch celebration of sports casual that has gone down a storm at Snowbombing and the Notting Hill Carnival over the past couple of years. Until now, it's been a very occasional moveable party.

DJ Tayo's idea for the night came out of his own impressive collection of 90 track-suit tops. He now plans to "do it all more properly", with a party in east London in July, on carnival weekend in August at The Paradise (which will be the party's more regular home) and a further six parties this year.

Tonight's DJs include Felix B from Basement Jaxx and Frank "Dope" Tope, plus Tayo himself, presiding over the night in a dazzling white fleece tracksuit top and white shorts. In truth, I've been a bit anxious about these tracksuit shenanigans. I've heard the parties are brilliant fun but I wake up in a cold sweat having lurid, neon nightmares about my outfit options.

Stretchy sportswear does me no favours at all and I spend the morning trudging around a rainy Brixton, desperately searching for something that doesn't make my backside look the size of Hampshire. It's not to be.

I settle for some new retro adidas trackie bottoms in a forgiving dark colour and team them with my favourite, super-bouncy orange trainers. I dig out a sort of matching adidas zip-up top (bought during a short-lived period of regular gym attendance) and a red-and-white sports visor I found on a beach in Ibiza. I avoid all mirrors as I leave the house. On my Bakerloo line train the other passengers glare at me and check their wallets.

All five rooms of The Paradise are being taken over for tonight's party in polyester (£6 entry) and by 9pm the place is packed. I have a sudden vision of what Lakeside shopping centre must look like on a Saturday afternoon. Although, of course, most of the punters here are professionals in their late twenties and thirties — their trackies usually only get an outing for Pilates or Ashtanga yoga.

In the main room upstairs, the crowd is getting down to old school hip hop and drinking double vodka and tonics (£5.50). It's a sea of sports caps, hotpants, shell suits, fake bling, huge sunglasses and Vanilla Ice dance moves.

At 10.30, Beeny Royston and Jadell ("two blokes with a bit too much time on their hands," according to Tayo) take to the stage in Hawaiian shirts and Flowerpot Men hats, to do their "Spinal Tap goes hip hop" thing.