Clothing

I saw a chap walking down the road the other day looking, unusually for my part of town, the very quintessence of sartorial elegance: polished brogues, tailored pin-striped suit, rolled umbrella. He was a modern-day Beau Brummell. But what really topped off his ensemble – literally and figuratively – was a bowler hat. I haven’t seen anyone wearing one of those for decades. In fact, the last time was about 35 years ago when a girl arrived at a party in one. Cruelly, I pointed and said: ‘Ha! Charlie Chaplin!’ The awkward silence that followed shamed me rather than embarrassed her.  Since the bottom dropped out of the officewear market during Covid, making an effort with daytime dress is unusual enough. To

The demoralising decline in the office dress code is long established. Nowadays, stockbrokers and estate agents are the only workers reliably in a suit and tie. For everyone else it’s chinos and knitwear – on a good day. But welcome news is afoot: among a growing legion of men, especially young men, there’s a revival of interest in dressing smartly. Inevitably, the driving force is social media. Instagram accounts such as @askokeyig, @ignoreatyourperil, @tfchamberlin and many others are extolling the virtues of a sharp silhouette and the perils of collar gap. Most famously, ‘the menswear guy’ (@dieworkwear) has become something of an international name on X by blasting the (usually

You first start to notice them in that desultory way you become aware of the floating specks across your vision that signify a migraine is on the way. Perhaps you saw a woman in Waitrose wearing a black one and wondered why she was sporting a giant version of the Umbro football manager’s coat from the 1990s. Then someone pointed out the hot pink camo combo on the sidelines at an under-12s rugby tournament and, looking across the pitches, you realised just how ubiquitous they have become. By the time you spot my own hate-favourite – the Dryrobe Advance Abstract, a limited edition now out of stock which looks like