A Quintet of Worrying Style Trends

Check suits

If you insist on wearing them just make sure you accessorise with an enormous pair of shoes, a giant floppy bow tie and a flower in your lapel that squirts water. This one was in Zara! They really should know better.

The Pocket Square

I’m not saying that the pocket square looks particularly bad, but I would beg you to consider its origins. For a pocket square is essentially a decorative handkerchief. And the handkerchief is the physical expression of the idea that it’s acceptable to expel fluid from your body and then, rather than immediately throwing it away, carry it around with you for the rest of the day. Obviously, I could extend that idea in a more revolting direction but in the name of public decency I’m not going to. But, before you place that handkerchief in your top pocket it’s something you may wish to consider.

Super Skinny Jeans

Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for well fitted clothes and opposed to bagginess, but you can take the term ‘well-fitted’ too far. Super skinny trousers may be hot on girls but on guys they’re just plain weird. And what if you’re attacked and need to defend yourself with a kung fu kick? Any respect earned by your bravado will immediately be cancelled out by the fact you’ll tear a hole in your trousers and everyone will be able to see your pants.

African Tribal Print Shirts

Somewhat worryingly, GQ have mentioned these a few times as the next in thing. But you will surely have noticed that the only non-Africans to wear these are late middle aged, upper middle class types who pretend to like world music and think that if they walk down the street in an ‘ethnic’ shirt people will go ‘Look at that person! He obviously has a deep understanding and love for all the world’s cultures and has extensively travelled the world and been respected by tribespeople from Indonesia to Zambia!’ even though he has actually spent every day of his adult life going to work in a drab civil service building in Luton.

Plus, you will look like TV 'eccentric' Adam Hart Davis.

Tweed

It’s totally acceptable to wear tweed if you are over 75, or a farmer, or an inbred type who divides his time between Buckinghamshire and Fulham and who travels from one to the other in a Range Rover, and has a braying laugh that makes him sound like some sort of retarded donkey. If you are not one of those people, however, you may wish to avoid it, mainly because it’s very itchy.