News

Most men's tracksuits live indoors. Top and bottoms, both soft, both comfortable, both filed under sofa clothes.

A men's Halloween costume does not have to come from a fancy-dress shop.

Men's jeans are the whole of this week: a baggy wide-leg pair, an extra-wide loose-fit pair in a vintage wash, a black baggy pair for evenings and denim joggers with a drawstring waist.

A rain jacket is the piece that sits on top of everything in autumn: over the shirt, over the knitted cardigan, over the fleece.

In September the jumper comes back out of the drawer, and by October it is doing half the work in a man's wardrobe.

Smart casual is the only dress code that unsettles everybody and that nobody ever explains.

September asks the same question every morning. It is eleven degrees at eight, twenty one by one o'clock, and twelve again on the way home.

Back to school gets treated as a shopping list, and that is why it so often produces a full wardrobe with nothing to wear. A list buys twelve things that do not talk to each other.

The polo shirt has a worse reputation than it deserves, for a fairly specific reason. Most men own exactly one.

There is a point at which most men stop thinking about clothes. The trousers fit, the shirt is fine, the shoes are sound, and the look stays more or less the same for years.

The packing mistake is nearly always the same one. You pack for the days rather than for the combinations.

White is the most obvious summer colour and the most demanding. It reflects light rather than storing it, it lets every other tone work alongside it, and in the sun it looks better than anything else.