Open to interpretation

H.I. and I tend to be very judgemental about other people's dress sense. Yesterday we were driving through town and noticed a young man of average height, wearing traditional off-white cotton trousers with turn-ups, polished brogues and a tweed jacket. He had a well-kept beard and somewhat old-fashioned haircut.

I pointed him out and said that you can tell a lot from the way people fall into distinct categories in how they project themselves through dress. H.I. asked me what he was trying to tell the world, so I had a think about it. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, even though I instinctively understood the group of males with whom he obviously identified.

"I think he wants you to know that he comes from a fairly well-off and traditional family, possibly with connections to the countryside, and is one step up from the average two-dimensional Hipster who merely imitates and accentuates the more obvious features of his style. He wants you to think he is the real thing." I said the first bit and have only just thought of the last.

"How do you think people see us?" H.I. asked. This turned out to be a moment of self-realisation for me.

"I think they see a man who should be retired but isn't. I suppose they see me as a failure."

Ever since I crippled myself by spending two weeks wandering around Venice in a pair of what should have been - and once were - very comfortable Crockett and Jones boots, my style has been radically changed. Because I have been wearing the same walking boots for two years, I seem to spend every day dressed for work. You cannot wear certain trousers with walking boots, and you cannot wear certain coats and jackets with certain trousers. I am not overly fashion conscious, but I do try to keep up with how I might be interpreted by others. At my age, I would rather be unobtrusive than flamboyant.  

As a six-foot-plus teenager at school who wore his brother's old cast-off trousers which were two inches too short, staying unobtrusive was excruciatingly difficult. To this day I have to stop myself from accosting  men in the street whose trousers are an inch above their ankles by the lapels and shouting at them to buy themselves a pair which actually fir the length of their legs, but who am I to judge my peers?

H.I. asked how I thought she appeared to others. That was easy. She has been glamorous since the day she moved from Sheffield to London aged 18, and somehow has stayed the exact same weight as then too. Strangers of both sexes and all ages often stop her in the street just to tell her how wonderful she looks. Babies in prams crane their heads to look at her as she walks past. When out with her teenage daughter, she would be the one to receive all the attention. Her parents called her, 'The Queen of Sheba'.

On one occasion when I went clothes shopping with her, I picked up an article from the hanger and asked her opinion of it.

She said, "If you want to look like a twat, go ahead and buy it."