Clothes maketh the man

"I've bought you some new clothes," Katie said down the phone to me. "You're spectacularly bad at buying clothes, so I've taken matters into my own hands."

She's not wrong. There's an orange jumper and brown corduroy trousers combo from my past that has mentally scarred us both.

Katie is quite used to me returning from somewhat unwilling trips to the shops, bearing new clothes that make me look like a myopic 1970's accountant on a stag-night. I have no idea. So I was keen to see what she'd got me this time around.

Was I going to be Birmingham's answer to Daniel Craig, replete with barely repressed animal energy, underneath restrained tailoring? Or was I going to have the cool relaxed bohemian look that's so popular with, well, relaxed people from Bohemia?

"You'll like it," she said. "It's a cultural reference from the 1970s. Very 'in' at the moment."

I've never been 'in', fashion-wise. The nearest I've been, sartorially, was 'near'. Well, actually, 'within walking distance', if you want to split hairs. So what did I end up with?


I ask you.