When can a man wear a denim jacket?

Reader's query: When can a man wear a denim jacket?

'At precisely 23 minutes past the hour of never. It is simply impossible for a man to wear a denim jacket. Whoa there, gentlemen! Stop your outraged fingertips from speeding to your quill pens to address an outraged missive, full of accusations of sexism, fashion fascism and even style racism. For this edict is no mere fashion whim but rather a statement of fact and basic personal protection. To the former first, a man should not wear anything on his lower half other than jeans, smart trousers or knee-length shorts. The denim jacket simply does not work with any of the above: with jeans you get the dreaded Double Denim effect, a look that contravenes all known laws of human decency; with smart trousers they look as ill-matched as Liza Minnelli and David Gest, and with long shorts they turn you into a Krankie.

But even if those aesthetic objections do not persuade, surely the matter of self-protection will. Come closer, men, and I shall let you into a sphinx-like secret about what goes on in the minds of us ladies. Sadly we just don't have the time or space to divulge what is the secret chat-up line that will make all women immediately jump your bones, or the seemingly disgusting habit that we all actually find deeply attractive. But I can tell you that all women, when looking at a man sporting a denim jacket, think the same three words: Billy Ray Cyrus. Now, there are many phrases that may spring to mind when confronted by the man whose heart was once not just achy but, indeed, breaky, but "aphrodisiac" is not, except for the special few, one of them'

- Hadley Freeman, Guardian, 12 May 2008