As a clueless bloke who only owns blue shirts and black socks, I have no right to discuss fashion. But sometimes the outfit simply demands it.
Such was Nicola Sturgeon's unignorable jacket at First Minister's Questions today.
A Gary Glitter-style number, with Joan Collins shoulders and a tartan as loud as a flight path, it made her look as if she were being constantly mauled by a travel rug, as if a fabric monster had leaped on her back and refused to let go.
Normally, such choices are put down to stress.
But in the FM's case, it emerged there was method involved - it was, in fact, her warrior uniform.
It turned out David Cameron was in town to launch the draft law arising from the Smith Commission, and Ms Sturgeon, kitted out like the 45ers' Boudicea, was due to meet him for a square go.
FMQs should therefore have been ideal for heating her blood to the right martial temperature, but her opponents seemed determined to frustrate her by talking about anything but Smith.
Ms Sturgeon angrily swatted them aside.
Labour's Kez Dugdale wanted oodles more NHS cash.
"We will continue to invest real money from real budgets in our health service," said the FM.
"We will leave Labour to its fantasy economics," added the Queen of the silent oil fields.
Tory Ruth Davidson then muttered about tax before, finally, like a lamb gambolling into the butcher's, LibDem Willie Rennie trotted along.
"The vow has been met and delivered on time," he lectured the First Minister, "this is home rule".
Ms Sturgeon said she welcomed the proposals "as far as they go", but - a big but - said certain aspects had suffered "a significant watering down on what the Smith Commission proposed".
She locked onto a line about Westminster and Holyrood needing to agree certain benefit tweaks.
It was, she shuddered, "a veto", a dreadful, sinister Westminster veto of the evilest kind.
It was actually a blatant diversion, focusing on one subclause and ignoring the big picture on more powers, but it drove Mr Rennie to distraction.
Not a veto, just "commonsense", he bleated.
Beyond miffed, he even returned to the issue in a point of order at the end of the session.
Yet his questions simply gave the FM more chances to practices her attacks on the Prime Minister.
After his meeting in Ms Sturgeon's office, Mr Cameron held a press briefing at which his querulous mood suggested it had not been a sparkling encounter on his favourite subject.
Asked if, after years of devolution, Smith was now the end of the road, the PM unleashed not a Freudian slip, more a Freudian avalanche.
The Commission and its draft laws were "the right resting place" for devolution, he declared, a telling phrase usually applied to a burial.
You imagined him smiling at the graveside before viciously kicking dirt into the hole.
If could have lobbed in Ms Sturgeon he certainly would have too, military uniform or no.
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