With autumn in full swing and our Indian summer well and truly behind us, it's time to start peering in shop windows to do more than just check your reflection. So if you're out and about today, look beyond the poorly-dressed flesh and blood dummy staring back at you and instead check out the clothes on the sharply-attired plastic ones in the window display itself.
If you're up on your fashion you'll notice the autumn-winter 2015 styles are only infinitesimally different from the versions in the shops this time last year. Depending on your budget, that means you can either do nothing and still look tolerably a la mode, or tweak a little here and there and be entirely up with the times.
But if even a tweak is too much for you to bother about, yet a Significant Other is insisting on dragging you round the high street because she thinks you need an "update”, how are you going to pass the time between changing rooms? By playing Male Order Menswear Bingo is how.
So instead of rolling your eyes in boredom, whip out your mental bingo card and your day-glo dabber and see if you can tick off one of the following hot autumn “styles”. There's 10 to get, and they're listed in increasing order of difficulty. The last one in particular is going to tax you a little – but imagine how proud you'll feel yelling “House!” in the middle of a crowded shop today.
Something in green
Replica football tops don't count. Instead, see if you can spot something in one of this season's favoured shades of olive, khaki or “bottle”.
Anything orange
Think knitwear or outerwear, and the brighter the better. Don sunglasses for this one.
Something in corduroy
Extra points if it's a baseball cap, but otherwise a jacket or a pair of breeks will do.
A sheepskin car coat
Give yourself a pat on the back if it looks anything like the one Terry Venables wore in the Crystal Palace dugout in the 1979-80 season.
An enormous pocket
Doesn't matter what it's attached to. Does need to be larger than A5 notebook size though.
Pink trousers
A key trend, though you'll find them being called things like barberry rather than pink. Below the waist, the p-word is still a no-no it seems.
A tartan suit
If you need a steer, Top Man Design do one with a drape coat in a retina-burning yellow. Think Rupert Bear-meets-Showaddywaddy.
Flares
You might need to pack a tape measure for this one, but basically anything over 18 inches counts. If you don't have a tape measure ask yourself this: could a cat shelter under them in the rain?
An apron
The apron has been spotted on the menswear catwalks as a fashion item to be worn outside the kitchen. Even more scary, it's reported to be available on the high street. Can't see the barista-meets-blacksmith look taking off, but if you find an apron for sale that doesn't say Starbucks on it, you've done mighty well.
And finally … a boiler suit
Good luck with this one.
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