I don't have this as gospel, but unless told otherwise by somebody in the know I'm going to take it as such: when designers say fashion is cyclical, they don't actually mean that what goes around comes around.

They mean that every now and again they have a puncture. It's the only way to describe the news coming out of Milan and Paris this month, news that can be condensed into three words which will strike fear into every man jack: flares are back.

Now when it comes to fashion and style I live in mortal dread of three things: belted raincoats, having to shower next to David Gandy and trouser leg bottoms with the circumference of a tractor wheel. The first two only happen in fever dreams. The third used to, but I'm afraid now it's real. To continue my cycling metaphor, fashion has just sailed over the handlebars, skidded across the pavement and ended up in the sartorial equivalent of Greggs' doorway. Flares are A Thing. Again.

The proof? The recent menswear shows in Paris and Milan in which labels such as Gucci sent out male catwalk models dressed in what can only be described as slacks. Other labels followed suit, with JW Anderson, Valentino and Raf Simons all showing flares.

There is even talk (whisper it though) of a Bay City Rollers-inspired collection from Top Man Design. Not only did its models wear flares, they sported 1970s mullets too. You sing shang-a-lang if you want to: this is one gang I'll be running from rather than with.

Perhaps it was to be expected, though. Readers with better than a goldfish memory will recall from last week's column that the 1970s are one of the key influences for the spring and summer lines, so it's understandable that trouser widths are changing accordingly.

Not that the so-called "decade that taste forgot" is entirely to blame for the flare. A precursor, "Oxford bags", were popular in the 1920s and the other name for flares is bell bottoms, a nod to the garment's naval heritage. Wide-legged trousers were popular among sailors from the early 19th century onwards, possibly because their width meant they could be rolled up easily. Obviously the invention of shorts was still a few decades away.

Mind you, it's all guesswork. Not even the internet knows why flares happened, and it usually knows everything. I Googled that very question and every search result that came back involved either solar sunspots or a man-made disease called the Flare which features in The Maze Runner, a series of post-apocalyptic sci-fi novels for teens. All very interesting, but not an answer to the question.

The good news is, this is all still half a year away yet: the flares on view are part of the Autumn-Winter 2015 lines. There's always time for an asteroid strike. Failing that, maybe there's time for a rethink - maybe fashion's flat tyre can be re-inflated, its inner tube fixed and a new route planned, one that doesn't involve flared trousers.

Anyone got a bicycle pump and some Elastoplast?