Dress sense mistakes men make

Today I've been reading the excellent Holykaw list of ten fashion mistakes men make - it's well worth a look. I've been thinking of some of my own errors, and for what it's worth here they are:

1. Buying pale trousers. There is of course nothing wrong with a light pair of trousers or jeans but do be sensible about your shape; a tailored suit I bought a year and a bit ago was made of pale-ish linen, the jacket still looks good with jeans but the lighter linen colour just makes my lower half look fat. OK, it's no use blaming the trousers completely - but a darker pair covers a lot more sins.

2. Buying something that looked good on someone else. I was in a shop and the guy serving me was wearing a really good shirt. So I bought one the same. The fit was fine but on reflection, given that he was tall, slim and ginger, there was nothing to say that colouring looking good on him would look anything at all on me.

3. Dressing too young. This is a really tricky one because young people have adopted a lot of classic middle-aged styles, which they wear a bit ironically (or so they say). Try buying the same thing, like a cardigan, when you're past forty and you look like an older bloke trying to dress like a young man apeing an older bloke - I'm getting a headache just thinking about it.

4. It looked good in the catalogue: Bit of a variation on 2, maybe with a bit of 3 thrown in. I once bought a chocolate "funky" jacket from Charles Tyrwhitt. It looked great in the catalogue, on the model who was about four stone lighter, 15 years younger and A PROFESSIONAL MODEL WHO'S PAID TO MAKE CLOTHES LOOK GOOD, FOR GOODNESS' SAKE but when I put it on it was just like a sack of potatoes trying to sell used cars.

5. Asking my daughter what she thinks of a new look. If someone could tell me at what age they learn tact that would be just fine.

6. The four button waistcoat: So I thought, four buttons, that'll show less of the gut, and the guy selling it to me agreed. Unfortunately once it was on, the shape of it and the positioning of the top button meant there was this arrow pointing exactly at my stomach area, and it wasn't flattering.

7. Forgetting to buy slim fit: A few years ago I was buying a jacket, got the right size and avoided slim fit as I didn't regard myself as slim. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Slim fit in a jacket often means it's a bit fitted. The non slim fit versions look like tents by comparison and don't do you any favours (see point 1 about not blaming the garment completely, of course).

8. Getting an aftershave because you like it. Christmas 2008, my mother in law bought me a bottle of Dunhill London eau de toilette, and very nice I thought it was too. Oddly my wife couldn't detect it at all - something odd about my skin chemistry meant other people couldn't smell it while it was on me, whereas I could. Bit of a pointless exercise, then - the moral being always take someone with you for a second sniff and opinion.

9. Ordering loads of stuff from the web: Or "variation on no. 4" - people buy not only clothing on the Net before seeing how it looks on them but - and this I find incredible - perfumes, aftershaves, which they can't possibly have smelled, from websites as well. Re-ordering something you know you like on the Net makes sense, but trying for the first time? Expensive.  (Although I find dropping a note to Mankind will get you a few tryout samples if you ask nicely).

10. Dyeing our hair: Sir Paul McCartney, you'll have noticed, has gone prematurely orange. This is because dark hair dye goes orange after a couple of weeks, my hairdresser tells me, there's nothing you can do about it. Frankly if all Macca's millions can't get it to look convincing (and let's not forget your skin tone and texture will age as well, so if your hair doesn't it'll stick out) it can't be done.

OK, I've never actually done the last one but I've seen it often enough. So, what sorts of style mistakes has everyone else made..?