Clichés become clichés because at their kernel there is — however small — a seed of truth. At least this is the way that I do my best to reconcile myself to the latest cliché into which I have fallen: that of being a middle-aged man finding sartorial inspiration through social media . . . well not so much inspiration as sartorial validation. I believe I have the distinction of being the longest serving contributor to British GQ. My first article appeared in those hallowed pages in the second number ever published. I am still permitted to shuffle around the offices of Britain’s leading men’s magazine and contribute occasional learned papers on such abstruse topics as the semiotics of vintage Patek Philippe chronographs or the analogue beauty of the power gauge on the Hermès portable telephone charger. Accordingly I am brought into contact with men whose business is fashion. Among them is the stylist Luke Jefferson Day. I first met Luke a couple of years ago. He looked like he had just stepped off an advertising shoot for a men’s cologne sometime circa June 1976: bandanna, double denim and a stonking great Gucci belt — this was at the time of the beginning of the hegemony of Alessandro Michele. I don’t do men’s fashion weeks and to my undying shame I have never once attended Pitti Uomo (I am a member of the minority that believes as a capital of art and style Naples beats Florence hands down). But the miracle of Instagram allows me to keep up with Luke’s progress through the capitals of male elegance. And although some of his racier looks are wasted on me, his recent postings have done much to further the rehabilitation of statement waist-wear, a cause I hold very dear. In one photograph he embodies Brad Pitt in The Counselor, the dystopian drug smuggling film scripted by Cormac McCarthy, in another he pays homage to the perennial masculinity of the Marlboro Man, in one image he even clutches a pack of the eponymous cigarettes. A 10-gallon hat is perched on his head, the sternum is festooned with medallions and pendants; but it is the huge horseshoe profile of the massive belt buckle that proves almost magnetic for the eye.