As part of my ongoing attempts to clean up and simplify my wardrobe, I’ve been trying out new fashion trends. I say trends, they’re really just things that a lot of people have been wearing for ages, but I’m still finding fun new ones: cropped wide-leg pants (i.e. pants with legs that just look too short), tank tops (like a waiter’s vest, but without buttons ) and very ugly boots and shoes that look as if they were designed by a medieval stonemason. Who specialized in carving gargoyles.

I didn’t enjoy testing any of these trends. In fact, they all made me feel so deeply, irrevocably unattractive that I didn’t even document the process in my usual humorous way. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’ll wear any fancy dress for a laugh – I’ve even dressed up as a giant poo for a Sky ad – but I draw the line at some of the shoes I see for sale. And that’s not meant to condemn the aforementioned trends—some people absolutely do brilliant in the cropped wide leg pants and I know you have to pick the right ones and style them right etc. etc. – I just don’t like them I.

Is it an age thing? Do all generations look down on the fashion trends of the next and wonder what on earth is going on? Perhaps we are more deeply conditioned by the dress codes of our respective eras than I previously realized. I’m Gen X – little by little – and my fashion rules growing up were:

1. Show boobs or legs, but never both

2. Only wear a coat if it’s snowing

I think that’s why I’m now in a state of constant battle with my own wardrobe: I want to be comfortable, want to be warm, but – thanks to having lived through all of my teenage years in the nineties – I’m still not convinced that an outfit is worthy of the outside world if it doesn’t hinder or cripple me in some way. If the skirt isn’t so short that I’m constantly pulling it down, have I really made an effort? If the height of my heel is not too high to walk fast, then can I call myself polished? Am I stretched correctly if my pants don’t catch me in the seam?

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Anyway, I think I’ve found a “trend” I can get on board with – hallelujah – the leather (or faux fur) skirt. I realize this isn’t massively wild or revolutionary for most, but honestly I’m just happy with myself if I can pull on an outfit that doesn’t double as sleepwear. If I can put something on in the morning that isn’t a tracksuit, then I really feel like I’ve partially conquered the day before it’s even started. So, to wear a current trend? Is this relevant? I am absolutely cursed!

And it doesn’t even require any sustained effort from me, this trend. It’s not a trend that forces me to hold my breath all day (BodyCon) or avoid anything that might color me (a weird head-to-toe trend and a camel worn by people who never make contact with kids, pets or dirt) and is so flexible that I can easily do that thing that everyone talks about but no one ever actually does, ever, which is…“looking at me from day to night.”

Total urban myth. Have you ever changed your top and makeup in the backseat of a taxi to “transform your look from day to night”? Who are these people? Why have I never met them? Surely we all pick out an outfit for the day and glumly say “it’ll have to do” regardless of what wild anomalies our schedule may have? And what are yet these wild anomalies? Who is forced to sit at their desk wearing a pinstripe suit until exactly 6pm, but then has to be ready to hit the red carpet for the Bafta at 7? Isn’t this kind of a niche problem? Yet every publication since 1999 would have you believe that everyone in the British workforce toils all day and immediately heads off to black-tie dinners and fancy dinners.

Back to the leather (or leather alternative, there are many options) skirt. I love the tough, masculine kind of connotations that leather stuff has – it’s rock and roll, it’s biker, it’s the punk era, it’s….cowboys. But then you make it into this very feminine garment and it feels very unexpected. It looks amazing with a cloud-soft cashmere sweater tucked in slightly.

I think this is my favorite way – pictured on this page for your enjoyment. Other styling attempts haven’t been as successful – mainly because, as we all know, buying one new wardrobe item almost always means buying more wardrobe items because nothing you already have looks quite a lot as he imagined it. Suddenly you need boots of a certain length, or a sleeveless, high-necked top, or a top that’s almost identical to what you already have, but just a little more sheer. Everything else will do. No. Do it.

I can tell you things that definitely happen no leather pencil skirt work: many other leather things. Add a leather jacket and suddenly you look like you’re extra Blue Oyster Bar. Add leather boots with any kind of studs and you look like a dominatrix. The key is, for now – and I’ll keep experimenting – something nice and fluffy and oversized in the top half. It transforms leather from a hard, tough kind of material into something tangible, beautiful and gloriously soft.

Now I just need to find the right boots that are just the right length and I’ll be ready to conquer the fashion world…

Skirt, whistles here* (I’m a UK 10 and wear a size 10)

Arket cashmere sweater here* (I’m a UK 10 and wear a size S)