Reading the Sunday Times’s Style section this week (how else to maintain my position in the van of fashion?) I chanced upon this photograph. I reproduce it, in part, to mollify readers known to complain that there are too many pictures of me and too few commas on this page. I thought, too, that a tip on elegant dressing might be welcome.

Selma Rud, 25, told the magazine: “I dress according to the Coco Chanel rule. It’s the best styling tip ever. Chanel is a huge influence, as she makes me go on dreaming.”

And what is Coco’s rule?

“Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory.”

The ‘accessory’ that Selma appears to have removed on this occasion is her trousers — or possibly her skirt. In the wacky world of fashion this would appear to be the natural extension of the practice — originated by the late Alexander McQueen in his ‘bumsters’ of 1996 and now presumably considered frightfully old-fashioned — of stepping out with acres of underpant on view.

Dispensing with trousers altogether would seem to be infinitely preferable to walking around constantly grabbing their waistband, as every exponent of the low-slung jeans fashion seems obliged to do.

I shan’t be trying it myself, though.