Boys know best (sometimes)!

No, really, it's true.  This is particularly so when it comes to the whole style vs fashion debacle.  In the words of Tom Ford: "Style is very different from fashion. Once you find something that works, keep it."  Fashion and style can, and do, often come together.  For example, the return of the Trench Coat this summer was huge and no one could argue that a good Trench Coat isn't both stylish and fashionable.  However style and fashion can also run in opposite directions...fast....very fast.  Take as an example harem pants. Now, I don't care how often the glossies told me that they were the fashionable trouser of the season (now soooooo last season) and that they would make everyone's bottom look small, because they just weren't stylish.  The trade off of looking as though you were wearing a nappy and had legs the length of a toddler just wasn't worth it.  Far better to get the right shape trouser for that derriere and to have legs that looked as though they actually went somewhere.  And this is where the "boys know best (sometimes)" argument comes into its own. I would bet good money that it would be hard to find a man who thought that harems were stylish.  Boys say it how it is - with objectivity and without being influenced by what is "in".  You just need to take a look at the men's comments in the "You The Fashion Jury" feature in Grazia each week to know that's true.  I often read the men's comments before the women - not only are they amusing but they are often right.  Take, for example, the comments this week on an outfit that Jessica Biel was wearing: "I fear it's all gone a bit Judith Chalmers for Jessica.  Banana yellow trouser suit is v ageing unelss you're Bowie doing Golden Years or deployed with full power dressing killer heels and oversized clutch.  Could have worked, but she blew it." So, before you dismiss your husband's/boyfriend's opinion as being rubbish, take a second to think about it.  Tact in delivering their opinion is, of course, a different matter....[NB: This does not apply to my husband who is the master of tact at all times.]