Bring your ostracised wardrobe items in from the cold by forgetting about whether they go with each other. Instead, let them shine in all their glory

Fashion is a dance between rules and rebellion. Great style requires a bit of both. The rules are essential, because one of the key emotional benefits that a great wardrobe can deliver is a sense of control in a chaotic world. The rules are there to simplify and clarify, lighting our route to a well put-together outfit. That well put-together outfit has the power to help you feel calmer, simply because you look in the mirror and see a competent person and therefore feel like a competent person. Style rules also come in useful for making sense of the world around us. Dress codes, style tribes, the signals we send – whether as blatant as the slogan on a T-shirt, or as subtle as the brand of your rucksack – hold an important social function, making other people legible to us.

But style also needs friction. Fashion dies if it stops moving, because moving with the times is what makes it fashion rather than just pretty clothes. The restless forward energy that moves hemlines and invents new silhouettes is what drives the plot and keeps us interested.