You might know all about Man Repelling. It's those clothes that women at the pointy end of fashion love, and men just do not get. Man Repellers are not dressing to impress the opposite sex. The truth is, they don't need to, because they are young and striking, or they move in the kind of edgy circles where the only thing that repels the opposite sex is conventionality.
Not being in either of these camps but quite keen on fashion, I am alert to Man Repelling tendencies. Like most civilians over 40, I have learnt to walk the tightrope between clothes our girlfriends will admire and the ones men appreciate, or at any rate don't detest. (I don't mean all men, by the way. Some men are lost causes, and there is no point whatsoever taking their feelings into consideration, or you will end up in a skin-tight, V-neck pink cardigan, a short skirt and Mary Janes.) And, to be fair, striking a balance is not that hard.
It is common knowledge among women what will and won't fly with the average bloke. We talk about it in the changing rooms. He's got a thing about peach. I would, but he can't stand stripes. I know he'll take one look and say "You look like you're wearing your pyjamas." Wide-legged trousers. Peep toes. Anything that reminds them of their mothers, especially big amber-ish jewellery and floral prints.
There is a universal list of items that men find challenging - sleeveless coats, loafers, big-knickered bikinis - which we have committed to memory over the years and at this stage we're pretty confident of how far we can push it, before he ends up with his head in his hands.
Only you cannot always second-guess what will repel men and cause them to hunch their shoulders up around their ears, fold their arms and assume the You Have Crossed a Line position. You may go months, even years, and then out of the blue, there it will be: the jaw set that says, "Oh, dear God, why is she doing this now?" Even if they're pretending to watch television, every woman knows the Man Repelled face.
