“Once you get to our age, you start to become slightly invisible,” says Mr Campbell Carey, 50, creative director and head cutter at Huntsman, on Savile Row. “Maybe you’ve had kids. You start to get a little bit long in the tooth. You’ve got to make an effort. You’re starting to think less fast fashion and more key pieces that you can build a wardrobe around.”

Ms Catherine Hayward, fashion editor at The Times LUXX Men and former fashion director of GQ and Esquire, thinks making an effort starts before clothes – with the basics. “A proper haircut,” she says. “It’s really nice when you see a man and you think, ‘You’ve got really neat hair, and you’ve just clipped your beard’.”

Taking care of your nails, moisturising your hands and polishing and reheeling your shoes are other easy wins, Hayward says. “It’s just really simple things like that, and you look really well-cared for.”

The Strokes used to have a band rule that they’d dress every day as if they were performing a show, even if they weren’t. Mr Jarvis Cocker has explained that he always wears a suit and tie “because you never know who you’re going to bump into”.

Hayward follows a similar philosophy. “I never leave the house without makeup,” she says. “Even when I have a no-makeup makeup day, I’ve done something to my skin. I’ve put some mascara on. And I’ve brushed my eyebrows.”

She says the effort pays off – for Cocker’s aforementioned rule. “I remember I went for a run around Limehouse Marina in my running gear, but I’d done the [grooming routine] and I bumped into [designer] Patrick Grant.”

Mr Grant was riding his bike. Also with due attention paid to his appearance. “He was in a cycling outfit,” Hayward recalls. “But it was, nevertheless, ‘a look’.”

One of the benefits that comes with being an older guy is that the days of chasing the latest looks or trying to keep up with the hypebeasts should be behind you. By now, one hopes you’ve found the kinds of clothes that suit you and aren’t “changing it up” each season. Frankly, that should come as a relief.

“Trends are something one should avoid,” says Mr William Gilchrist, the stylist whose clients include Messrs Jude Law, Cillian Murphy and Rami Malek. “There’s a certain age where one should have developed a certain level of style. Be it personal, be it terrible, but at least be it your own.”

We all know that the barriers have come down between age groups, and we’re familiar with the concept of the kidult – someone who wears their allegiances to comic books or Japanese toys like a badge. But if you’re dressing like your teenage son, something has gone wrong.

“That whole concept of ‘just chuck anything on’ won’t do,” Gilchrist says.

“For me, the best thing to consider about your wardrobe is fit,” Hayward says. “Effectively: do my clothes still fit? One of the most basic things I do when I’m styling is I go to someone’s wardrobe, with the person, and just try it all. Does it fit them? Most of the time, no it doesn’t.”

This is the part where we’d normally remind you about changing body shape. That you’re not 25 any more. But if that usually implies you might be carrying a bit of extra timber around the midsection, Carey says that this isn’t necessarily the case.

“We saw in lockdown that waistlines went down,” he says. “People weren’t able to go out for boozy lunches. Their partners were watching what they were eating. They were exercising more because it was something to keep you sane. People at our age are starting to think, ‘Right, hang on a minute. I’ve only got so many years left. I’m over halfway’. You start thinking the long game. Everything in moderation.”

Hayward says that the my-clothes-don’t-fit problem may be down to something as basic as the difference between how the genders have traditionally shopped. “When I go on shoots, an anomaly for men in general is that when you ask them what size they are, they have no idea. So, just measure yourselves! Carry your measurements around with you.”

(Also, she says, remember that being “waist 32” in a low-slung jean probably doesn’t mean you’re also a “waist 32” if you go to a tailor.)

“It’s actually the opposite,” Carey says. “It can do the exact opposite of what you want it to do. A tight suit looks worse that one that’s roomy, you know?”

Both Carey and the designer Mr Oliver Spencer sing the praises of pleated trousers for the 50+ bracket. They give more room through the leg and comfort when you sit down. Hopefully your life has panned out that you’ve got at least a bit more money in your fifties than you had in your twenties. Carey says that may be reflected in your superior choice of cloth. (“If you’re at the top of your game, you’re now ordering flannel from me. Blue-charcoal flannels are just so elegant.”)

Meanwhile, you don’t need us to tell you that skinny jeans are out. Spencer would throw the “skinny shirt” out with them. “That’s a really bad faux pas,” he says. “Skinny shirts that you used to wear into work when you had an eye on a co-worker, and you used to want to show off your muscles. But maybe now the muscles aren’t there. And, basically, it looks bloody awful.

“Loose, relaxed, boxy – that’s where it’s at.”

Double down on the colours and styles that suit you. For many of us, that means “50 shades of navy”, Spencer says. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

“I stick to navy, grey, tan, bottle green – that whole palate,” Hayward says. “When men talk about settling on ‘a uniform’, that comes from military uniforms, which work so well because they’re so easy. You just build up very few things without actually having to think about it.”

You may have decided you’re the ‘navy crew-neck guy’. Or ‘the suits guy’. Gilchrist adopted the DB – fashion-speak for double-breasted suit – as his style signifier some years back. “For me, they’re like a sartorial hug,” he says. “I think of it as armour. Whatever I do, wherever I go, there is one in my luggage or I’m wearing one.”

This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to be dropping thousands of pounds on Savile Row. Gilchrist’s DB’s are almost always soft and unstructured. Some are 20 years old. Some he’s picked up in markets for $15. “Most of them go in the washing machine,” he says.

Spencer isn’t averse to adding “an accent” – ie, one slightly jazzier item – in the form of a tie, a hanky or a pair of socks, to give a burst of character. “Logos should be avoided,” Hayward warns.

Tread carefully with loud colours and prints, too. Texture, on the other hand, is your friend. “A textured merino wool sweater with a textured wool jacket looks really good,” Hayward says. “You can keep it all navy, but because it’s different textures that keeps it interesting.”

We can, of course, think of men of a certain age who look absolutely amazing in loud, clashing streetwear and clothes that were once considered the preserve of teenagers – the artist Mr Takashi Murakami comes to mind. A fan of logo-bedecked varsity jackets, harem pants and Day-Glo sneakers, usually worn all at the same time. Mr Murakami is 62. Mr Pharrell Williams, age 51, is another one. But here, Hayward points out a key difference between them, and the rest of us.

“Pharrell has the swagger to wear something tight, with shorts, and a wacky hat – and he looks cool,” she says. “But he’s a multimillionaire who has the responsibility of looking the part for a red-carpet shot. In general, you don’t want to stand out for looking kooky. You want to stand out for looking stylish and chic and low-key.”

“Clothes give you a sense of poise,” Gilchrist says. “They allow you to carry yourself differently and handle yourself differently. It’s the idea that you are going somewhere and you are doing something and you need to respect that. When the concept of ‘dress-down Friday’ came in, I just thought ‘What about ‘make an effort Friday’?’”

“Trainers need to be used for sport,” Spencer says. Or, at a push, putting the bins out.