A few tips on age-appropriate dressing.

Fashion is not like getting into a club, in the sense that there are no hard and fast rules about when you can and can’t wear certain clothes. And although at MR PORTER we are usually of the opinion that any man can wear anything at any age, the current wealth of eye-catching, logo-heavy streetwear does call this view into question. Which brings us to today’s style question from @aphotographersquest.

**Does one ever become too old for streetwear?

@aphotographersquest via Instagram **

Different clothes, and different attitudes to dressing, work best at different points in a guy’s life. Young men are still developing their personalities, so for them fashion can be like a theme park in which they try out all the different rides to find out which ones they like best. If that means a guy dresses like a lumberjack one season, an Atlanta rapper the next and after that a 1970s-era Californian climber, more power to him. By contrast, you’d be tempted to worry about the mental health of a 50-year-old who, in order to keep up with the latest streetwear, abruptly changed his wardrobe every season.

As an example, if Mr Will Smith, 50, were to adopt the exuberant style that his son, Mr Jaden Smith, 20, has made his own, he would look like he were trying too hard. Part of this – but only part of it – is down to physique. A middle-aged man can be in tremendous shape, but he still won’t have the body of the twentysomethings whom most streetwear is designed for. So can we agree that past the age of 30, a man is best advised to save the tracksuit bottoms for the gym?

Once, around the end of his twenties, a man downgrades his sweatpants to workout gear, he’s entering the stage of life when he can see beyond the enjoyable froth of the latest logos to the professional and personal advantages to be won by smartening up. Perhaps he consciously wants to put some space between himself and his streetwear-loving younger self. The thing to aim for is not a ready-made version of dressing like a grown-up, but the gradual dawning of self-awareness that reveals a man’s more mature style to himself.

This can still involve some streetwear, but deployed on your own terms. Film director Mr Spike Lee, who’s 61, is a master of this and was recently photographed for the UK’s Financial Times newspaper in a black beanie and dark Defend Brooklyn hoodie. However, he made the look his own with a pair of heavy black spectacles and a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso watch. And importantly, he switches the hoodie for a dinner jacket when the occasion calls for it.

Mr David Beckham, 43, who was a fashion chameleon in his younger years, is another man who’s found his own casual style. He was photographed last October when he visited the Facebook campus in Menlo Park, California, wearing a slim black crewneck sweater, black jeans and plain white sneakers. Although informal, it was a stylish and appropriate outfit because it was simple and logo-free. It was, for want of a better word, classy, and it’s a look that lends itself to subtle individualisation with pieces of jewellery or a special watch.

So there probably is an age when most guys will be too old to look their best in streetwear (the exact age will differ from man to man), but casual clothes are always relevant. Just make sure they’re your casual clothes. With that in mind, here are five timeless pieces of casualwear.