The number 13 is unlucky, right? The superstition surrounding any Friday that happens to fall on the 13th day of a month can be linked all the way back to Jesus’ last supper, where there were 13 guests. Well, 12 if you discount the host, Jesus of Nazareth. Can you call the son of God the “host”? We’re not sure. But anyway, given he died the next day, he can’t have done a very good job of organising a dinner party. Perhaps he served the fish raw. Again, we’re not sure. But whatever happens, in the year 2019, we still approach the number with caution. Today, on Friday the 13th, we could avoid driving, or taking public transport – lest something terrible happens to us. Or we could use this day to look back and consider when we have had rotten luck in the style stakes. We do hawk clothing, after all. Below, the MR PORTER staff reflect on such fashion mistakes.

I’ve made a lot of fashion mistakes: a skinny, double-denim outfit (with bleached-blond fringe) that got me mistaken for a gigolo in Willesden Junction, of all places (yes, I was actually kerb-crawled); an oversized beige cardigan that caused a friend to say “Why are you dressed like Luke Skywalker?”; deep V-necks; shiny purple trousers; pointy shoes; lots of neon and plastic in the nu-rave days. Still, even with such rich pickings to choose from, I have to say my worst period was in the 1990s, as an 11-year-old, where I had a collection of horrible, too-tight turtleneck jumpers that, for some reason, I wore quite a lot. Few men have the figure for tight turtlenecks (broad chest, no tummy, can stand up straight), and I certainly never have. Yet, every mufti day, a turtleneck would call to me. I think I had a strange notion they were somehow more grown-up and European and sophisticated? In fact, they made me look like a Hershey’s Kiss, or one of the illustrations from the 1980s version of Cluedo.

In 2001, at the height of my blunder years, I purchased a pair of jeans so baggy that my younger sister could fit her entire body into a single leg hole. She was 13 years old at the time. The only thing that haunts me more than the photos of me wearing those jeans is knowing what I paid for them: they were sold to me by a school friend for £40 plus (plus!) a special-edition gold cartridge version of The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time for Nintendo 64. The strangest thing about this story is that I somehow had a girlfriend at the time.

I have recently been back to my parents’ home, where I still have piles of photo albums from my youth, when we didn’t have Instagram and we used to travel with one-use film cameras. Feeling nostalgic, I decided to spend a whole afternoon going over them. I was surprised to discover that, apart from some bright T-shirts and a couple of dubious pairs of sneakers (I wore Reebok Pumps, which are now back in fashion), my style hasn’t changed that much. This was until I found a roll of shots I took during my first trip to London. It was 2000, Mr Craig David was at number one that summer with “Fill Me In” and I thought that wearing white cropped trousers was the best idea ever. Well, it wasn’t. First of all, it made me look even shorter than I am. Second, wearing white trousers on the Tube is never a good idea, especially over summer. Last but not least, I used to match them with a white shirt and a white pair of Converse. I thought I was so cool, but I honestly looked like an ice-cream man.

I refuse to categorise it as a style mistake, but my mum and my girlfriend both agree that a purple sweater by Acne Studios is the single worst thing in my wardrobe. OK, so purple isn’t the easiest colour to wear – when I bought it, I felt it was time to inject a bit of punchy colour into my day. But what they see is an idiot in a child’s jumper that drains all colour from his complexion, so they walk three steps behind (that’s if I even get out of the house in it in the first place). Every other outfit I’ve ever worn has been pure sartorial genius, of course, so I’ll give them the jumper…