Though, these days, nobody except the most serious of barristers and nostalgia-addled finance guys are required to wear one to be taken seriously, the necktie has gone through a renaissance in recent years. It has popped up on the runways and on fashionable types who are far removed from any kind of serious office setting. And that’s the whole point: when emancipated from the rules and worn simply as decoration, a tie becomes an enjoyable accessory rather than a corporate prison.

At Japanese brand Masu, designer Mr Shinpei Goto tore up the rulebook on Ivy style and showed ties worn belted at the waist, or reimagined so that they appeared more akin to pink satin pussy bows. Fendi showed preppy repp stripe ties. At Fear of God, they were snipped in half. And never one to be outdone, JW Anderson sent a forest-green tie surely made for a giant down the runway. Totally mad, but the message is clear: ties are back – and they don’t mean business.

Mad for plaid. Plaid mad. Grid-core. Tartan Martians. Whatever you want to call it, plaid was massive on the runway this season. Perhaps it’s signalling a latent return to grunge. (Now that you mention it, Gossip Girl’s famously grungy It-girl Ms Taylor Momsen was sat front row at Yohji Yamamoto…) But plaid, tartan and checked prints appeared at a huge range of brands.

Seen at Fendi and LOEWE on trousers, at Marine Serre on coats, White Mountaineering on shorts, Martine Rose on jackets, and on patchwork suits at Junya Watanabe, it feels like 1993 all over again. In other words, now is a good time to dig out that checked flannel shirt.

Inseams on shorts have been edging higher up the thigh for years now. (We’ve been thinking about it for some time.) And, this season, the trend for the shortest shorts felt fully realised.

We can, of course, blame Mr Paul Mescal for this, who has been baring his pale Irish thighs with increasing frequency. He wore what appeared to be striped underpants to the Gucci show in Milan – with his gams making more headlines than the show itself.

Short shorts were also at a diverse range of brands, including 032c, Bianca Saunders, Dolce&Gabbana and Martine Rose. Wales Bonner went the furthest, just showing budgie-smuggling Y-fronts that left little to the imagination. Whether you feel brave enough to get your own legs out or not, you can likely expect more queues for the squat rack at the gym.

Charli XCX is not, last time we checked, a menswear icon. But maybe for SS25 she might be. The Essex-raised singer hasn’t just written the album of the summer, she’s inadvertently predicted the colour of the season, too. Bright, toxic, super-slime green is the colour on the lo-fi cover of her new record Brat. And by some sartorial synergy, it also appeared with frightening frequency on the runways.

Kiko Kostadinov, Issey Miyake Homme Plissé, KENZO and Gucci were the biggest culprits, with nuclear-coloured collars and cuffs peeking out in a slightly more subtle fashion at Prada. Not the easiest shade to rock, but if you can pull it off, nothing will smack of an unshakeable confidence more.

If hemlines are where the action happens in womenswear, in menswear it’s the trousers that serve as the bellwether of change. Wide trousers have been dominating as the fashionable silhouette in menswear for the past few seasons, and this season designers experimented with different shapes and fabrics, pushing the trend even further.

Mr Jonathan Anderson made huge baggy cable-knit pantaloons for LOEWE. Sacai showed trousers with extended pockets to create a trapezium silhouette. While Dries Van Noten made the case for translucent trousers, shown here in sheer sky blue – leaving little to the imagination. In the trousersphere in 2024, it seems anything goes, as long as it isn’t boring.

Pink and menswear has a long and embattled history. In the 1700s, men wore pink as a signifier of status. Its connotations with masculinity are well-documented. Then, sometime in the early 20th century, a children’s clothing manufacturers began to put out the idea that pink was for girls and blue for boys and this marketing tactic stuck. This has since given pink a kind of subversive power when worn by men, which is why it feels particularly bold when we see it on the runway.

This season it was everywhere: dusty pink chic shirts at Hermès, sheer raspberry trench coats at Dries Van Noten, blush chore jackets at Dior, and hot pink tailoring at Bed JW Ford.

It’s a simple styling trick to pull off, but there’s something that looks incredibly considered about an outfit whose shades are all variations on the same colour. Case in point: this season’s Fendi, Auralee and LEMAIRE shows, which all showed a spread of relaxed tailoring in a restrained palette of neutrals that still manage to make an impact.

A range of beiges, greys or browns that span the shirt to the jacket to the trousers to the tie and beyond serves to add depth and dimension to an outfit without shouting about it. It also wins out as one of the most thoughtful trends of the season.