Obsession with 'skinny' means that suits no longer suit me

The dynamic duo, the perfect pair, were the last vestige of my youth. Now they lie in a teenage wasteland, well, a recycling bank on the Co-op car park.

My first pair of Levi 501s were in my possession since I was 18. They had faded, they had frayed, but they still fit me. They were perpetually a 32in waist, even though I have been resorting to a 34 for pretty much the last 10 years (basically since sitting behind a desk for eight to 10 hours a day became the norm as opposed to propping up a bar in a northern university city).

In the end it was the crotch that gave out, while squatting down to change a nappy (not mine) and I had to face up to my greatest fear: the shopping trip.

I try to keep my clothes shopping to once a year. I do not get on well with changing rooms and their multiple mirrors serving only to remind me that even at the ripe old age of 33 I am still prone to breakouts of spots.

So I might be a little bit late waking up to this, but since when did men's fashion become all about trying to make you feel fat? For years I've heard female friends and relatives complain that there aren't enough clothes made for real women and that anyone whose parents weren't a stick insect and a piece of string should just source their fabric from potato sacks for all the good it will do.

Now it turns out the stick people have turned their attentions towards the fellas too.

I'm not a fat guy. I'm not a thin guy. I'm not even an especially tall or short guy. Aside from some slightly soggy edges (what Alan Partridge would call a 'fat back') I'd like to think I look fairly normal for someone whose colleagues swear blind I'm the spitting image of Ed Miliband.

Yet for some reason, when it comes to buying suits 'regular' is at the chunky end of things. Go into most high street menswear stores and 'regular' is as large as it gets before you start having to go to the specialist big and tall shops or get yourself measured for one along with a coffin while you're at it because you're probably a heart attack waiting to happen.

There are three cuts of suit ahead of regular. There's tailored, which is a 'slightly more fitted look'. Then it goes to 'slim' and finally to 'skinny'.

I was aware of the term when it came to jeans. It never really bothered me before because I'd always considered the skinny jean to be effectively denim leggings. It was just a particular trend that seemed to have turned up around the time Russell Brand was presenting something to do with reality TV where people have to live together and fall out a lot on camera and I figured I would just ignore it.

What I didn't expect was for it to encroach on an area of my wardrobe where I'd always felt reasonably at ease.

You are meant to know where you are with a suit. Sometimes you can stand out if you're overdressed by wearing one. But never, ever in a bad way. You're the one who has made the effort while others suddenly look like bags of muck tied up by comparison.

That all goes out the window as soon as you're the guy in a regular suit standing next to the bright young thing with snake-like hips and boyband hair in a skinny suit, with the sort of tiny lapels that are so thin and sharp they could give you a paper cut.

Isn't 'skinny' meant to be a bad thing? Doesn't it mean 'lacking in flesh' and 'emaciated'?

I get slim. I understand why people would want to be that. But skinny? For crying out loud. We're supposed to be men, not overpriced lattes.