How to wear a denim

Wear a denim: You don't have to be a haulier to get a lot of mileage out of a trucker. Or a cowboy. The jean jacket has, like a lot of workwear staples, gone from being a beat-up old-reliable of menswear to a go-to for more dress codes than you'd imagine.

With chinos

You're effectively wearing jeans on your top half, and you know that double denim is dangerous territory. But so is going out half-naked. Enter chinos. They can be smart, with formalising features such as pleats, creases and a tab closure, but they can also be casual.

With a white t-shirt

This is another classic pairing enshrined in Americana. A crisp but fuss-free look, it's not quite as easy as you might think. Its success largely hinges on finding the perfect white tee, which can be a Goldilocks-ian quest: not too slim, not too baggy; not too translucent, not too bulletproof; not too "gunny", not too modest; not too much like a dress, not too much like a crop-top; not so high on the neck so that it's an undershirt-cum-garotte, not so low that it's a clavicle-exposing deep-U.

With joggers

A denim jacket doesn't exactly fall under the category of sportswear, unless you're a rodeo rider. But it provides a degree of structure to offset the softness of your joggers, as well as more prosaically just not being another piece of jersey, thereby saving you from having to go full tracksuit. This isn't a hard-and-fast rule but you're probably best to steer clear of cowboy details on your denim jacket.

With Indigo jeans

A shade more difficult than black jeans, but still not that hard, unwashed indigo denim will stand much less of a chance of optically bleeding into a lighter and/or distressed denim jacket than lighter and/or distressed jeans, for reasons that should hopefully be apparent from reading this sentence.

It's not like double, indistinguishably dark denim can't ever be done, mind.

With a shirt and tie

Yes, you can mix business with workwear.

Make the partnership less what-the-hell by dialling down the dressiness of the other elements to bring them more in line with your decidedly casual trucker: a button-down Oxford instead of a stiff-coloured poplin; a knitted tie instead of woven silk; chinos instead of tailored trousers .