It’s never been so easy to look stylish. Over the past few years, the march of minimalism in men’s style has, to some extent, demystified fashion. Everything is stripped back – the palette, the dress codes, even the menswear rulebook itself, which is today slim enough to skim-read in its entirety on your commute.

We approve, of course. In fact, we positively championed the movement. Style should be accessible. It should be inclusive. And yes, to roll out an overused term, it should also be effortless.

The trouble is, when something is easy, there is a danger that it becomes predictable – and even dull. As a result, you could argue that there’s a constitutional crisis in menswear right now. Social media has shifted fashion’s power to the people, but it’s also stripped away some of the excitement. Instagram’s most-liked men’s fashion is now just grids of grey T-shirts and blue suits, scrolling to infinity.

It’s an odd thing to write about – menswear’s stagger into boringness – because in a macro sense, menswear has always been boring. Compared to womenswear, which lurches between styles with the violence of John Galliano crossing a restaurant, men have always worn the same thing: suits in the week and blazers on the weekend, preferably in black or grey or navy, thank you very much.

Yes, there has always been capital-F Fashion: the stuff that occurs at the fringes, that was photographed in thick magazines and that no one ever really wore. But when the internet arrived, it provided a space for guys who were normally intimidated by clothes to seek advice. Forums like Ask Andy About Clothes and Reddit’s Male Fashion Advice were clubby and familiar; it didn’t matter if you couldn’t tell a lapel from a collar stay, someone would enlighten you. Unlike men’s magazines, which banged on about bespoke as if all men trawled Savile Row every weekend, it made fashion interesting to guys who’d never admit to being interested in fashion.