Fashion writers often describe clothes as witty, which usually translates as ludicrous, unwearable and sometimes pornographic.

However, I recently bought an outfit I would genuinely describe as witty.

It consists of grey trousers and a matching waistcoat, rather masculine in front but the back of the waistcoat is made of pale peach lace, the ultimate in femininity.

It's not so much sexual ambiguity as split personality. Worn with a pearl necklace in the style of a man's tie and two pearl armbands like a newspaper editor in a 1930s movie, I thought it was really "neat".

However, I hadn't reckoned on my husband's intense dislike of it, evidenced by the comment:

"Wear anything you like but do you really want everyone in the restaurant to stare at you?"

I should have remembered a similar reaction when I brought back from Norway, of all places, an equally schizophrenic pair of trousers - navy blue jeans at the back and bold floral print at the front.

He doesn't mind me wearing them in my shop, where I am mostly facing forward, but refuses to accompany me on shopping expeditions where I might be seen both coming and going.

The most recent acquisition to cause domestic friction is a black T-shirt with three rows of safety pins across the front.

Perhaps witty clothes lead to solitary dining.

-Elizabeth Syrett, Lewes