In thing; Silk combat pants

As an alternative to jeans, combat trousers (common-or-garden variety) have been around for a good few years. Once a ubiquitous accessory on the travelling rave scene, combat trousers never really had to withstand conditions more arduous than the odd blackcurrant-and-cider stain. Nevertheless, they were co-opted by the more militant fringes of the alternative communities of the early Nineties who felt the multiple pockets and khaki hue lent them an air of martial purposefulness - fair enough, perhaps, in the rough and tumble protests against the Poll Tax and the Criminal Justice Bill.

By 1995, however, combat trousers were part of the uniform of the Soho trendy, fighting solemnly for his right to buy over-priced, white-label techno 12 -inch mixes. Within a year, every high street outlet with half an eye on youth culture was selling them to 12-year-olds and that seemed to be it, the death of the combat trouser. And then along came All Saints, sporting a new generation of the fightin' strides: silk combat trousers. If no-one was storming barricades in them any more, why pretend that they were? Resurrected now as pure fashion-wear with a vestigial clues as to their hard-working former life, the combat trouser is a born-again cult.

Silk combat trousers, Warehouse, pounds 40

Mike Higgins