Here's a sentence you don't hear every day: I know someone who was traumatised for life by the experience of walking through a shopping centre in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern wearing only a pair of swimming trunks, aged 12. It happened while he was enjoying a day at the seaside on a German exchange trip. The mother asked if he wanted to come and get an ice-cream: as they walked straight past the cafe near the beach, he realised, with mounting horror, that she was heading for the local equivalent of Baskin Robbins in an einkaufszentrum in the middle of town. By the time they arrived, he was so embarrassed he couldn't eat his ice-cream. He sat there in his swimming trunks, the pistachio turning to ashes in his mouth, while a load of Germans sniggered at him. Even today, he's incapable of watching How To Look Good Naked, lest the sight of Gok Wan encouraging a size 18 down a catwalk in the middle of Westfield wearing a bikini send him scuttling for the gin bottle and the Xanax.
I fear for his stability given the current trend for wearing swimming trunks away from the pool: not Speedos or anything skimpy, but the kind that already resemble shorts. I thought it looked all right: no one would really know you were wearing swimming trunks. Furthermore, I liked the idea of an item of clothing multitasking. In the unlikely event that you, too, were traumatised as a child by the experience of walking through a shopping centre in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern wearing only swimming trunks, feel free to give it a miss.
• Shirt, £95, by All Saints. Shorts, £24, by Lands End. T-shirt, from £35, by Diesel. Photograph by David Newby
