The other week, a friend of mine said he considered me to be a conservative dresser. Thinking back, I don’t recall the context and why we spoke about my dress sense – that’s how shocked and surprised I was, the trauma even made me suffer a short-term memory loss.

Joking aside, I wasn’t that bothered. I’m very comfortable with who I am and how I dress. I would have to be called something drastically worse to have my sensible socks rocked. But I still pretended to be offended and drafted him a sartorial defence. Why did I react that way? Being labelled a “conservative” did take me by surprise. I’m not used to being called that – doesn’t matter if it’s to do with what I wear, how I live my life or how I vote.

Later that day, as I was travelling into town on the Tube, I looked down at what I was wearing: a casual suit by Japanese brand Kaptain Sunshine, a striped shirt by mfpen, Ampezzo hiking shoes from Diemme, a navy rain-proof car coat from Stone Island and a three-way briefcase from Porter-Yoshida and Co. And yes, fine, I saw how that could be construed to be conservative – at least if you squinted.

I wasn’t in a three-piece tweed suit, neither was I wearing raspberry-coloured chinos, because my outfit that day, or in general, wasn’t conservative in that sense. As I thought about it, and missed my Tube stop, I quietly set about redefining the term conservative to suit me, quite literally, allowing me to get on with my life.

I started thinking about it in terms of dressing in a restrained way. And I don’t necessarily mean restrained as in minimal – maybe thoughtful is a better word. Every morning before you get dressed, you are, essentially, a blank canvas. You choose your outfit depending on your mood and plans. But as there are only 365 days a year, every day counts. What you wear matters. If nothing else, it matters to you.

That’s where the thoughtfulness comes in and becomes an act of representation. For most people – not all though, and that’s the individual beauty of it – the passing of time means more conservative restraint when getting dressed. You could call it getting old and maturing, but that sounds boring, and clothes aren’t meant to be boring.

I began to wonder, there must be something in between. For me, even though I love a suit – preferably a casual unstructured one in a technical material with one too many pockets – the pieces need to be emotive and say something. Maybe even ask questions. When it comes to clothes, I much a prefer a question mark to an exclamation mark. It can be humour, dissent or even opulence… As long as the garments say something.

And I suppose that’s my point. I still look for the same thing in my clothes, but they look different now compared to then. I’ve changed and, arguably, matured and my wardrobe mirrors that. But I still have very high expectations of my clothes. Not just from a performance point of view but, figuratively speaking, I also want them to recite me poetry. I need them to have an emotional response to my needs. In order to do that, the design has to be precise, the fabrics of top quality and the fit needs to be in line with my body. All in all, a considered garment.

And if that means I’m a sartorial conservative, then so be it.