For a man who professes to be an introvert, Mr Richard Ayoade has followed a counterintuitive career path. “I often feel awkward in life… It would be sociopathic for it to be a regular thing for you to do an interview,” he told a BBC interviewer back in 2014, before concluding: “I tend not to meet people, really.” True, he has often sought roles as a writer or director. Indeed, his two full-length films – Submarine (2010) and The Double (2013), neither of which he features in himself – suggest considerable skills as a filmmaker. But the bulk of his work has been in front of the camera. And, for someone so adverse to social engagements, Mr Ayoade certainly knows how to dress.

It’s probable that, assuming he’s already on your radar, you first encountered Mr Ayoade in one of his numerous roles in 2000s comedy series, often with a surreal bent. He earned his chops co-writing, co-starring in and (singularly) directing oddball spoof Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, in which he played Dean Learner, publisher and sidekick to the titular “author, dream weaver, visionary, plus actor”, as well as playing Thornton Reed, a hospital administrator, played by Dean Learner. (If the previous sentence makes no sense, it has adroitly caught the spirit of the show in a manner Garth Marenghi himself would be impressed with.) He also played Saboo, a shaman (slash DJ) seemingly obsessed with “the crunch” in The Mighty Boosh. And, in a part that perhaps did the most to define his real-life public persona as sitting somewhere on the geek spectrum, he played socially inept IT technician Maurice Moss in The IT Crowd.

Of course, we say “played”, but each of these portrayals is notable for its wooden performance – and in the case of Dean Learner/Thornton Reed, an Inception-like wooden performance within a wooden performance – so there might not be much in the way of acting to be had here. “I’m unlikely to be cast as a Robert Redford type,” the betweeded comedian himself also says in the aforementioned press-junket piece, noting that his “lack of social presence” hindered his acting career (not to mention, although he does, the role played by his inability to act). And probably (save Maurice Moss, if you really use your imagination), there is little to be gleaned in the way of fashion, either. It took a second life in the realm of TV presenting for Mr Ayoade’s sartorial savvy to shine through.

As the host of The Crystal Maze, Gadget Man and Travel Man, his reluctant delivery is betrayed by a wardrobe that wants to be noticed (and for all the right reasons). The premise of Travel Man, in particular, requires Mr Ayoade to spend 48 hours in a popular destination (Paris, Barcelona, Marrakech, etc) with a less-introspective comedian or actor as a foil to assess its suitability for a city break. This involves a whistle-stop tour of local attractions, as well as the consumption of regional delicacies, which include offal with suspicious regularity.

The show grants its host the opportunity to offload his trademark tweed blazer, loosen his mismatched tie and embrace breezier, if no less sharp, tailoring. Flung into a new environment, Mr Ayoade adopts an effortless approach to and combination of colours, a flair for flowing accessories, plus the natty luggage, all of which is at odds with his self-depreciating stich of a man who claims not to get out much, let alone take part in, or enjoy, a cosmopolitan, international lifestyle.

In all honesty, it’s very likely that with these presenting gigs, Mr Ayoade has just swapped the attire of a member of staff working in a hospital perched “over the very gates of Hell”, in Romford, London (as in Dark Place), for the slightly more believable wardrobe of a television personality from Peckham, London. Both are merely costumes.

“All the world’s a stage,” your boy Mr William Shakespeare, another visionary who preferred life behind the camera (or, rather, quill) once remarked. And, whether it’s as a member of The Mighty Boosh’s Board of Shaman or some deadpan presenting gig or other, you better be dressed for it.

The actor/presenter/director/shaman featured in this story is not associated with and does not endorse MR PORTER or the products shown