Alexis Petridis: Let's hear it for the return of nutjob fashion

Bereft devotees of Threshers' 3-for-2 deal may disagree, but of all the recession's victims, it's fashion's nutjob wing I miss most. How rash I was to mock them, not realising how boring menswear would be if designers stopped trying to flog us crotchless jumpsuits and helmets with plumes of fake fur ­protruding from the top. I mourn their loss, and that of the ­unwittingly hilarious Fashion Inc, a magazine that, among its myriad delights, had­ a ­perfume correspondent who used the adjective "civetous" to describe scents. The dictionary ­revealed she was ­saying they smelled like a cat-like ­animal 's anal glands. And who among us hasn't stood at ­Debenhams ' ­perfume counter, crying, "For the love of God, haven't you got anything that smells a bit more like a cat-like animal's bumhole?" But occasionally, something of the nutjob spirit slips through a crack in this sensible new facade: hence the outfit pictured. The idea, as with so much nutjob fashion, came from blue-sky thinking. Just as someone wondered, "How can I change the jumpsuit?" then cut a hole around the area covering your privates, so someone has ­reconstrued winter dressing – out with the overcoat, in with the ­giant men's Babygro and body warmer – blithely ­unconcerned that it makes you look like a pervert, if the mortified silence that greeted the sight of me in it is anything to go by. I greeted that ­silence like a long-lost friend: proof that there's still life in the body of nutjob fashion. • Alexis wears long johns, £26, by American Apparel . Gilet, from a selection, by Ralph Lauren, from Fenwick . Shoes, Alexis's own.