The other week, some dude in a bucket hat stopped me and asked where my jacket was from. Normally, I'd tell him - because I'm a good person and all that - but this wasn't a normal jacket.

Back in 1999, Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet signed a sponsorship deal with the Hong Kong Jockey Club. To celebrate, they made a load of merch that, for reasons I still can't properly explain, goes unbelievably hard. My favourite was a forest-green bomber from 2002, with a cream lining, chunky zips and some lovely branding on the chest. It also had an inside pocket, and I'm a firm believer that an inside pocket can improve almost any jacket. I'd wanted one ever since I stumbled across an old photo years ago, and for the next seven or eight years I searched for it whenever I remembered. Grailed, eBay, Yahoo Japan; you name it. If anyone ever looked at my search history, they'd probably assume I had some sort of horse-racing-based addiction - and fair enough.

Then, during one of those dangerous 2am Vinted scrolls where your brain convinces you there's treasure just one page further, there it was. In pristine condition. The reason nobody else had bought it? The seller had accidentally listed it as "Hong King". I don't think I've ever checked out so quickly. When it arrived, it somehow exceeded every single one of my expectations. The zip was super smooth in that way old clothes always seem to be; there was embroidered detailing tucked around the collar that I'd never even noticed in photos; and yes, the glorious inside pocket was every bit as good as I'd imagined.

So when he asked where I'd got it, I kinda panicked.

"Oh, this? Had it for years."

"What does the logo say?"

"Eh... some pony club thing."

Then I made up an excuse, walked off, and immediately wondered whether I'd become a horrible person. But if I'd spent the best part of a decade looking for this jacket, I wasn't about to let some random guy speedrun eight years of my life after a 15-second convo. He hadn't earned the "Hong King" lore.

But the internet has decided gatekeeping is the eighth deadly sin, somewhere between envy and hitting snooze four times. If somebody asks where your jacket's from, you're expected to tell them, send the link, recommend the sizing, let them know when it's next restocking, and probably chuck in a fit pic while you're at it. But I reckon we've overcorrected. Not because I don't think people should know about cool brands. Quite the opposite. I just think we've forgotten how enjoyable it is to actually find them yourself.

This is, admittedly, a slightly awkward position for me to take, because my job is literally ID'ing clothes. If Bradley Cooper starts wearing anti-hype Jordans, I'll write about them. If Callum Turner wears Brut Archives jeans, I'll tell you everything I know. If Harry Styles pulls on a pair of sunnies, there's a decent chance I've already zoomed into a grainy Getty image, trying to work out exactly which pair they are. I genuinely love doing that stuff, because introducing people to things they might never have heard of is one of my favourite parts of the work. But I also think we've become a little too reliant on everyone else doing the digging for us.

If you see someone in the pub wearing a great jacket, go and ask them where it's from. Honestly. Nine times out of 10 they'll probably be punching the air that someone noticed. I've done it myself, and I'll definitely do it again. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Where I think we've gone a bit off the rails is expecting that to be the end of the story. Ask the question, sure. Then go and do a bit of homework. Look up the brand. See who founded it. Find out what else they've made. Click through to another label you've never heard of. Before you know it, you've spent an hour reading about some obscure designer or searching Vinted for something with a spelling mistake that only three people on Earth have noticed.

That's the bit no one talks about. Some of the best things I've ever bought came from complete accidents. A weird spelling. A dead forum from 2008. Walking into a tiny shop in Seoul because it looked interesting, rather than because some guy online told me it was a so-called "hidden gem". Half the fun wasn't buying the thing. It was all the faffing about beforehand. The jacket almost became a souvenir of the search.

Maybe gatekeeping isn't even the right word. Maybe what I'm really defending is curiosity.

So yes, maybe I should've told the bucket hat-wearing lad where my jacket was from. Maybe that would've been the nice thing to do. But a small part of me hopes he went home, typed "green horse racing bomber" into Google, got completely sidetracked, discovered five brands he'd never heard of before, and ended up buying something even better. I think he'd like that more, too.

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