I'll admit it: I'm a sloth. Not just a "likes an afternoon on the sofa" kind of sloth, but real, biblical, seven deadly sins, do-not-turn-left-at-the-pearly-gates kind of sloth. And though I take great pride in what I wear (and what I write about what I wear), I like things that swaddle me in comfort like that screaming, wrapped-up kid Billy Zane weirdly abducts at the end of Titanic. Big Carhartts. Big polo shirts. Big sweatshirts. Yes, sweatshirts are the best bit.

I have too many. The intensity of my delight at something big in the shoulder and wide on the chest is matched only by the anxiety I suffer when a seam starts wearing thin on a now discontinued sweatshirt. They make me feel good, but still make me look like me: catatonically comfy, but clued-up, too. Something wasn't right, though, when I tried on a bottle-green, '80s-gym-teacher kind of sweatshirt.. I couldn't work it out. Things were flat. Too smooth. Clued-up was now clueless. And actually... kinda misshapen?

Look, in a state of relative mid-30s happiness I've put on some timber ("did you cancel your gym membership?" my mum gently inquired). But this was something else. My stomach looked like an expanse of marl cotton. I was boxy; not in a jacked kinda way, but like a shoebox with some pool noodles attached. I was swollen and monolithic and mumsy, and I am many terrible, terrible things but I am not those things. My eye went right down the middle of this shocking fit and identified the fulcrum of the disaster: the hem was loose.

If I was to be historically accurate, an '80s gym teacher would have a tight hem. The cotton on top billows, marshmallow-like, before coming in to create some shape. This hem did not do that. There was limited elasticity, causing it to sink down. There was no outline, no shape at all. Where layers can be ruffled up with a tighter hem - a peek of a white T-shirt, maybe even a bit of midriff if you're really feeling sexy - a loose hem swamps everything. The layers will be flat and frumpy, like a well-made bed in your nan's guest room.

In that moment I realised just how unsafe a "fail-safe" sweatshirt is. Go loose hemmed and shapeless, and you're fucking cooked. Upon immediately exchanging the bottle green failure for an old faithful, I began to understand why a tighter hem was better. For thousands of years, the upside down triangle has largely been seen as the Platonic ideal of hot. Big arms. Boulder shoulders. Small waist. A tighter hem can help carve that out, even if you aren't so slight in the middle - and let me tell you, I've been hamming down Haribo Tangfastics like a diabetic with a hall pass. It's the closest thing to a cheat code right now.

Now, I'm not saying you go skintight. Your sweatshirt shouldn't cut you in half. But even in this age of XXXXL cosy boys, where the fabric swallows and the silhouettes boom, the best examples still have some structure. Those angel-faced TikTok boys with the parachute-sized jeans? There's often a tight T-shirt up top to balance things out. Big shirts and big cargo pants need a belt to bring it in. Even Oscar Isaac, a man at his aesthetic peak, tempered those huge ass tuxedo trousers at the Frankenstein premiere with a slightly cinched-in waist and a roomy lapel. Sure, these are all very fashion. But the tighter hemmed sweatshirt is just a more mainstream application of the same rule - and it works for anyone non-famous and over 25 too.

So like me, you can be chronically lazy. Sack off the gym. Eat like a bin. But just don't settle for any old sweatshirt. The margin of error is so tight.

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