Pay attention, Prince Harry, there are some very precise rules around white trousers

Artisanal £130 sushi? Tick. Cameron Diaz presumably swapping bone broth recipes with Gwyneth Paltrow? Tick. The Duchess of Sussex in tasteful neutrals, cruising in from the palm-dotted hills of Montecito? Tick. If you were playing Los Angeles bingo, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more Californian vignette than the gathering at Sushi Bar Montecito last week. And evidence that the Duke of Sussex has thoroughly drunk the kombucha of his adopted land was clear for all to see in his new wardrobe. 

Neat T-shirt (and neat hair – shaggy English mop begone), tan suede shoes and crisp white trousers. The white trousers are a brave move, but then he’s breaking new ground in so many ways these days … They’re the last frontier of men’s dress in summer. 

In women’s fashion, white trousers are synonymous with a certain Elizabeth Hurley sense of girls-on-hols glam. In menswear, white trousers are largely considered the attire of the Love Island contingent. Spray-on tight to offset that tan (and the work of those Crest whitening tooth strips), they’ve become the unofficial men’s uniform of Ibiza lads’ holidays. Which is a shame, because white trousers (bear with, we’ll get into the difference between chinos and jeans later) can be elegant in the right hands.

There’s Alain Delon in Purple Noon, the original film adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley, looking like the absolute pinnacle of style in soft white linen trousers and shirts. Or take his latter day opposite number in the remake, with Jude Law posturing in Roman squares in crisp white chinos.

From Steve McQueen to Sean Connery’s Bond, the greats of men’s style have opted for white trousers when the mercury rises. It was only in the 1980s that they became the uniform of cringe-inducing lounge crooners in the Med, followed by our shiny young Gen Z boys on reality TV shows. 

The pitfalls with white trousers are fairly obvious; they pick up every scuff and stain, then there’s the fact that the glaring whiteness can show up every …shall we say … “lump and bump” that a gentleman has to offer. Particularly if they’re tight. That’s the next problem; in super-snug cuts, they look rather cheap and out of balance with a soft-fit shirt. 

Perhaps we should take lessons from the French (that debonair Mr Delon again) in how to get it right. Cult Paris brand Officine Générale, maker of some of the best shirts around, have a solid business in white jeans, and its charismatic founder Pierre Maheo has long been a fan of their clean simplicity. “White works all year round. A good pair of white jeans can look fresh even in winter, just avoid muddy puddles,” he says. Keep the cut straight-legged (as opposed to skinny) and keep the rest of your outfit neat and minimal; a crisp T-shirt or khaki jacket with simple leather espadrilles or sandals. 

As for white trousers – an entirely different beast to white jeans – there are two camps. 

The first is the less formal approach; loose structured linen variants ideal for languorous lounging at some beach bar. They’re designed to be deliberately rumpled and “at ease”, so make sure the setting fits the stance. 

Their opposite number is the tailored white chino (Incotex makes some of the best in the business), which are go-to attire for summer soirees. There’s an Italianate flair to tailored white chinos that makes them ideal with a navy blazer and shirt sans collar.  

The Duke of Sussex is certainly in the more laidback camp, but whatever your thoughts on his new adopted lifestyle, you can’t deny he’s looking good on it. The hair’s sharper, the clothes more polished and thought out. Who needs Windsor when you have the West Coast?

Try these...

Left to right: Straight leg jeans, £125, gant.co.uk; Sullivan jeans, £119, ralphlauren.co.uk; chinos, £88, reiss.com; linen trousers, £59.95, massimodutti.com