The knuck: how to wear trousers and boots – without looking like a pirate

Forget the French tuck. This year, the fashion press has another style move in mind – and it will at least keep your jeans clean

Age: A brand new term for an enduring look.

Appearance: How you’ll all be wearing your trousers this winter.

Please no. I just want to be able to wear trousers normally. Oh ye of little faith. Just because the knuck has an objectively stupid name, it doesn’t mean that this is an impractical trend.

Come on. It’s called the knuck, for God’s sake. Yes, but there’s a very pertinent reason for this. “Knuck” is a portmanteau of “knee” and “tuck”.

Then why have they added a definite article to the start of it? Was it very important that this trend had to sound as if it could be the name of 2008’s eighth-worst indie band? Listen, do you want to know what the knuck is or not?

Reluctantly: yes. Good. The knuck is where you tuck your jeans into your boots. It’s what Sienna Miller did in the 2000s, and Diana, Princess of Wales did in the 1980s, and several buccaneers did in the 1650s.

Seriously? That’s it? Wearing trousers welly-style? This isn’t a case of gen Z taking something that people have done for decades and then bunging a new name on it. The knuck is its own distinct thing.

Please tell me how. The key to achieving the knuck lies in how much of your jeans hangs over the top of your boots.

Are you telling me there’s actually a way of doing this wrong? Oh heavens, yes. If you tuck the whole of your trouser leg into your boots, you’ll look like a pirate. But if you don’t tuck enough of it, then you’ll look all floppy and weird. You’ll be a laughing stock.

What is the acceptable middle ground? According to Grazia, which seems to have coined the term, “the sweet spot is a soft gather of fabric just above the boot shaft, rather than a perfectly smooth tuck or an enormous mound of material”.

But why? Grazia again: “Aesthetically, it gives denim a more considered silhouette, adding shape around the leg while letting your boots take centre stage.”

That’s me told. There is a practical element to consider, too, which is that applying the knuck before yomping around a field will keep the mud off your jeans.

That is something. Yes, but make sure you do it in an aesthetically pleasing way. Otherwise you might as well just roll about in animal cack and be done with it.

Surely something as fussy as this cannot possibly catch on. You’re wrong. The knuck has taken centre stage at autumn/winter fashion shows by Isabel Marant, Acne Studios and Dries van Noten.

So there’s no getting away from the knuck. None at all. Get good at it quickly, or risk humiliation – at least until it goes away six weeks from now.

Do say: “The knuck keeps mud off your jeans.”