Ray-Ban Wayfarers, those glorious emblems of rectangular-ish sophistication, are back. I know this, although I haven’t actually seen anyone I know with a pair yet. Doesn’t matter. The usual suspects have been snapped wearing them in the celeb mags. Every self-respecting fashionista (is that becoming an oxymoron?) will be in them come summer. Case closed. Except.

Don’t mistake me. I love Ray-Bans. They happen to be fine sunglasses. But that’s not the real reason for my deep and abiding affection. I like them because the last time they became fashionable was 1984, a year which in which Sade released Smooth Operator and Your Love is King and something called Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley won the Eurovision Song Contest. My point being that although the Eighties appropriated all three titles of Style Decade, Designer Decade and Me Decade, really, it was still the Dark Ages. Sade may have been divinely, naturally stylish in a way in which few people in any era come close, but the rest of us were pretty clueless. Still, there was light at the end of the tunnel. We had Ray-Bans, which remained a sine qua non of cool for at least four years.

We also had the beginnings of a white shirt and jeans fetish. Sade lived in white shirts and Levi’s because, she said, she couldn’t find anything else she liked. How’s that for a shining example of unbelievable abstinence? Oh and Ray-Bans. And guess what? I reckon she bought them herself. In a shop. I think Andrew Ridgeley (for even in 1984, trends eventually worked their way all along the food chain) probably paid for his too. They don’t make celebrities like that any more.

Anyway, now Ray-Bans are back and this time they’ll be ominpresent by July and over (probably) by January. For this is the spirit of 21st-century fashion, which has many redeeming features: ­ affordability, availability, decent fabrics and something called bodymetrics which means measurements that would have taken half an hour to compile can now be done by a machine in five minutes. But with democracy and speed come ubiquity, repetition and an increasingly throwaway culture (albeit one that likes to use recycled bin bags). Add in the celebrity factor ­­ do you really want your peers thinking that your bob/Birkin/recent liking for waistcoats was influenced by certain regulars on the cover of Grazia ­­ and you can see that we may well have the stirrings of a healthy anti-fashion backlash.

I say healthy, but obviously denying yourself the pleasures of a hair cut, a bag, or, come to that, a pair of sunglasses that suit you because everyone else is wearing them is probably a game of ever diminishing returns. Think about it: what hasn’t been co-opted by the mass-market brigade in the past decade? From “vintage” (or second-hand, as it was quaintly called before market-speak got hold of it) to outlandishly large cocktail rings, clubwear to underwear, no trend is too niche or too quirky to make it into today’s mainstream, where celebrity and high street are now inextricably entertwined.

Which brings us back to square one ­ with the caveat that we’re occupying it armed with self-knowledge and a degree of humour about the whole thing. Wear whatever makes you look and feel good, with your own particular stamp. Back in the primeval swamp of Eighties cluelessness, I believe it was called individuality.

Times recommends

• Live fashion chat: How to stay warm and chic
• How I lost the gift of joy for a while
• The A-Z of winter style rules