I’m all for making an effort, but I’m not convinced that getting dressed ought to take several hours. Lace will take you several days, maybe even months. That’s because you will spend ages deciding whether you like it, and even longer trawling the shops for something that doesn’t look bridal. If it’s paler than crimson, you’re dicing with danger. Ideally it won’t look cheap (clue: if, by some Proustian reflex, the first words you think of when gazing at yourself in the mirror in your chosen lace are Ann and Summers, you’ve failed), and you won’t want it to look horribly, hopelessly inappropriate.

Lace is damn tricky. It is no coincidence, we can be sure, that some of the most unhinged characters in the history of culture – from Miss Havisham to the terrible Seventies band Paper Lace – have a thing for it. Regardless of these dire warnings and the gallant efforts of numerous celebrities who’ve already tried it out, with the sole intention of putting the rest of us off, it’s quite the fabric this season, because Miuccia Prada did her entire collection in lace on the grounds that she hates it and wanted to see if she could overcome her phobia.

That doesn’t mean we have to be foolhardy. Discretion is the better part of lace. That means having it peek out from beneath things, like wool, tweed, leather – anything to take the inherent sickliness out of lace. Actually, at this nauseating juncture, let us take a break to explore why lace is sickly because, really, it should be a thing of beauty. The finest examples are – and until the last century or so, their loveliness underpinned the wealth and industry of fine European cities such as Brussels, Ghent and Venice, which between them produced many different kinds of lace, from the thick, crunchy stuff called guipure to the frothy chantilly lace. In Venice, lace was called punto in aria, or stitches in the air. How heavenly is that? The wealth it generated, not to mention the guilds of lace-makers it spawned, helped ensure gorgeous bastions of civilisation across Italy and Flanders. Surely it deserves better than being the trim between some lap dancer’s buttocks, or the see-through statement of some Z-lister?

But how to resurrect it? Prada’s collection is an (expensive) start, although it’s already been photographed so much it’s becoming ubiquitous on our retinas. Finding something gorgeous to slip under something else is another route – a slip under a dress, a camisole under a blazer, a trim on a shirt, or a little lace jacket to slip over a dress and veil arms. Black, chocolate brown or possibly navy are the best options. Or, if you’re brave, Tilda Swinton puke (not literally, obviously, but the colour she wore to the Oscars). Brave, a bit weird, but definitely not cheap.

Which classic items to buy this season

Human nature prevaricates over a £30 jumper, but show it an eight-ply £800 one and the brain starts whispering insidious things

BACKGROUND

• How to get dressed: leather jackets

• How to get dressed: the Miraclesuit

• How to get dressed: handling wet weather

• How to get dressed: Staying in season

• How to get dressed: Sunglasses

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