Looking back on it, I think I found the first few years of doing PS as a full-time job quite lonely. It’s hard to make friends with anyone in the industry when you’re constantly commenting on them publicly. The kind of person I was interviewing was also generally older than me, and we didn’t have much in common.

I felt quite a lot of personal pressure to make it successful – I’d quit my career of 15 years, and had two children and a mortgage to support. The site had a good foundation, but it always felt as if something (Instagram, TikTok) was threatening to sweep it all away.

It was really nice, therefore, when Lucas (below left) started working on PS four years ago. It was only part time, but it was lovely to have someone to involve in every decision – as well as to just say everything was going fine (which of course you always know, but it still makes a difference when someone else says so).

Actually, there’s actually an interesting body of research around the benefits of talking to someone – anyone, even an orangutan – about the things that chase themselves round the inside your head. Even if it’s something as sophisticated as a scientific theory, forcing yourself to communicate can spark connections that you would never make on your own.

Lucas has now taken on more days, and Manish is contributing regularly. Manish also runs social media and is involved in a lot of the events.

Add to that the regular photographers Alex and Jamie, and other contributors like Aleks (below) and André, and there is something of a ‘crew’ – as one reader put it recently.

I’m closer friends with several brands too. Oliver and Carl from Rubato came up recently, but there are half a dozen others. I’m not sure why that has happened now – maybe because we’re more similar ages, maybe because doing our own products means we have more in common.

It’s been so lovely. I enjoy my job today more than I’ve ever done. From the outside you often think it’s the nature or profile of someone’s job that makes it enjoyable, but in my experience it’s more the people and the place – the day-to-day experience.

I rarely do trips on my own anymore. When we go to Pitti, Lucas and Alex and I usually stay together. When we do the pop-up in New York, it’s with Oliver and Carl. It makes the trip actually, really enjoyable. Not just tiring and a bit lonely (missing my family) but ‘worthwhile’. Actually fun.

After 17 years of doing Permanent Style, I don’t think I can thrash myself in the same way I used to. I can’t take cheap flights at bad times, eat cheaply, never take a taxi. Maybe I don’t have the stamina for it; maybe I’m finally giving myself a break.

Today I’m appreciating all these things that make me happy. Going for a run during Pitti rather than feeling I have to socialise every night. Learning how good Swedish people are at table tennis, as Oliver (below, centre) and Carl casually suggested a game at Cellar Dog in New York and then utterly destroy us.

A more substantial point here is that PS still remains as independent as always. Friends know what PS is – as a service, as a business – and they respect me and it too much to ask me to cover something I wouldn’t otherwise, or cover it more favourably.

They know that I will like some things they make, and not others. They know that that’s how PS works, and what so many readers find valuable about it.

From the outside this could seem like a hard balance to strike, as you want your friends to do well. But I find good friends always have that kind of honesty and understanding.

Interestingly, I find friends also appreciate how the PS business model has evolved over the years. They know we promote hundreds of brands for free, and that advertising is a harder revenue source to generate than ever – as big brands prioritise ‘influencers’ and small ones go direct to the consumer.

Selling our own products – which will always be sometimes adjacent to theirs – could be an awkward topic, but I’ve consistently found that people who know and understand PS also get the dynamic.

Until the day we start selling every basic known to man, shouting about ‘cutting out the middle man’, and conducting Black Friday sales, I think that’s likely to continue.

Much has changed in the 17 years since PS began. I’ve gone from being someone very much on the outside of menswear to someone on the inside, not just as a journalist but as a designer too.

But the loveliest aspect of all of it has been the group of intelligent, interesting, kind – and yes, very stylish – people I’ve got to know. I dearly hope I get to carry on working with them for many years to come.

Colour images: Jamie Ferguson, from our Anniversary Open day. Black and white: Milad Abedi, from our Anniversary Dinner