Mind you, some people end up with too much confidence. I am thinking of Liberace and Karl Lagerfeld and Kim Jongun and Fidel Castro, for example, and their signature attires. The dress sense of these extraordinary people is immediately recognizable. I only wish someone had had the guts to tell them that what they were wearing was a bit over the top. I once had lunch in a tent in the Sahara with Colonel Gaddafi. He was in full uniform, with enough medals to decorate the Spartans at Thermopylae. The tassels from his epaulettes would not have looked out of place on Barbara Cartland''s drawing-room curtains, and I certainly didn''t dare ask who his barber was, as his hair dangled down like a tangle of seaweed, still less his facial beautician, as his cheeks looked like the surface of the moon. Another dictator, Robert Mugabe, once came to my house for lunch in the height of summer in Hong Kong.

It was 33 degrees C with 98 per cent humidity. He arrived in a tie and a three-piece suit. I implored him to disrobe, perhaps not so much because we were going to be eating in the garden, which was very hot and humid, but because his tailor must have been blind, and I didn''t want the president lunching as a scarecrow. There are, however, those who care a great deal about how they look. I was once on a boat anchored adjacent to another one belonging to a very good friend of mine who had P. Diddy, or Puff Daddy, staying on board. We all went ashore for dinner, and afterwards were about to troop off to a club for a nightcap when P. Diddy said he wanted to return to the boat first.

I was rather curious why the rap star wanted to do that, as it involved getting into a tender and going out to the anchor before coming back again. His host was able to enlighten me that P. Diddy always wanted a change of clothes upon a change of venue. Not only that, he was given an extra cabin on the boat in which an ironing board with a valet was on permanent standby to facilitate these changes. P. Diddy, incidentally, was already dressed meticulously in an immaculate white suit with a silk cravat and his signature dark shades. Anyway, he came to the nightclub after about an hour, in a gleaming black suit and another silk scarf, which had obviously been pressed very shortly before. In any case, the internet age has led to the traditional manifestation of wealth through clothes being superseded by ''geek chic''.

Steve Jobs was one of the most visible proponents of this form of attire, in his jeans and pumps. So too were Bill Gates and other cyber billionaires such as Mark Zuckerberg, with the result that formal wear is no longer de rigueur among those for whom the internet has brought fame and fortune. But I am not sure I like this trend of dressing down. A dress code shows respect to others. I also believe strongly that society as a whole looks so much better when people take the trouble to dress properly. It''s a rite that has done well for mankind. Confucius, who wrote his Book of Rites 2,500 years ago, encouraged people to respect formality as a good way of living. So I hope the pendulum might swing back the other way, and that those who can afford it take trouble over sartorial guidelines.

Just remember Cary Grant or Stewart Granger, or even Edward G. Robinson in his roles as a gangster: they all wore beautifully tailored suits and they looked incredibly smart. The same with Sophia Loren or Ingrid Bergman: they always looked resplendent in their dresses. And that is the joy of fashion: though it might sometimes be regarded as superficial, it has nonetheless been very effective in creating an endless kaleidoscope of visual feasts, not only on celluloid, but also in reality, which is living art.