Holiday time, and the look is cheesy

Here's how to take the chav out of your travels this year The chav look is bad enough on the terraces don't export it As you nurse your sore and swollen head and start thinking about preparing to book your summer holiday, I have just one small request to make.

It's not such an onerous task, and with just a little forward planning should be no problem at all. So here goes: when you're travelling abroad this summer, can you please try not to embarrass your fellow countrymen? This means no chavvy shorts, no pebbledash legs and no visible tattoos. It also means no string vests, no espadrilles and no training shoes.

Simple, right? I don't expect you to all start dressing like David Niven or George Clooney (if only), but it would be great if we at least tried to convince our European counterparts

that we aren't just a nation of inexpertly dressed oiks with tandoori tans and curtainring earrings.

Just why are British men so badly dressed when they go abroad on holiday? Is it just that we look so bad in context, when compared to the Italians, the Spanish or the French? Or is our inability to look relaxed and well-dressed in the sun simply innate?

Admittedly, we're not quite as badly dressed as the Germans, but it's still a fairly close call.

Essentially, the generic sloppy Brit abroad looks as though he started dressing as if he were just off to the gym (trainers, fluffy socks, garish running shorts), and then lost interest and threw on a cheap summer shirt from a market stall. He will have fuchsia, oven- done skin, an oversized singlet covered with brightly coloured go- faster stripes, frighteningly awful fluorescent shorts and a pair of moon boot-esque trainers. And these days he will no doubt also have two large gold(ish) earrings and some kind of pikey medallion.

It is a look the British have made their own, largely because no one else has expressed any interest at all in acquiring it.

It makes me think that if these men make the same sort of decisions about everything else in their lives as they do about their clothes, then it's no wonder they look so depressed.

One of their most heinous crimes is wearing football shirts. While it's borderline acceptable for a Premiership player to do it (apparently former Liverpool superstriker Ian Rush was partial to this, and there is an apocryphal story about an Ipswich team who holidayed together in Lanzarote and never ventured into the local village without their away strip), for a civilian it's the height of bad taste.

But I'm being slightly unfair, as many more men nowadays make an effort not to be so disobliging. Before the consumer revolution, men's idea of dressing for the summer was taking their tie off, but at least the high street has made it easier for us not to look like third-rate children's entertainers when the days start getting longer.

One of the biggest mistakes men tend to make during the summer is wearing linen suits. As soon as the clocks change, we take it upon ourselves to embrace the summer even if frost is still on the ground. And one way we do this is by buying linen. We think it makes us look continental.

Rather smooth.

Sophisticated.

Big mistake.

I remember an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer decides to shave.

Having completed the task he turns to admire his freshly sculpted face in the mirror only to have the stubble appear again ping! as soon as he leaves the bathroom. Linen suits are like that, only often they don't wait until you've left the room.

One second you're looking sharp and smart, the next you're crumpled and crinkly. One minute you're looking like David Walliams's Sebastian Love, the next you're a dead ringer for Lou or Andy.

They also have the unfortunate effect of making some people look like extras in Miami Vice, where the likes of Don Johnson and Phil Collins would parade around in their brightly coloured crunchy linen suits, silk shirts and inappropriate RUJs ( rolledup jacket sleeves), looking like gigantic packets of Golden Wonder crisps.

If you're determined to look like a generic British Estuarial yobbo then there's no hope for you, but if you're prepared to listen, then there are some simple sartorial rules that might help you this summer. And they are as follows. Wear a strong-coloured plain shirt (by Ralph Lauren, for instance, in purple, navy or bright orange), a long-sleeved T-shirt (by Richard James), or a bright white one from Topman or Zara. Try a pair of knee-length Boss khaki shorts (complete with dozens of pockets for mobiles, BlackBerrys, tool kits etc), and a pair of white Birkenstock sandals.

I used to think that sandals were for backpacking relief teachers who drank half-pints of real ale in ghastly country pubs surrounded by Ordnance Survey maps and homemade sandwiches. But how times change: as long as you don't wear them with socks, Birkys are the coolest things of all.

I would also heartily recommend a seersucker suit. For years seersucker was the uniform of the world-weary expat or battle-or bottle-) weary foreign correspondent, usually worn with a pair of battered white canvas shoes, a pale linen shirt and a dishevelled tie. But not any longer. Wear one with pride, and if someone asks you for directions to the British Embassy, try to be diplomatic.

In addition to all this you will also need a pair of ridiculously expensive sunglasses, a villa on Ibiza and, most importantly of all, a fake tan. You might look like you come from Essex, but at least you won't look German.

Dylan Jones is the editor of GQ magazine

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