Why do people bother keeping up with fashion?

Firstly, bravo to the tone of fear in your first sentence, Martin. It's only taken a decade of me working in journalism for readers – or a reader, anyway – to see me as they should: as the Josef Stalin of fashion journalism, ruling with a fist of titanium (iron is so last season) and a terrifyingly whimsical nature. Well done, Martin. Your supplication does you credit and it pleases me.

Now, to your email in which there are actually two more points to address and not just the one you think, and don't worry, I won't yell at you for that. In honour of the death of Waterstone's two-for-three yellow stickers, this week this column will do a three-issues-for-one-letter special.

There is, obviously, no "point" in keeping up with fashion any more than there is in charting the progress of one's football team through the different leagues. (Coo-ee! Check me out with my sporty lingo! The only reason I'm not this paper's chief football correspondent is because I would give all the other sports journalists in the office and, indeed, the world, massive inferiority complexes. True story!) I mean, what's the point in watching every football match when you can just catch up at the end of the season and see where your team is, right? Or even, why bother with that seeing as they'll only be in a different position next year, right? Right, Martin? Right?

Wrong, obviously. People follow sports teams for the same reason they follow soap operas for the same reason they follow fashion: because it's fun. It's enjoyable to talk about the progression of Arsenal/EastEnders/hemlines with fellow devotees because it's fun to feel part of a club and to talk in shared codes with other club members and, for heaven's sake, it's just nice to take a break from bills and bus queues and the general tedium of real life. The changeability is part of the thrill.

I appreciate that the bossy tone of a lot of fashion journalism – including, absolutely, this column – suggests to some readers that they are being told that they must wear blue this season and red the next, but that's only because those readers don't speak Fashion Code. No one is ordering you to wear anything, any more than a match report about Chelsea and Arsenal is telling you that you must support either of the teams. It's not personal. It's just fashion.

Now, as to your point that fashion always changes, only last week I would have agreed with you. But, proving that I don't just write about fashion but that I am fashion, I have since changed my mind.

Last week, a friend announced that he had found an article from 1950 called "Cheap Clothes for Fat, Old Women" and it made him think of me. After making a mental note that I really most try to scare my friends as much as I scare at least one reader of this column, I granted him permission to elaborate. This article, written by the wonderful Marghanita Laski, dissected the ridiculous fashion speak of her day, providing spot-on translations for Fashion Speak, such as "dramatic" ("virtually unwearable; photographs well") and "Bulge, unseemly" ("stomach fat").

These code words are as prevalent in fashion magazines today as they were in Laski's, and the translations are still the same. So what I'm saying, Martin, is that fashion isn't quite as changeable as you think. Trends come back and daft fashion lingo remains impressively immutable – more so, really, than any other language I know.

So in short, Martin, join the fun. Fashion isn't as baffling as you think. Nor is it scary. But I am. Very.