Sir Michael and his staff of officials have a uniform of knee breeches and swords, which appear to many as quaint throwbacks to a previous age.

BBC: Protesters were within inches of frontbench

At the shop belonging to Austria's Grand Dame of Tracht, Gexi Tostman, there are albums full of personal photos of grooms in brilliant waistcoats and knee breeches and brides in silken dirndls.

BBC: Lederhosen and dirndl dresses make a comeback

During the French Revolution, Parisian women had requested the right to wear trousers and working-class revolutionaries became known as "sans-culottes" for wearing trousers instead of the silk-knee breeches preferred by the bourgeoisie.

BBC: Paris women finally allowed to wear trousers

Americans routinely make monumental decisions such as whether people can carry guns or whether women can have abortions with reference to the designs of a group of 18th-century gentlemen who wore knee-breeches and powdered wigs.

ECONOMIST: Who has been lying about whose age?