'If the "millennial tuck" is wrong, I don't want to be right.'

Sorry, no. I'm not doing it. I'm not wearing my shirt untucked.

It just feels wrong, and I'll tell you why.

Because I have been conditioned over the past 20 years to always tuck the front of my top into my bottoms. It's just how fashion works, don't you know?

But seriously, apparently wearing your top tucked in is an absolute hallmark of millennial style, while the kids prefer to wear their clothing baggy and their shirts loose. Out. Open. Flapping in the breeze!

And I get it. I'm a fan of oversized clothes. I've bought baggy wide-leg jeans and figured out the awkward footwear situation. I've leaned heavily into the trend for big boxy blazers and now have several sitting side-by-side in my wardrobe. I've got a stack of roomy tees I love the look of.

But I am not ready to go full Adam Sandler and wear them all together, are you crazy?? Or are you just 22 and cooler than me?

If you do happen to be 22, then don't judge. I can't help it. I'm a product of my upbringing.

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A post shared by Tamara (Davis) Holland (@_tamaradavis_)

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A post shared by Tamara (Davis) Holland (@_tamaradavis_)

Gather round, please, while I give some context.

You see, some of us were raised almost exclusively on a diet of Trinny and Susannah's styling advice.

The British duo, otherwise known as Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, were known for their straight-talking approach to analysing women's wardrobes, which they unleashed on the public in their popular 2000s TV show What Not To Wear. 

The program has not aged well, particularly for a show that was meant to be empowering (the pair literally forced women to stand naked in front of a mirror as they lectured them on the "correct" proportions for their bodies), but the advice they hammered in has calcified into our collective minds.

How not to dress like a fuddy-duddy in 2001, according to the experts:

Always undo the top buttons of your shirt to extend your torso. 

Always wear flared pants to lengthen your legs.

And always, always, ensure your outfit has a defined waist. 

Nod if all this feels familiar.

(I see a lot of women in their 30s and 40s nodding.)

I'm not saying it was right. In fact, much of it was very, very wrong. We have since learnt that limiting women to a strict set of "rules" to "flatter" their bodies and make them appear as thin as possible is toxic and antiquated, and thank goodness for that.

But some of the messages definitely sunk in.

And one of the ways we learnt to create a waist back in the early noughties was to tuck the front of your shirt into your pants and leave the back loose.

This little trick goes by a few names — the 'French tuck', the 'half tuck' — but whatever you call it, if you're a millennial you can't resist it.

The hack works for almost every occasion. An oversized shirt half-tucked into suit pants. A 'nice top' half-tucked into high waisted jeans. Even a sweatshirt half-tucked into leggings for the gym.

As a cohort, we absorbed a lot of our fashion inspiration from reality TV shows like The Hills and its spinoff The City. Breakout style stars Whitney Port and Olivia Palermo were early proprietors of the tucked-in top, and they became some of the first mainstream influencers.

They wore ensembles like leather pants with tucked-in blouses and denim shirts tucked into skinny jeans. These outfits were captured by paparazzi images we saw plastered in the fashion sections of tabloid magazines, showing us how to "get their style". So we did. We squeezed into leather skinnies and we tucked.

The message was then reinforced over years of celebrity style osmosis.

Catherine, Princess of Wales tucked.

So did Meghan Markle.

Victoria Beckham loved a tuck, as did Kate Moss.

But you know what? Fast-forward to now and they're all still doing it. Still tucking. They can't let go either. Old fashion habits die hard, I guess.

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A post shared by Olivia Palermo (@oliviapalermo)

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A post shared by Whitney Port-Rosenman (@whitneyeveport)

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A post shared by The Prince and Princess of Wales (@princeandprincessofwales)

As has been well established, people of our generation like styling in our comfort zone. We like our ankle socks and our white sneakers, and it doesn't mean we won't take any fashion risks or try new trends, it just means we know what suits us (at least we think we do. Unless that's Trinny's voice in our ear again...).

And to this day, I can't leave the house without first seeing if my outfit looks better with a quick tuck.

Most of the time it does.

You can strip me and put me in front of a mirror to face up to my fashion crimes, but you won't convince me otherwise.

Are you a fan of the tuck or do you prefer your tops worn loose? Let us know in the comments below.

Feature image: Instagram/@_tamaradavis_