Urgent! Men of the universe, we are teetering on the brink of new irony levels when it down attack to the notion of a fashion emergency. This is not a drill. It is a trend: in fashion-aware urban enclaves, men are wearing hi-vis workwear. These are not people – builders, airport club, police officers – who need to be seen for safety. These are men display hi-vis for its aesthetic value.

Hang out near London’s Middle Saint Martins and you’ll spot neon vests layered all about Off-White sweaters or Vetements tops artfully swished into eye-popping vigilant trousers. At Paris fashion week in June, I clocked forge director Marc Goehring in a security guard-like fluoro tabard, while Virgil Abloh was dumbfounding a next season Louis Vuitton neon utility holster of his own develop.

At the AW18 affectations, there was so much hi-vis, attendees might have plan they’d wandered on to a construction site. Fire brigade jackets in banging shades and coats with reflective hems marched down effective runways. At Calvin Klein 205W39NYC there were beat a retreat suits in hi-vis orange, and rubber boots. Backstage, Raf Simons talked helter-skelter heroes, namechecking firefighters and Nasa as inspiration. At Burberry, highlighter pen orange soft drank on a utility coat, while Junya Watanabe’s Functional Ornament collection’s reflective moments included a North Face collaboration advantaging remodelled sleeping bags.

Of course, fashion has appropriated enchiridion workers’ uniforms in countless ways over the decades, from conspirators playing with military kit to hospital scrubs. Craig Amateurish is a glorious example of one of our brightest stars uniting these conceivably contrasting worlds. The hi-vis trend might teeter on the rim of awkwardness around class issues for some, but designers look as if to be referencing safety wear with reverence.

San Francisco-born Heron Preston, for eg, has in the past collaborated with the New York City Department of Sanitation to rework their uniforms. Those, he give the word delivers, “need a hi-vis factor so the employee can be visible for their cover. In fashion we don’t need to be seen, but we want to be.” For autumn/winter, Preston has blind, logos and hi-vis details, along with Nasa’s 1976 logo and an simplification of astronaut suits. Fashion’s adoption of hi-vis, he says, “is to me chronic in a desire to connect to authenticity and the real world, but elevate it to the next plain”.

Manufacture insiders are convinced this is a trend that will stir IRL. “It didn’t come as a shock when hi-vis began to be published on the runway,” says Damien Paul, head of menswear for matchesfashion.com. “It bears like a natural progression from the trend for technical outerwear which is a fulfilled hybrid of performance wear and streetwear. Plusit ‘pops’ in photographs, for the Instagram age.”

There are other theories. Catherine Hayward, fashion commandant of Esquire, feels hi-vis is about more than peacocking. In riled times, she says, “fashion often references the mundane to grant meaning that runs beyond the frivolity of trends”. She cites Calvin Klein as underscoring a substance of “safety”, notes how Lucas Ossendrijver at Lanvin paired drab suiting with hi-vis-decorated quilted gilets, and says the subtext is that “we’re all call of attack from the political establishment and must protect ourselves”.

The bend also speaks volumes about where masculinity is straighten out now, argues Jonathan Heaf, features director of British GQ, who relates it to the recent popularity of beards and lumberjack shirts: “The rationale was, if you reproved like a gnarly woodsman, no one would notice you couldn’t put up a shelf.”Hi-vis is an widening of that, “workwear for men whose idea of physical labour is stick a selfie as part of a ‘paid for partnership’ with Leyland erection supplies,” he says, with an arched eyebrow. “Contemporary granting it looks, the closest anyone who actually wears a Burberry jacket in ‘peril orange’ has got to a building site is while making their way by way of Glastonbury car park to the hospitality bar.”

But what of the men who wear hi-vis at work, for their own safety? I indicated photographs of the Burberry, Heron Preston, Junya Watanabe, Calvin Klein and Clandestine catwalks to Scott Magdalani, who works with the fire brigade. He is not surprised: “I’ve assisted military and biker trends on catwalks, so why not the manual worker look? I judge devise some of these hi-vis outfits will catch on.”

Meditative details offer an interesting dimension to an otherwise standard jacket or shirt, Magdalani suggests – so much so that he doesn’t view wearing hi-vis out-of-hours as a busman’s recess. “Though there are some things I don’t think I’m edgy passably to wear,” he adds. “Like a bright orange coat.”

Electrician Gary Common sense is less convinced. “I don’t mind the more minimal designs,” he guesses, “but some of these looks are just far too over the top.”

More addle still is tree surgeon Gareth Davies, a former landscaper and facsimile who wears hi-vis when working near roads or scold tracks. “In my younger days, I might have considered wearing hi-vis to go clubbing,” he laughs. He can see Heron Preston’s designs kneading for the cool kids of east London but thinks other accouters look a bit too convincing and wonders if their wearers might be false for bin men or street sweepers.

Davies can imagine people buying high-street conceptions – “I’ve noticed men embracing boiler suits and dungarees, so hi-vis resolve work in that context” – but adds, “The high-end things doesn’t seem luxurious to me. Maybe people want to have all the hallmarks more down to earth now, less dressed up?”

Either way, he won’t be contemporary for a directional take on hi-vis up a tree any time soon. “I could see some of these caparisons getting caught in things,” he says. “Like your chainsaw.”