Yup, I’m still in a polo neck. This is, I believe, the eighth year running. Getting on for a decade since a high neckline became an October-to-March wardrobe staple. But I’m not complaining. Far from it, in fact. The polo neck is a win-win, being both practical and a bit chic.

The one I’m wearing here isn’t the basic kind, as you might have noticed. This fancy high neck is what I call a mad-on. Like an add-on, but – you guessed it. To make an impact, you don’t have to get dressed up from head to toe like a Christmas tree. You can just add one or two elements that are a bit extra. You could wear simple trousers and sweater, but add a velvet headband and big sparkly earrings. Or, as I’m wearing here, you could switch up your go-to navy crew neck over cream polo neck combination, so that you’ve got sequins at the neck and cuff.

I’m not going to lie, this sequin polo neck is not as comfortable as the simple fine-wool kind I wear most days. (Count yourself lucky this trend began in 2011 and not a year later, as I would not have been able to resist a Seven Year Itch joke.) But hey, I love it.

I bought it five years ago, because I fell for the silver sequin polo necks on the catwalk at a Christian Dior show, back in the Raf Simons years. (This one is very much not Dior. I’m not sure where I got it, because the label pushed the scratchiness levels beyond bearability, so I snipped it out.) If I wear it as a top in its own right, I look like a mermaid moonlighting as a ski instructor, which is every bit as bonkers as it sounds. So, funnily enough, I don’t. I wear it under a fine jumper, like this old-season J Crew one – which, with its feathery cuffs, is a mad-on in its own right. Or I wear it under a pinafore dress, or under a loose black maxi dress with thin straps.

A fancy high neck is a useful way to dress up an outfit without stripping off. Dressing up usually means taking clothes off – strappy or strapless dresses, sheer fabrics, short hemlines – which isn’t always helpful, since what we call party season is also known as winter. So, if after all these years of wearing polo necks you’re worried that they’re boring – remember, they don’t have to be.

• Jess wears her own sequin polo neck and jumper; skirt, £110, boden.co.uk; heels, £300, jcrew.com. Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Samantha Cooper at Carol Hayes Management using MAC Cosmetics and Ouai.