Michael Jackson's Courtroom Fashion on Trial

The main topic of sartorial debate inside the courtroom at the Michael Jackson trial came not with the king of pop's unlikely arrival in a pair of blue pyjama bottoms, but a few days earlier.

The whisper rolled through the 30 or so reporters squeezed into the small municipal court as Mr Jackson strode in on the sixth day of the trial. "Is he wearing sandals?" asked one incredulous local television reporter, turning to the row behind her. "With socks?"

Like schoolchildren passing notes at the back of class, the reporters who had covered every day of the "trial of the century" were poised to calibrate and deconstruct the slightest detail of the proceedings in Judge Rodney Melville's court. But socks with sandals? This was unexpected.

Had Wacko Jacko finally become an English gentleman? Did the sandals have backs? Were they slip-ons? Crossovers? How were they fastened? For a moment the unseemly details of the case unfolding before the court were forgotten as debate started on the advisability or otherwise of socks and sandals.

"White socks", hissed another reporter. "With black sandals." This surely was the end.

The jury, blank faces one and all, were giving nothing away. Had they blinked an eyelid when they had seen their star defendant enter court on the first day of the trial wearing a red armband and a medal? Not a chance. Had they reacted to his procession of frockcoats, jackets and waistcoats? Not a flicker.

But for the rest of the courtroom it was another matter. What was with the armbands? Why red one day, black and gold the next? Jackson, in one of his few public pronouncements on the trial, had an explanation: "Fashion".

And then there were the waistcoats: red and gold braid one day, white and gold the next. So it went on, grey with fob-watch one day, without the next. And what about the British regimental medals?

By the end of the first week, Jackson - or his wardrobe adviser - had taken note of his surroundings. Gone was the foppish garb of the first few days to be replaced by the keen legal eagle look. That Friday, Jackson entered the court dressed in smart black trousers, crisp white shirt and red tie. Perched on his nose were a pair of wire-framed spectacles. It was an extraordinary transformation: for most of the day the king of pop looked sort of normal.

It didn't last. The next day in court brought the sandals and a succession of unlikely outfits, culminating in the wardrobe malfunction to beat all others: "Pyjama Thursday."

But there was another shock. Jackson had left home without fixing his face. His skin, lacking the usual white pancake, had an orange hue. Unexpectedly, it made him look more normal than usual.

By the afternoon session, the make-up was fixed. But the pyjamas stayed.

Clad in the blue-collar garb that reflects the area around Santa Maria, the jury members make it plain that they are no authorities in the fashion department. Perhaps Jackson took note.

On the next day in court, Monday, he had gone back to his Peter Pan-meets-bellhop look: red frock coat, medallions, black trousers with silver piping, white socks, black shoes.

At last, a return to normality in the crazy world of the Michael Jackson trial.

The trial continues.