Just before flying off to France, the English football team have been displaying their new "off-pitch strip": beige suits in viscose linen, designed by Paul Smith, and teamed with blue double-cuffed shirts and silver silk ties. For "official relaxation", Smith has designed a casual team outfit of shirt, T-shirt and shorts.

Sadly, reaction to the new gear has been largely negative. Daily Telegraph deputy fashion editor Julia Robson says the lacklustre beige colour is more suited to night-club bouncers and will not earn any style points for coach Glenn Hoddle (who apparently insisted on the colour) or for Paul Smith.

Ms Robson said that first impressions of the squad, "looking uncomfortable in ill-fitting, semi-wrinkled jackets and baggy trousers," painted a picture that hardly inspires confidence. Liz Baker, marketing director of leading image consultants Colour Me Beautiful, was equally disdainful: "Beige is not a confident colour. They all look pretty disastrous and hardly threatening." The Telegraph also solicited the opinion of James Whishaw, design director of Savile Row tailors Gieves and Hawkes: "Beige just looks laddish. Hoddle may well call the shots on the field but he should have sought more advice on style."

However, a backlash has already set in, and some commentators have warned about the unsettling nature of adverse comments about the "boys in beige" ahead of England's opening poolside cocktail party appointment with Tunisia on Monday.

Freelance sports stylist Tim Bute strongly supports the choice of colour: "England knows that Tunisia always puts on a very flamboyant display which can be pretty sensational in the early stages but often fades over the longer free-flowing party situation. I think Hoddle's strategy is that if our lads can hang in there, and keep up with the small talk, the blue/beige combination will pay off over 90 minutes."

He hailed the colour combination as a brave decision: "We forget the lads are all young, and beige is not the easiest colour to wear." Image consultant Harry Erstwhile pointed to the difficulties England face in their group: "Romania, Colombia and Tunisia are all noted for an in-your-face, straight-up, full-frontal, confrontational play of style. They will pick a colour - any colour, or colour combination, and go for it, all out. This often throws the opposition during opening party gambits. But if our lads can settle in to the colour clash and play to their strengths they should do all right. I'm looking for a beige night."

Meanwhile former football stylist Jeremy Gusset, who was fashion manager with Tottenham Hotspur in the team's glory days back in the 1950s before being headhunted for the Formula One fashion world, expressed mixed feelings.

Gusset was dismissive of designer Paul Smith's belief that beige could move the English team into the same fashion league as the Italians, who favoured it in the past: "It never pays to copy the Italians", said Gusset. "They are always ahead in the top-level style game. They invented the bella figura and their name is on it."

However, he argued that "England's blue shirts should get right up the Italians' noses. They're the Azurri and they think they own the colour. So if Hoddle can get his squad to pull together, and maybe try synchronised flashing of the new crested cufflinks from beneath the blue shirtsleeves, we could pull the rug from under the Italians - if we get that far. Not that they rate rugs."

Maverick sports style guru Heathcote Wirt pointed out that while there are no natural suit-wearers among the British squad (and two players have already been cautioned for grotesquely teaming the suit trousers with Nike sweatshirts) this could work to the team's advantage: "Shifting about self-consciously at the various parties, they'll have a sort of naive bumbling freshness that you certainly won't see among the French or Italians or Brazilians. People will warm to that. In this game, nobody likes a narcissist - except himself, obviously."

Those who scoff at the notion that styling is important should recall the fate of Swedish coach Olaf Grunsson back in the 1970s. His choice of lilac muslin suits for his European Championships squad resulted in the team being dropped from the party A-lists and snubbed at all official functions. Grunsson's one-line defence - "It's only a colour" - was seen as hopelessly inadequate: he lost his job and now works as a small-time image consultant in Strnvik, in the north of the country.