It is nine days until the nation settles down on the sofa to watch the Downton Abbey Christmas special but a row is already brewing over alleged fashion faux pas on the eagerly anticipated ITV1 drama.

At stake is the reputation of Downton Abbey's carefully costumed characters, with one "expert" claiming that the show's fashion sense is woefully out of step with the times and that the show's army officers fail the military moustache test.

Tony Jackson, former editor of Shooting Times magazine, seized on a publicity still for the two-hour special which showed the men of the house going on a pheasant shoot wearing leather gaiters.

"The episode is set in 1919-1920, but the guns are dressed in the garb of the 1890s. No driven game shot in the 20s would have been seen wearing leather gaiters," Jackson said in a letter to - where else? - the Daily Telegraph.

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