Smart casual what is

For a more relaxed look, you can roll up the cuffs. Start building up your shirt wardrobe with easy to match colours. A white classic shirt is a foundation. Make sure that the collar looks good when left open to the third button but also when fully buttoned up. A blazer is arguably what will set your smart casual look apart from any other casual wear. Start with a classic navy unstructured blazer that will be easy to match with any other items in your wardrobe.

The shoes that you wear when dressing up smart casual will have a big impact to finish up your look. A pair of high-end sneakers can dress you down while a pair of classic Oxford leather shoes will dress you up. Accessories are perfect to add a touch of personality to your outfit and enhance your overall look. You can stay consistent with accessories that support your look or go in the opposite direction to create your own unique style.

Here are a few suggestions of accessories that you can keep for years to elevate your smart casual look. Here are their tips to help you look great when dressing casually:. When shopping for new clothes, you should always decide first what you want and then look for the best items to complete your look. That said, there are a few selected brands that our style editors tend to favour over others.

Those are the brands that offer superior quality for the right price and never seem to disappoint us. Check also our list of the 15 most popular luxury brands of the year for more inspiration.

We recommend that you read them if you want to learn more about dress codes in general. Ready to discover how to dress up smart casual with style?

Darker colours skew more formal, so smartening up can be as simple as turning down the lights. For example, take an olive green bomber jacket, white T-shirt, stonewashed jeans and white trainers.

Now swap the olive bomber for a navy one, and the stonewashed jeans for indigo. Suddenly it feels dressier. Even more so if you swap the white T-shirt for, say, mid-grey or charcoal, and the trainers for navy or black.

The constituent styles are exactly the same, but the overall effect is very different. And the reverse is true: lightening up is a dimmer switch for smartness. Another major factor that affects the relative smartness or casualness of a piece is texture. Swap the worsted wool for a matte flannel or tweed, however, and you both literally and metaphorically change the feel of the piece.

This will also often make the garment seem larger in size, which only adds to the more casual vibe, given that smarter looks are usually sleek and streamlined. This is a handy rule of thumb and forefinger that you can apply to casualise much any piece: shirts, knits, trousers, even shoes. As previously mentioned, throwing a blazer over T-shirt, jeans and trainers is as easy a move as any to nail a smart casual outfit.

As also previously mentioned, a blazer with some texture will rub up the right way with jeans. As will one cut a little shorter, perhaps also with slightly slimmer, more contemporary lapels. Finally, ripping out the padded shoulders and canvassed chest found in smart blazers will also make them feel more casual, not to mention comfortable.

But upgrading to a polo shirt will instantly smarten a casual rig. It also commonly comes in fabrics such as Oxford cloth or chambray, which are less smooth and shiny. But substituting a fine-gauge knit in merino, cashmere or even cotton for these thick, casual and sporty pieces can lend a soupcon of sophistication.

A knitted blazer is somewhere between the two. Legwear is usually a smart casual sticking point. Your pins are an oft-missed opportunity to not formalise an outfit, but also flex. Going back to the bomber jacket, T-shirt, jeans and trainers example, swapping the jeans for tailored trousers can not only look smart, but also fashionable.

Which is why most guys stick to jeans or chinos. What makes a smart shoe more casual? Colour: black is smartest, brown is more casual and tan more casual still. Silhouette: a round or almond toe is more casual than a pointy one, as is a chunky sole.

And texture: nubby, matte suede is more casual than smooth, shiny leather. In terms of fabrics, shiny, smooth leather is smarter than matte, coarse canvas, and suede is somewhere in the middle.

How many times can we advocate a blazer? At least one more. So get you a blazer that can do both, ideally. For it to fly as smart casual, the blazer should be made from a more textured fabric than an average suit jacket, cut slightly shorter and constructed less rigidly. When she isn't helping dress clients at Fortune companies or start-up CEOs, Turkel, as a wardrobe supervisor for the classic TV show "Friends," helped dress the likes of Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer - and claims the experience helped her get an idea of what "smart casual" was.

Color, pattern, texture and proportion were all major factors in creating each outfit for each character in each set. Think of Ross' suits - rarely did he wear a basic white or blue shirt and navy suit. The overall outfit was defined by tone and pattern," Turkel said. Instead of wearing a basic T-shirt, try one that is more refined, with better quality fabric. Turkel also recommends not wearing anything too low-cut including pants , and to stick to well-fitting classics like pencil skirts or tailored pants.

In terms of jeans, Turkel advises to only wear them if you are sure others in the office will be doing the same. For a nice, put-together smart casual outfit, Turkel recommends spicing up your ensemble with a printed blouse with additional style elements like a tie around the neck or piping down the front - and perhaps pair it with a nice wool sweater in a solid color. Roth seems in agreement, although she claims that if your office is a bit more casual, items like jeans, nice T-shirts or jackets may be appropriate.

Smart casual shows that you have a brain and that even while you are dressing casual, you are putting thought, and pride, into your appearance. With the general blurriness between business casual and smart casual, especially for men, what options are there?

High-end department stores have personal shoppers to help get you started," Arnold suggests. Two, you need not look like a magazine model to look good. Three, If the people around you dress really casually you may actually stand out too much. Dress one level above the mean. Most stylists pointed to fit being the most important element of dressing smart casual for men. Ensuring all pants, shirts, cardigans and blazers are tailored or well-fitted can make a huge difference.

Still, there is definitely more to a "smart casual" wardrobe than just making sure everything fits your body. Wearing more than a shirt and pants instantly elevates your style and gives you a more polished aesthetic," Noguchi said. Additionally, Alex Sumner, creative director for Acustom Apparel - a styling service for men - recommends following a simple acronym: "K.

Clothes should frame us and reflect that we are intelligent, adept and savvy," Sumner said. Dressing up more casual pieces like loafers or sneakers by opting for luxury brands or keeping a well-fitted, neutral blazer on hand do the trick for smart casual in or out of the office. For both men and women, "smart casual" is much more about elevating basic pieces and ensuring you are matching or better still, one-upping your colleagues' level of dress.

The restaurant's dress code is smart casual. Examples of smart casual. Sokkie dancers in nightclubs mostly wear shoes and dress smart casual. From Wikipedia.

A jacket, dress shirt, necktie and jeans are demonstrated as " smart casual " attire. Audiences usually meet smart casual standards, with some performance companies explicitly telling audiences to wear whatever makes them comfortable.

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors. What is the pronunciation of smart casual? Browse Smart Board.