Dress shoes and casual clothes style advice

[capnpyro]

Finally time to re-register!

I'm 25 and only have any reason to ever wear casual clothes, I'm an artist and work in IT. Nice jeans, Ben Sherman button ups, various polos and slim fit t-shirts are what I tend to wear and some Onitsuka Tiger tennis shoes. I have a pretty nice suit for the rare (twice a year) formal occassion.

The thing is after reading this forum and AskAndy for quite a while I absolutely love brogue and wingtip dress shoes. I have my eye on a pair of brown Allen Edmonds semi brogue cap toes that are quite beautiful. I have absolutely no reason to wear them and my girlfriend thinks anything but square toe Kenneth Coles are hideous.

Besides never letting my girlfriend dress me is there any way you can think of that I could get away with wearing some AE's with jeans? I think it'd look silly with even the most basic black lacoste polo shirt. I'm almost ready to start wearing chinos again but I'd really like to be able to pull it off with some jeans. Suggestions?

 

[dusty]

I think wingtips look great with casual clothes. They are fine with jeans, but I don't think I'd wear them with something as casual as a polo. You might want to look somewhere other than Allen-Edmonds for less stodgy wingtips that will lend themselves better to casual dress.

 

[Tomasso]

You might want to consider introducing sport jackets into your casual wardrobe. Unconstructed with soft shoulders, in corduroy, tweed, linen and cotton. Good shoes, jeans, t-shirt and a sport jacket. Sport jackets are cool, all the kids in NYC and Paris wear them, even the artists. Try thrifting. You can wear what you wish, don't let your women or your peer group dictate your wardrobe.

 

[darck]

Full brogues (wing-tips) in tan color looks very good with jeans. There were a few photos posted here before the hard drive crash that looked very good. I believe sysdoc contributed one such photo.

 

[capnpyro]

Good suggestions so far, thanks. I might just try it with a nice button up of some sort.

I like the unconstructed sport coat idea quite a bit, too. I wouldn't of thought of that!

 

[acidboy]

bravo to you! you have just made one of the best decisions in your life: never let a girlfriend tell you what to wear.

in lieu of chinos, perhaps you could also look for other materials for trousers: linen, gabardine, wool....

and adding a sports coat in the mix is something you will never regret.

so go and tell your girlfriend that you are now emancipated from the evil clutches of kenneth cole's square toes.

 

[Arethusa]

You don't have to wear trad to make dressier shoes work casually, and there's nothing wrong (at least inherently) with playing off the inherent contrast. To tie things together, you probably would be better off with more antiqued and even possibly scuffed and worn in (although not damaged) shoes. There are plenty of posts here about shoe antiquing with creams and waxes, and more aggressive people here have even bleached shoes with acetone (and in one case, actual bleach). You can wear these with nice jeans, and it certainly can work. Of course, if you actually want to wear sportcoats, chinos, or wool trousers, those are obviously more traditional matches to, well, traditional dress shoes.

 

[VMan]

I have a pair of Grenson brogues in english tan that look really nice with jeans (PDC, etc) and a dress shirt/jacket.

 

[Duveen]

Originally Posted by VersaceMan

I have a pair of Grenson brogues in english tan that look really nice with jeans (PDC, etc) and a dress shirt/jacket.

English tan generally looks great with denim. I have a pair of tan RL jodphur boots and an EG Newbury in tan - both look great with jeans. The 'honey willow calf' EG brogues at the Asprey sale would have looked wonderful with jeans.