Remember Dress Pants?

Over the past few years, there has been a big push in the men’s style world of slim fitting chinos.  The blogs I read do it, I do it, and with good reason: they are a great pant and they really can be dressed up or down.  That said, actual dress pants  have taken a backseat to their casual cousin.  Well no longer!  Dress pants are dope.  Hit the jump and find out why.

Chinos are cherished for their versatility: they are like jeans only they aren’t.  Generally, people recommend grabbing some chinos, ironing a crease in them and pairing with a blazer, dress shirt, tie, and hard bottoms for a good dressed up look.  Dress pants get glanced over because of their perceived lack of versatility, but for the more advanced sartorialist dress pants can be about as versatile as chinos.  Some may ask what separates chinos from dress pants.  A big differentiating feature is the fabric: typically dress pants are going to be made of wool (or some blend) or a higher grade of cotton twill that may even have a slight sheen to it compared to the more muted and washed chino.  Another differentiator is the crease: typically dress pants come creased and some have some sort of permanent or semi-permanent crease in them.  Chinos a lot of times don’t come creased and generally don’t hold creases well.  Now that the background stuff is out of the way, let’s get to the meat and potatoes.  One of the keys to making dress pants more casual is to pair them with casual pieces that are more dressy.  Take this look:

Here we have dress pants with a short sleeve button up.  The shirt itself isn’t overly washed or distressed, so it doesn’t look out of place with the pants.  The wing tips look great, but this look could have just as easily been worn with some canvas sneakers.  

This next look is courtesy of The Style Blogger: 

Here he pretty much made an entire suit a casual look, but if your stuff is tailored right you should be able to do it too.  Suit pants can be a little tricky because many suit makers don’t make suit pants with lower rises that many younger guys have become accustom to in our chinos and jeans.  But then again, if you go than Don Draper swag there’s nothing wrong with rocking a white t with high waisted pants.  Something Dan T’s above look should be a reminder of is the companies like J. Crew with modern fitting suits: you could get an entire suit from them and break the individual pieces down into great casual looks like he does here.  

How would I rock dress pants casually?  Well I would start with some pants like this from J. Crew: 

Then up top I would keep it simple with a white v-neck t:

Over that I would go with a simple cardigan like this dope joint from Brooks Brothers:

Fall is right around the corner, so a baseball jacket might be necessary:

Then for kick, you already know we are rockin’ boots all Fall!: