For my birthday, we’re going to Fogo de Chao. My girlfriend asked what she should wear. I told her that I wore jeans the last time but she should wear slacks. I said “It’s a nice restaurant, but men can wear jeans.” She was shocked by this statement. I argued that as you go up the “dressiness” ladder, women lose the jeans before men do. I said “What do men wear with sports blazers? Jeans!” She said “No, you have to wear dark slacks.” She then said that khakis are a level higher than black slacks for a man. I said if anything, the opposite is true. So…
The only jeans that should accompany a sports jacket are extremely dark, fitted, and minimally washed (if at all). Women can get away with the same thing. All denim is not created equal.
Khakis are no dressier than anything else, and “black pants” is ambiguous – if they are woolens, they are likely “dressier.” Better dress pants would more likely be navy or charcoal, as black tends to be either for waitstaff or formal events.
In increasing level of dressiness (i.e. most casual first)
(i) Jeans
(ii) Khakis
(iii) black or dark navy dress pants that match the jacket.
I’m not entirely sure how to interpret this question. Typically, men are more likely to wear jeans to more to a more formal event than women are, in my experience.
No. Tan cotton trousers are more casual than dark worsted trousers.
Men can wear jeans, cotton chinos, worsted wool trousers, or all sorts of other things with a sports jacket. They can even wear Bermuda shorts if they really want to and commit to the whole “Bermuda” look. (ok not very many men could pull that off)
Turns out, I misunderstood the khakis vs slacks argument. She was saying that khakis equal a skirt, which falls in many different places on the ladder.
1, no; 2, jeans, khakis, or slacks; 3, irrelevant.
I have a suspicion that the discussion here is centering around what level of dress is appropriate for the restaurant. I think the better yardstick is to dress at a level appropriate for your date. So as she moves up the dressiness scale, you better, too, buster. And that means no jeans!
Have to agree here, but either gender can wear jeans with a dressier effect if they wear a blazer or sport jacket–as long as the jeans fit. Business-y looking impedimenta help too, if it’s that kind of event. These would be things like briefcases, computer bags, leather portfolios, and so on.
I wouldn’t say that women are any less able to “get away” with wearing jeans. From a couple of early office gopher jobs I had in the 1970s you would have thought the reverse. Far more women than men could be seen wearing jeans; yet, this may have been a reflection of the way different jobs were distributed between the genders. Men typically had the higher level jobs involving external contacts, still usually cited as one of the best reasons for dressing up on the job. Women usually had lower-level back-office jobs.
I will say that men tend to wear jeans more as a matter of preference, and this gender difference widens the older we get. Fifty-year old women in jeans–don’t see it very often. Fifty-year old men? All the time.
Vis-a-vis. The first “s” is pronounced because there’s a vowel right after it–it’s more like “vee-sa-vee.” The second “s” is silent because it’s at the end of the word/phrase.
As for clothes, I don’t know. I have no fashion skill at all, so I just go by what others say, and I just stay confused if there’s no consensus.
It’s now widely accepted that men, especially young men, can dress one or two levels of “dressy” below women in social situations. Doing otherwise is no longer considered hip or sexy outside certain urban centers that participated in the “metrosexual” phenomenon several years back.
Eventually, such sloppiness will become not just expected, but compulsory, and any man who dresses a little more traditionally will be breaking etiquette and making people uncomfortable.
I think it is pretty compulsory in a lot of situations already. I find myself in a lot of social situations where the women are all wearing nice dresses - not exceedingly formal but enough that a suit or at least a sports jacket and tie would once have been an appropriate complement for her date. All the guys wear shirts and pants ranging from dressy jeans to wool trousers. I buck the trend by wearing a sports jacket sans tie and fit in ok, but I’d certainly be out of place any more dressed up.