Men’s Style Guide: Find Your Fashion Balance with Men's Trousers

We know what you’re thinking. “Balance? What’s balance? And why on earth do I need to balance an outfit?” But an outfit’s balance has very little to do with physical weight. If you want to throw together a great outfit, you’re going to have to understand balance from a fashion perspective. This men's style guide will help.

Balance: The Defining Trait of Your Next Outfit

Simply put, your outfit’s “balance” is how you distribute the visual weight of your fashion choices. Here are a few examples:

• Wearing a glove on one hand but not the other puts all of the “balance” on one side, which is why it may look wrong.
• An outfit with solid men’s trousers but five layers on top—including accessories like a pocket square—may look overloaded because all of the visual weight is on top.
• A giant, oversized scarf over an otherwise conservative and simple outfit will look completely out of place because the balance is all on one accessory.

Here are the different elements of your outfit that contribute to the visual weight of your outfit:

• Contrasting colors
• Additional accessories
• Design elements, like seams and pockets

If you’re going to understand how to throw together an outfit given what’s already in your wardrobe, you’re going to need to know how to keep your balance in check. Here are a few tips.

Match Casual with Casual and Formal with Formal

Let’s say you acquire a pair of 8 Wale Luxury Corduroy Flat Front pants. These men’s pants are versatile enough to handle a variety of situations, sure, but they’re under our “men’s casual pants” section for a reason. Pair them with a three-button suit, a vest, and a tie, and the pants may look completely out of place.

The reason is that you haven’t balanced casual with casual and formal with formal. These men’s corduroy pants will look much better with a button-down shirt and a sweater if you still want to rock a tie. The key is to keep the entire outfit consistent with itself.

Stick to a Basic Color Palette

If you acquire some Flat Front Dress Denim, then you’re wearing light blue. Use Paletton.com to find some complementary colors, and then check if you have similar options in your wardrobe.

Most of the time, an outfit looks poorly put together not because of visual weight, but because of the mismatched colors themselves. To keep your overall colors balanced, try to stick to a basic concept—even if that means matching basic triad colors with each other.

Don’t Go Overboard with the Accessories

Accessories are how most men throw off the balance of their outfit. If you wear a watch, a bracelet, a necklace, a scarf, and a hat, you’re likely going to appear “top-heavy” when it comes to the balance of your clothes. Similarly, men who wear large belt buckles with their trousers and no accessories to counter the balance may look “off.” Stick to some basic accessories—like a pocket square and a wristwatch—to keep the balance of your outfit in check.

Build a Better Men's Wardrobe

If you’re interested in finding some “balance” in your wardrobe, then shop our Collections of men’s trousers, Charleston khaki’s and more to find the pants that will best match the shirts and accessories you keep in your closet.