Wearing a Suit Jacket With Jeans Style Ideas

Sometimes you want to dress smart for a specific occasion, but without the complete formality that a top-to-bottom suit would provide. Try mixing things up by wearing a men’s suit jacket with jeans. This can be a tricky style to pull off, so if you want to look your best when wearing two pieces from opposite ends of the fashion spectrum, it helps to know a few rules of thumb.

How to Wear a Men’s Suit Jacket with Jeans—Style Ideas and Tips

The challenge of this outfit is that these two clothing types are simply different. To make sure that they form a cohesive look when worn together, you need to know some simple rules for making them “match” on a visual level.

• Don’t send mixed messages. When you wear a suit jacket with jeans, there’s a possibility of sending mixed messages. You may just end up looking casual on the bottom, and formal on top. The key is to bring balance to the outfit. If you have a formal suit that’s complete with matching trousers, you don’t want to risk damaging your formal jacket by wearing it during your day-to-day activities.
• Match the style on top and bottom. It may seem that jeans and suit jackets are diametrically opposed. However, it’s possible to make a suit top look more casual. For instance, trade out your crisp white button-up for a casual button-down shirt to give your outfit more cohesion. You might also want to think about the quality of the jeans. Jeans with torn-out knees, for example, are usually far too casual to match with most suit tops.
• Beware of mixing fabric styles. A pinstripe suit is a unique style, and it won’t mesh well with denim. Being aware of fabric styles like this will help you know when to say “no” to wearing a suit jacket with jeans. However, more straightforward suit jackets—typically those without patterns—will tend to match better with jeans.

Ideas for Combining Jackets with Jeans

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With the above principles in mind, let’s look at some key ways to combine suit jackets with jeans.

• Pair dress denim with casual suit tops. Dress denim gives you more flexibility when matching with your suit jacket. Since they’re not quite jeans and they’re not quite suit bottoms, they’ll help you reach a happy medium with suit jackets that don’t seem to fit with traditional denim.
• Wear dark denim when possible. Darker denim tends to tone down the casual look of jeans. From far away, dark denim pants can even look like suit pants—if you squint really hard. If you have a good pair of dark denim jeans, try to use these with your suit jackets.
• Find fitted jeans. Jeans that fit properly will always look good, which gives you some wiggle room when it comes to picking out a suit top. If your jeans fit just right, again, people might not even notice that you’re wearing denim.

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