Styling brown wool trousers for work
I thrifted a pair of Brooks Brothers brown wool trousers today (super 120s, VBC fabric for $5 on labor day sale!). Nearly exactly my size, though I may have the waist brought in a little. Was thinking it would be a great opportunity to branch out of wearing chinos/denim at work and wearing wool dress trousers. I've been browsing PutThisOn, this discord's guides, r/mfa, etc for some inspo on styling darker brown trousers but I'm coming a little empty handed.
MFA's v7 guide suggests brown wool trousers (https://imgur.com/dkeBWzU) for casual tailoring and PutThisOn recommends sticking to grey and brown (https://putthison.com/how-to-choose-trousers-for-any-sport-coat/) when starting out, for example. I'm just having trouble finding some ideas of pulling them off.
Is a sport coat necessary here? Any advice on shoes/pant break? (All my denim and chinos are no break or quarter break). And any chance the trousers won't generally work b/c they may be "orphaned" suit pants?
I can upload pics of the trousers soon.
Put This On
How To Choose Trousers for Any Sport Coat
We’ve all been there before: you buy a sport coat that looked tremendous on the rack. You may have been...
19 Replies
I think they are flannel, but I could be wrong
Uhm you can mix it with earth tone knitwear
And yea it look flannel to me as well
A burgundy sorta color 8 derby or ptb/slipon
The black one u have look fine imo, i just partial color8
Also turtleneck
U can throw on whatever jacket, chore coats in earthy, bomber. I am not 100% guy for sport coat as i just mix it up depends on the restof the outfit as well.
yea this is a good idea - I can think of a few things. The burgundy shoes also seem to pair really nice; I just threw on the weejuns for a quick pic
lot you can do with that if you're shooting for a trad style. the way dag granath pulls it off as (kind of) eveningwear in this picture is something ive been wanting to try recently
If it's wool, it's either smooth worsted, flannel (worsted or woolen), or a woolen like classic tweed or others. Assuming it feels fuzzy... fair to say it's flannel. It's hard to describe the difference between worsted flannel vs woolen flannel.
Anyways. Sport coat not required but is nice. I'd wear that with some sort of button-front shirt, either poplin, broadcloth, oxford cloth, flannel, dobby, etc.
Shoes would be a wide range depending on formality intent. A brown wool trouser like the above can be dressed all the way down to loafers and adjacent shoes, and all the way up to... probably anything short of a black mostly-plain oxford (captoe, etc.)
I wouldn't hesitate to do black loafers, brown/burgundy/black bluchers (calf or cordovan for sure, probably chromexcel too), or oxfords (same, but with brogueing of some sort.)
For sport coats... wide wide range. Could do a navy blazer. Could do something a lot less formal like ivory linen. So that's a wide, wide range.
I wouldn't hesitate to pair it with something like a teba jacket, or some flavors of more formal looking field and chore coats (ie, odd if it's too bold or too rough looking, but fine if it's a nicer material, darker color, etc.)
Thanks for the intro to him - good stuff
Great info all around, as usual. Thank you this is really helpful. They seem as versatile as I imagined, but now I have better vocab to put things together. (Side note: they are fuzzy and not smooth worsted, I just don’t know what kind of fuzzy).
Does something like this fall in the range? (I just wore this for the first time yesterday). I actually don’t have a navy blazer yet. Funny enough this 3 button sport coat and OCBD are also thrifted Brooks, just a lot of BB in the thrifts near me for some reason.
Dang u have good thrifting skill
I think mainly my SO asks me to come with her once or twice a week so I always browse lol. Of course have left empty handed a hundred times
Still a good hit rate with what u showed here haha. I can never find anything worthwhile at my local area, especially in recent years when people hunt thrift stores to resell
Yeah, a houndstooth jacket certainly works with brown trousers.
If they're fuzzy, they're probably flannel. Basically, worsted flannel is .. a bit sharper almost, crisper to the touch, whereas woolen flannel is softer and feels thicker. It's hard to describe but obvious to touch.
thanks to you both! have some good ideas now, and need to do some shoe shopping
Nice
Some good stuff from the inspo channel. MJ in brown trousers and sweater polo?
These are different (brown) pants but show how blue knitwear would pair
yup, these look great
now i want a pair too