What Is Smart Casual for Men?

I think smart casual is probably one of the most overused and least helpful dress codes we’ve ever come up with, because someone writes “smart casual” on an invitation or tells you that’s what the office dress code is and then you’re magically expected to know exactly what they mean, even though their idea of smart casual might be a blazer, open-neck shirt and proper shoes while yours might be jeans, trainers and whatever shirt happened to be clean that morning.

I guess when people write smart casual on a dress code, what they generally mean is that suits aren’t necessary, but they also don’t want you turning up in jeans, shorts and a T-shirt looking like you’ve just wandered in from doing the gardening. In a work setting, I’d interpret it as “we don’t require you to wear a suit, but don’t be completely dressed down”, and for a wedding or event it’s probably something very similar, although as always the actual answer depends completely on where you’re going and who’s going to be there.

If you came to me, as clients do all the time, and said, “Roberto, I’ve been told it’s smart casual, what do I wear?”, I wouldn’t start by showing you clothes. I’d want to know where you’re going, what you’ll actually be doing, who you’re meeting or going to be with, and then I’d probably ask you what smart casual looks like in your own head because people’s perceptions of it are so wildly different that it’s almost pointless pretending everyone is working from the same definition.

If someone else has prescribed the dress code, I’d also want to know if they’ve given you any more information, because sometimes buried in the email somewhere there’s a clue like “no trainers” or “jackets preferred”, which can change things and save us both spending twenty minutes discussing whether or not your white trainers are going to really cause someone to be quite upset that you were invited in the first place.

Once I know all that, I can start thinking about the actual clothes, but again I don’t really think of smart casual as one outfit. Most of the time it’s some combination of trousers, a shirt, and a jacket, and the interesting bit is working out which versions of those pieces make the most sense for you.

Climate comes first because if you’re dressing for London in January, I’m obviously not going to put you in the same fabrics I’d choose for Madrid in June, and if you’re travelling then I’m thinking about the climate where you’re actually going to rather than whatever depressing thing is happening outside the workroom that morning.

Then I’m thinking about your natural colouring because I want the colours around your face and upper body to actually work with you, and after that I’m usually trying to build around a few foundation pieces that are versatile enough that you don’t need a degree in menswear every morning just to get dressed.

For winter, dark navy trousers are always useful; I call them a no-brainer. They might be flannels if you want something softer and a little richer, or mid-weight cotton drills if you need something more relaxed, and sometimes I’ll use midnight blue denim made up as a custom jean with harmonised, non-contrasting thread so that from a distance people don’t point at you and immediately scream “you’re wearing jeans!”. They look like a very clean, dark trouser, so you can wear them with a jacket without the whole outfit suddenly feeling like Casual Friday circa 2004, while still feeling super comfortable and at ease.

For spring and summer, I’d probably move toward lightweight wool, linen-cotton-wool blends, or cotton, depending on where you’re going and how smart the outfit needs to feel; then shirts get lighter too, usually cotton-linen blends rather than heavy business fabrics.

Colour-wise, I tend to keep things simple at the beginning because the easier the wardrobe is to use, the more likely you are to actually use it. White, sky blue, mid blue, and deeper blues are incredibly useful, and once you’ve got that base working, you can start adding more interesting things later. Start investing in what you need, and once you have that you can then start buying what you want.

The jacket is where smart casual starts to either come together beautifully or look like you’ve taken the top half of your work suit and paired it with chinos. Texture is absolutely key.

If the fabric is too smooth and too suit-like in finish, it won’t give you the versatility you need when you want to wear it with different kinds of trousers, especially chinos or jeans. Slightly more open weaves tend to work much better, whether that’s wool-linen, wool-cotton, bamboo or pure linen in the warmer months, or tweeds, flannels and wool-cashmere-silk blends when it’s colder.

And a casual jacket is usually a little shorter than a suit jacket too, maybe three-eighths to five-eighths of an inch depending on the man, because again it needs to feel like it was designed to be worn as a separate piece rather than looking like the trousers have gone missing.

I can almost always spot a repurposed suit jacket, and I suspect most other people can too, even if they couldn’t tell you exactly why something looks off.

Shirts are another area where men try to cheat a little, because they’ve already got a wardrobe full of work shirts and think that if they undo two buttons, they’ve somehow transformed them into smart casual shirts.

It rarely works.

A work shirt is usually built around spread or semi-spread collars, often double cuffs, and fabrics like broadcloths, twills or Oxfords, in the standard white, blue, pink, stripes and checks you’d expect to see in an office. There’s nothing wrong with any of that; it just looks like what it is.

A proper smart casual shirt should feel as though it was never intended to be worn with a business suit in the first place.

I’ll generally go for richer variations of blue, often mid to deeper tones, and I tend to avoid fine business stripes altogether unless it’s something like a thicker Bengal stripe in sky or navy. Checks can work beautifully, but I’m talking about tattersalls, heavier ginghams and patterns you just wouldn’t naturally pair with a business suit. Tip: if it’s a shirt you would find hard to wear a tie with, it’s probably better as a casual shirt.

The fabrics can have a bit more character too. Cotton-linen and linen in spring and summer, then fine merino wool, knitted cottons, brushed cottons and heavier brushed twills when it gets cold, and because the textures are different, the shirt immediately feels more relaxed without looking sloppy.

The collar matters more than people think as well, because if you undo a couple of buttons and the collar just collapses around your neck, then you start to look a bit sad and unkempt, and before you know it you’ve got half your chest on display and, depending on how hirstute you are, possibly a quantity of body hair the rest of us didn’t need to be exposed to over dinner.

Footwear is a big thing I notice when smart casual has gone wrong, and it’s amazing how quickly shoes can either save an outfit or ruin it.

You see men wearing the same polished shoes they’d normally wear with a suit with a pair of jeans or chinos, which can look far too formal, and then at the other end you’ll see proper running trainers under a jacket and trousers, which I really don’t understand… running trainers belong on a treadmill or on whatever streets you pound on your evening run. Not the office!

If you’re going to wear trainers, I’d keep them smart, normally a good quality leather sneaker, basically the sort of thing you’d never dream of going for a run in.

Personally, I love a chukka boot for smart casual because it goes with almost everything. In spring and summer, I’d use lightweight suede or leather; in winter, waxed suede with a slightly heavier sole gives you something more substantial without looking like you’re off to trek up a mountain in between meetings.

For shoes, monk straps and Derbies are my usual go-to because they’re incredibly versatile and work with most trouser types without you having to think too hard. Actually, that whole “not having to think too hard about it” thing is a pretty big part of what I’m trying to create for clients, because the best smart casual wardrobes are the ones where almost everything talks to everything else.

You shouldn’t have one jacket that only works with one pair of trousers and one pair of shoes because that’s not a wardrobe - you should be able to open the wardrobe in the morning, pull out a navy jacket, grey or navy trousers, one of four shirts and one of two pairs of shoes and know that whatever combination you choose is going to work.

Knitwear gives you another way of doing that, especially in winter, and I’m absolutely biased because I love a roll neck under a jacket. I think it looks incredibly sophisticated when it’s done properly, although I know it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

If you don’t want to wear a roll neck, then a long-sleeve knitted polo is a great alternative, but it needs to be good quality, and it needs to fit properly because otherwise it can go from “sophisticated man about town” to “wore whatever he picked up off the floor” fairly quickly.

The collar needs some substance too, because a flimsy knitted collar underneath a jacket just looks miserable.

In spring and summer, depending on the situation, you can sometimes get away with a really good fitted T-shirt under a jacket, and my go-to colours are usually plain white or dark navy, but if I still want the outfit to feel properly smart, then a fitted polo with a good collar is probably the safer option.

Where this gets more interesting is when we talk about smart casual for work, because I would absolutely not dress every man the same way just because the office dress code uses those two words.

If you’re a partner in a law firm, for example, I’d probably keep you much closer to the smart end of smart casual because you have to be prepared for the unexpected. An important client might arrive out of the blue, you might get dragged into a meeting you weren’t expecting, and you don’t want to suddenly realise you’re the most under-dressed person in the room.

So in winter I might put you in a solid tweed or flannel blazer, dark navy or charcoal flannel or worsted mid-weight wool trousers, smart dark brown or black Derby shoes and a solid-colour pinpoint cotton shirt. Very Italian in look and feel actually, and smart enough that if you did unexpectedly find yourself sitting opposite a major client you wouldn’t suddenly wish you’d worn something else.

In summer I’d do a lighter version of the same idea, using cooler fabrics and softer construction, but the principle doesn’t change.

If you’re a younger guy working in a creative business, or you’re an entrepreneur, I’m much less interested in imposing a formula on you, because then it becomes more about how you want to feel and how you want the outside world to see you.

Maybe you want to look more authoritative because you’re younger than everyone else in the room. Maybe you want to look successful without feeling corporate. Maybe you’re a successful entrepreneur who is beyond the point of needing to dress for others, and you just want to convey the person you are now.

That’s why I prefer to start with you rather than with the dress code.

That's also why I find smart casual fun: once you’ve got the foundations right, you have a lot more freedom to express yourself than with a suit.

Problems tend to start when men mix things without really thinking about whether they belong together.

They’ll wear lightweight cotton trousers with a heavy tweed jacket, or flannel trousers with a linen-cotton jacket, and technically every piece might be perfectly nice, but together they look as though they’ve come from different seasons, different wardrobes, and possibly different owners.

Fit causes exactly the same problem. Baggy chinos, jeans that have got no shape to them, jackets that hang away from the body, shirts with so much fabric around the waist that you could smuggle a small dog under them- suddenly the “smart” bit has disappeared completely.

I’m not saying everything has to be tight, because it totally shouldn’t be, but the shape and fit need intention.

If you want me to give you the basic wardrobe I’d start with, winter is probably a navy jacket and a dark grey or dark brown jacket, two pairs of trousers in dark navy and dark to mid-grey, a pair of dark brown chukka boots, Derbies or monk straps, and then four shirts covering white, light blue, mid blue and dark blue.

From there you can do an enormous amount without having to buy much more.

For summer, I’d switch the palette and weight slightly: a light taupe or sand jacket, a navy or marine blue jacket, taupe trousers, dark blue trousers (which could easily be chinos), lightweight Derbies or loafers, then white and various shades of blue in linen-cotton blend shirts.

And the nice thing is that once you’ve got those pieces right, getting dressed stops being this ridiculous morning puzzle where you stand in front of the wardrobe wondering if your jacket goes with your trousers and if your shoes go with either of them.

You know they do.

You can start introducing other colours, textures and pieces later, but the foundation is already there, and because it was built around you rather than around some generic “10 smart casual essentials every man needs” list, it actually feels like your wardrobe.

That’s the part I enjoy most when I’m doing this with a client, because at some point he suddenly realises that smart casual isn’t difficult at all once somebody has taken all the noise and fuss away.

You’re not trying to memorise rules or recreate outfits you saw on Instagram.

You know where you’re going, what you’re doing and who you’ll be with; you’ve got clothes that work with your colouring and proportions, and everything in the wardrobe has been chosen to work with everything else.

Then “smart casual” stops being a slightly terrifying phrase on an invitation and becomes what it should’ve been all along: getting dressed properly without needing a suit.