I don’t know about you, but I’m digging wide leg jeans! They give your legs room to breathe, they’re comfortable, and they help balance out your body — if you wear them the right way. But if you’ve ever stood in front of the mirror wondering how to wear wide leg jeans without looking frumpy or what to wear with wide leg jeans to look put together, I’ve got you!
I had forgotten how much I loved wearing wide leg jeans as a pre-teen, which made me reminisce on good times — and simultaneously made me feel old. 😆 Side note: I recently rewatched one of my favorite movies that was created in the early 90s. The outfits in the movie were full of wide leg jeans and crop tops and looked EXACTLY like the things teens and young adults are wearing today, haha!
But, don’t worry, I’m not gonna tell you to wear a crop top. (Only if you want to!) So, how do you pull off this style in a modern and current way? The key to pulling off this current silhouette is all in the details — pairing them with the right tops, shoes, and layers to create a look that feels modern, flattering, and effortless. In this post, I’ll share what to wear with wide leg jeans, the best styling tips for wide leg jeans, and easy outfit ideas for real life — whether you’re heading to work, running errands, or going out for dinner.
Let’s get into it!
Are there certain body types that should avoid wide leg jeans?
Not really! Wide leg jeans can be very flattering for pretty much every body type. Yes, seriously. Seriously! I know you might have tried on several pairs of wide leg jeans and thought they weren’t for you, but SERIOUSLY, they can work for pretty much everyone. We have helped lots of women with a very wide variety of body types who thought they couldn’t pull off wide leg jeans do what they thought was impossible and actually LOVE how they look in wide leg jeans. BUT it requires you to find the right pair with the right fit. And that is all in the DETAILS.
So before we talk about styling tips for how to wear wide leg jeans without looking frumpy, you MUST start with a pair that fits in a way that makes you feel confident. If the jeans don’t fit well, trying to create outfits with them that you feel confident in is a moot point. For help with this, read my blog post How to Look Good in Wide Leg Jeans: Four Fit Tips to Find the Right Pair. Consider it your required reading! 😄
Now, if you have read that post or already have wide leg jeans you love, I shall allow you to continue. 😆
What to Wear With Wide Leg Jeans: Tips
Assuming you have a pair of wide leg jeans that fits well (ahemmmmm, go read my blog post on fit, please!), we’ll talk through the details of what to wear with wide leg jeans: tops, shoes, and layers.
General Styling Guideline: Balance the Volume
Wide leg jeans add volume to your bottom half. So one guideline for how to wear wide leg jeans without looking frumpy is to wear tops that balance the volume of the wider bottoms. You can do this in two main ways:
1. Tuck your top in all the way around.
Tucking your top in all the way around gives your body shape and definition, which is very helpful when wide leg jeans add extra fabric. (Remember, this works best with a high rise. And if you still haven’t read it yet, go to my post How to Look Good in Wide Leg Jeans: Four Fit Tips to Find the Right Pair because I explain it in there!)
2. Wear a shorter top — one that hits at about 1/3 of the way down your body from your shoulder to the ground.
Without getting too nerdy about style*, this guideline is based on a mathematical principle for aesthetically pleasing proportions which is used in math, science, art, design, and even in style. Not only is it a powerful principle, on a very practical level, it elongates your leg line which lengthens the appearance of your frame, keeping you from looking wider in wide leg jeans. So, we’re not talking about a midriff, though you can certainly rock one if you like.
*If you DO want to get nerdy about style, you should join us in the PMT Style Club where I walk you through logical frameworks for style. You’ll learn the why’s, how’s, and how-to frameworks of style so that you aren’t guessing anymore and can confidently pull together outfits with ease again and again!
There are other things you can do to balance out wide leg jeans depending on your specific body type, but tucking your top or wearing a shorter top will make the biggest difference out of them all!
If you want to learn to balance out wide leg jeans for your body type, join us in the PMT Style Club. You can access our Dressing Your Body Shape course and our Denim School course instantly to learn ALL the details about what you need to love how you look in wide leg jeans!
What Jackets and Layers Work Best
When it comes to jackets and layers that work with wide leg jeans, here are two things to keep in mind:
1. Avoid layers that add too much excess fabric on the lower half… and therefore…
2. Wear shorter layers with wide leg jeans.
Similar to how you want your tops to be shorter with wide leg jeans, keep your layers shorter, too, so as not to add too much bulk to the lower half. This isn’t a rule, as you can wear longer layers with wide leg jeans — and sometimes I do, personally. But if you’re wondering what to wear with wide leg jeans so you don’t look frumpy, and you’re wearing longer layers with them, switch to shorter layers. This is simply a default mode I want you to be in for the simplest, most fuss-free pairings. It’s one that works 99% of the time that you barely have to think about.
Best Shoes to Wear With Wide Leg Jeans
If you’re trying to figure out what to wear with wide leg jeans to look put together, shoes are also REALLY important. It’s SO important that I wrote a whole blog post on that alone with the details of what you should look for! Read that here: What Shoes to Wear With Wide Leg Jeans.
What to Wear With Wide Leg Jeans: 20 Outfit Ideas
Now, for outfit ideas! If you’re like, “Okay Audrey, I’ve got the tips. But now, What do I wear with wide leg jeans to look pulled together? Like what do I ACTUALLY WEAR?” Here are some outfits with wide leg jeans!
These all feature my favorite suuuuuuuuper comfortable, stretchy wide leg jeans from Wit & Wisdom. They are SOFT, very STRETCHY, and lightweight. So comfortable! They have elastic in the waistband, aka a STRETCHY WAISTBAND, so they’re EXTRA comfortable! You can find them HERE. I’m wearing size 6, but if you have a straighter figure (i.e. you DON’T have curvy hips and a narrower waist), I’d recommend sizing down one size.
If you’re looking for MORE stretchy wide leg jean options, check out my blog post My Favorite Comfortable Stretchy Wide Leg Jeans!
Wide leg jeans are just JEANS, aka a wardrobe staple, so you can wear them with endless options. Instead of walking through every single outfit, I’ll highlight a few tips for what to wear with wide leg jeans if you want to dress them up or down.
SIZING: I’m 5’6″ and usually S/M or 6 in clothes and 8.5 to 9 in shoes.
Dressy Outfits With Wide Leg Jeans
I’ve mentioned jeans in a dark wash are much easier to dress up and down, and here are a few ways to do so. Simply pair your jeans with a blouse and accessories like dressy heels and statement jewelry! Metallic statement jewelry always easily dresses an outfit up, but you can go with colored ones as well, like I’m doing in the latter two outfits. You can throw on a blazer if you wish — just keep in mind the guidelines we talked about earlier in this post with making sure the layer isn’t too long and doesn’t add too much extra bulk on your bottom half.
The outfit formulas you can follow:
- wide leg jeans + blouse + heels or sleek flats + metallic or statement earrings
- wide leg jeans + blouse + blazer + heels or sleek flats + statement earrings
Shop Wide Leg Jeans:
Shop Dressy Outfits With Wide Leg Jeans:
Super Casual Outfits With Wide Leg Jeans
To create casual looks, pair your wide leg jeans with a casual top: t-shirt, sweatshirt, or relaxed sweater, and add stylish lifestyle sneakers! (Wondering what to look for in sneakers that go with wide leg jeans? Check out my blog post Which Shoes to Wear With Wide Leg Jeans.)
The outfit formulas you can follow:
- wide leg jeans + t-shirt + sneakers
- wide leg jeans + sweatshirt + sneakers
- wide leg jeans + relaxed sweater+ sneakers
Shop Wide Leg Jeans
Shop Casual Outfits With Wide Leg Jeans
Elevated Casual Outfits With Wide Leg Jeans
These outfits are between dressy and super casual — the things you’d wear to lunch with friends, for a casual date, in a relaxed work setting, or just on a regular day if you like to look a little spruced up.
Elevated casual outfits involve a mixture of items, ranging from dressy elements, like blouses and blazers, to elevated casual pieces, like nice cotton tops, sweaters, and flats, and casual pieces like sneakers and t-shirts. You can see here there’s quite a variety to play with!
The outfit formulas you can follow:
- wide leg jeans + nice top or blouse + flats
- wide leg jeans + t-shirt + blazer or other dressy layer + sneakers or flats
Shop Wide Leg Jeans:
Shop Elevated Casual Outfits With Wide Leg Jeans
WHEW, did you make it this far? That was a lot, but I hope this helped you have a better sense of what to wear with wide leg jeans so that you can feel confident and have fun with this current style!
More Tips for How to Wear Wide Leg Jeans
For more helpful tips when it comes to wide leg jeans, check out my other blog posts:
More Posts Like This on Jeans
If you like this post, here are a few more on different cuts of jeans that I think you’ll love!
- How to Wear Shoes With Jeans in Different Cuts – 4 Best Practices
- How to Wear Boots With Different Cuts of Jeans
- How to Wear Straight Leg Jeans – Shoes, Tops, Silhouettes
- 14 Outfits With Straight Leg Jeans
Want to see all my jeans tips blog posts? Check them out HERE.
Join the PMT Style Club to Get Personalized Help Wearing Wide Leg Jeans
Want personalized help from me and another stylist to pull off wide leg jeans — and all the other styles you want to look pulled together in? I’ve gotcha! In my style membership, the PMT Style Club, we help you figure out style so that you can feel confident and pulled together everyday, without a lot of fuss.
Inside, you’ll have style courses with my simple frameworks for style, access to experienced stylists to answer all of your questions, outfit guides and shopping help to save you time, masterclasses with guest stylists, and a like-minded community to give you loads of ideas and inspiration to help you love what you wear.
With it, you’ll have the guidance, know-how, support, and time-saving resources to make style easy so you can simplify your mornings and feel confident each day.
Learn more about the PMT Style Club and how it can help you!
Hey there! If you love playing with new styles and want to be around other style enthusiasts, join us inside the PMT Style Club! In it, we have fun honing our style, experimenting with new things, and learning from experts, like color specialists, petite experts, plus size experts, and more. We also have monthly style challenges to keep things fresh and make it FUN to get dressed! Check out how the PMT Style Club can help you and join to get access to all the resources and the amazing style community, HERE!
