OOTD x4: Wide Leg Pants Outfits for Fall

This is a follow-up to my recent wide leg jeans outfits post, this time featuring several pairs of full-length trousers with a wider leg.

Outfit #1: Olive Pants

These traditional cotton chinos from Lands End hit the 30 wear mark back in February and have an entire post dedicated to them. Since then I have worn them 6 more times for a total of 36 wears and $1.24 cost per wear (CPW). Still working on reaching the goal $1 CPW.

I don't generally think of this black floral top for fall but it has nice amounts of olive in the print that make it pair well with this classic fall neutral despite the black background. It's a bit of a long top so I half tucked it to work with the looser silhouette of the pants. I started the day with the aloe vera cardigan (which is a color I happily wear with olive as two versions of the same basic color), but as the day warmed up, I abandoned it. If you are wondering about my unusual hair style, this is what my hair looks like after it's been thoroughly washed and twisted up to air dry. (I don't know whether to be impressed, terrified, or both that my whole stance, facial expression, etc., were almost identical in these two photos! I am definitely NOT a naturally photogenic person but these photos make me wonder whether I'm an awkward mannequin...)

OOTD 10/22/22

I kept my accessories simple with a red floral statement necklace and my olive leopard flats. These flats had their own 30 Wears post last May. Since then I have worn them 5 more times, bringing the total to 35 wears and $0.86 CPW. My next target for these flats is to reach a $0.65 CPW.

Outfit #2: Wine Pants

My wine pants are a slightly tapered straight leg work trouser style from CJ Banks that I thrifted in August 2020 for $7. I haven't worn them very much yet (6 times) because they seem like dressy pants, which I haven't turned to as much during the pandemic. But I have a lot of plans for these pants! I love the smooth comfortable fabric every time I wear them.

In Outfit #2, I wore my short-sleeved tropical print T with the convenient fall color palette and the same aloe vera cardigan as in Outfit #1. I have mentioned before that I struggle with this cardigan that is long-ish, loose, and often lends my outfits a not-great silhouette/proportions. So this time I wore it more like a shrug rather than a full-on cardigan, and I think this worked better with the higher volume pants than if I'd let the cardigan hang loosely. I actually tried Jodie's upside down trick first, but I decided I liked this way better.

OOTD 11/1/22

I also experimented with this gathered look that shortened the cardigan and added some shaping to it. I didn't get the two sides quite even with this attempt, but I do like it as a proof of concept.

I just took in some of the volume of the cardigan with a hair elastic on either side underneath. One thing I found is that whether the tied off section lies flat (as above) or flops out is kind of fiddly depending on exactly how the elastic goes on. I added the elastic when I was already wearing the cardigan, which made it harder. Next time I experiment with this, I will add the elastics while not wearing it, which I think will make it easier to control how the floppy section hangs and to get the two sides even.

I added a double necklace to this look...an olive bead-and-ribbon necklace from Fire Mountain Gems and the olive/navy/gold side of the DIY paper pendant (tutorial here) that I made to go with my Calyx fabric SIA outfit. I showed this top + pendant combination in a layered necklace outfit for late summer/early fall, but I repeat pleasing pairings like this happily.

My earrings are a pair of the world's easiest DIY hoops with olive glass pearls and gold spacers added to the findings from an Amazon kit. Luckily I've become much more accepting of wearing various versions of olive together because the earrings add at least a third olive variant (a darker, "greener" olive) to the yellow-olive of the necklace and the grey-olive of the cardigan. My daily bracelet stack is a DIY wine/gold set that I made for a pink/wine outfit (and blogged in detail about with page to bead images in this design a DIY bracelet set post from May). I liked picking up the wine/burgundy from the pants and shoes with this bracelet stack.

Outfit #3: Black Work Trousers

I do own several pairs of black pants (7 including 2 pairs of summer crops), but I try to make sure they are different from each other rather than a million slight variations on the same theme. This pair of Lane Bryant traditional full-length work trousers that I thrifted in 2018 for $4.50 are my dressiest pair that have a strong "business professional" vibe. Because my work is business casual, I haven't worn them as much as some of the other pairs (8 total wears), but I am glad to have them on hand. It's been a long time since I've had a suit, so whenever I need a dressier trouser option, they are my go-to. With wider leg pants at the fashion forefront this fall, I enjoyed pulling them out this month for a WFH OOTD (a distinctly non-dressy occasion!).

I used the inner column of color formula in this outfit, topping a black long-sleeved T + the black trousers with a red cocoon cardigan (another thrift store find) and finishing it with red flats with gold buckles. I don't know why I don't dress with an inner column more often because I love the effect! As a non-tucker of tops, it's so refreshingly easy when the top and bottom pieces blend together without creating proportionality issues or an awkward vertical line.

OOTD 11/3/22

All my jewelry in this outfit is DIY! First, I combined a multi-strand seed bead necklace in various shades of red punctuated with gold spacers and thin gold chains + a gold paperclip chain necklace with an Alice in Wonderland charm hanging from the hinged carabiner finding that allows me to switch out various charms/pendants easily. I have 3 of these Alice charms with different colors of dress (pink, blue, and black), and of course I picked the black dress for this outfit.

No doubt you're getting familiar with the look of the world's easiest DIY hoops, this time with red glass pearls and gold spacers.

Shockingly, my daily bracelet stack didn't contain any paper beads! I really wanted to wear the 8mm red bamboo coral bead bracelet for a bold burst of the red accent color and the still-new-feeling black bead bracelet with cat charm that I made for Halloween last month. This cat has a bit more of a wicked streak than Alice's sweet kitten Dinah, but it still felt like part of the same theme. I finished the stack with a couple other larger bead bracelets: the clear/black crackle bead + black bead and the gold/silver spacer bead bracelets.

Outfit #4: Dark Forest Green Pants (or Jeans or Trouser Jeans?)

These dark warm green pants have one of those odd colors in my closet that don't quite match anything else. They were sold as jeans, but they have trouser rather than 5-pocket jean styling, so perhaps they are green trouser jeans? They definitely wear like a full length trouser that is somewhere between straight legs and wide legs on me. I bought them as part of one of those early online pandemic sales where stores were almost giving clothes away; I paid under $10 for them at CJ Banks. If I'd spent more money, the fact that they didn't match my other greens might have been a deal-breaker, but for this low price, I thought I could easily find enough ways to wear them to achieve my goal CPW...which was true. I have worn them 10 times already for a CPW of $0.98! I recently shared an outfit with these pants and a maroon sweater here.

I like to wear the navy long-sleeved T + navy plaid moto vest combination (another pleasing pairing) and decided to try the forest green pants as an accent color for a dark, low-contrast fall vibe. These pieces worked very well together. I knew I wanted to wear a scarf but wasn't sure which one. I wasn't really feeling a print mix with the scarf + vest this time so that left me with a solid color. I decided to go with a second accent color instead of navy, white, or green and turned to my color wheel for inspiration. Red is opposite Green on the color wheel, so I went with this dark punch pink (a tint of Red made by adding white) scarf for a pop of color against the navy/forest green background. Pink is a good color on me, and I liked how the pink scarf looked simply draped around my neck.

OOTD 11/5/22

This left my neckline free to add a necklace, and I selected this DIY paperboard pendant that I painted navy and covered with a navy and pink floral print from a clothing catalog. I strung the pendant on a shorter very nice silver chain (a gift from my mom). I like how the pendant looks framed by the pink scarf. I'm also showing the flip side of the reversible pendant here...a blue/pink stylized computer drawing from The Economist magazine.

Naturally I added my navy/pink/silver DIY paper bead bracelet set for my daily bracelet stack since I couldn't resist matching the colors of the necklace.

I rather gleefully finished the outfit with my navy Keds in a Rifle Paper Co. floral print. I love these sneakers! It's funny...I'm often not a fan of how sneakers of any color these days almost always have a bright white sole; I often think it looks both cheap and jarring when a colored sneaker, or a black sneaker (!), has white soles. I admit that white soles even on black shoes can look interesting and smart as a well-thought-out design element, but I think it's just become the default, added without consideration, so it often looks off to my eye. But I do like the contrast between the navy-based floral print and the white soles/shoelaces on these Keds, go figure. I enjoyed that the shoes' color scheme brought together the navy, white, pink, and green elements of the outfit, and it made for a low-key print mix with the plaid vest.

Are you enjoying the wider leg pants these days? Do you like them better full-length or short?

Blogs I link up with are listed here.