Casual Fashion Ideas to Steal Attention

Casual fashion is more than a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. To steal attention, casual dressing needs a little swag. Without adding a lot of bells and whistles, your casual wardrobe can be eye-catching and yes, attention-stealing.

Fluffing up your casual wardrobe is about understanding the power of classic pieces, updated with flourishes drawn from contemporary trends. Add confidence to be a picture of casual elegance that gets noticed. Let’s look at some casual fashion ideas to spotlight you with the look of effortless personal style. To get started, let’s see what’s in your closet!

Building a Foundation

The first step toward acting on the ideas in this article is to see what’s lurking in your closet. Casual can mean a lot of things, but usually it means informal or relaxed. Everyday dressing isn’t intended to impress anyone. Rather, it carries you through the day in comfort and unfussy style. This mode of dressing takes you to the gym, brunch, the park, sporting events, and any place else you’re going that isn’t work or a formal setting. Casual dressing is comfortable, unpretentious and above all, carefree.

So, opening the closet door, you’re looking for:

• Jeans
• Leggings
• Button through shirts
• T-shirts and tanks
• Tunics
• Sneakers
• Flats (ballet flats and sandals)

Now, look at the selection of clothing you’ve pulled from the closet. Are there pieces that have seen better days? Off they go to Goodwill. Do you see clothing that no longer fits (that you’re saving for some unknown reason)? Goodwill!

The first rule of casual dressing is “worn out” is not casual. It’s just seen better days. And those items that no longer fit you? Why are you keeping them? Either have them tailored, repurpose them, or give them away so someone else can enjoy them.

Once you’ve eliminated those older and ill-fitting items in your wardrobe, what remains should be clothing pieces you feel great in. They’re comfortable, in good condition, and fashionable. Consider what you have against the list above. What are you missing? What do you wish you had? You may need to visit a clothing outlet to get the right pieces in place once you’ve finished reading!

Let’s talk about the fashion ideas that pull a casual wardrobe together, dressing you in smart casual style that grabs the right kind of attention.

Jeans - Always Choose the Classic

The popularity of jeans is global and huge. In every place near and far, you’ll find people wearing them. But jeans have been a runway fashion item since Calvin Klein first created them as objects of designer fashion desire in 1976. And so the durable, practical work pants became shapeshifting fashion icons. Pant legs regularly widen, the narrow, waist bands creep up to the rib cage, then down to the navel. Fashion jeans are bedazzled, pleated, cuffed, distressed and frayed.

Rather than try to keep up with the vagaries of the runways, choose the classic. Levi’s 501 jeans never lose their cachet. The classic 501 cut is undoubtedly the most enduring silhouette in fashion. It’s always chic, always on point, and 501s always look great on a variety of body types. Wearing this iconic style turns heads, distinguishing you as a personal style star, unmoved by the whims of international runways.

Wear your jeans with sneakers, ballet flats, or sandals. A white button-through shirt adds a fresh, put-together note, especially under a shacket or vest (depending on the season). Or try a brightly-hued tank or slouchy, French-tucked t-shirt. Effortlessly, you’re turning heads in a simple but super-chic casual outfit!

Leggings

Leggings are an excellent casual fashion item you can wear in numerous ways. No longer confined to workouts or Yoga, leggings are part of the clothing comfort revolution that has catapulted athleisure wear to the status of a fashion staple.

Choose durable leggings that work with the other pieces in your casual wardrobe. While it’s true that black goes with everything, that may not be your color. Choose leggings in a neutral color that tones in well with your other casual pieces. While pleather leggings offer an eye-catching, trend-relevant look, always have a pair of matte leggings on hand in black or your preferred neutral color.

Choose a tunic, t-shirt, or crop top, or wear the crop under your white, button-through shirt, tied at the waist. Ballet flats complete the look with a vintage, Audrey Hepburn edge that’s bound to steal all the attention you want!

Casual Footwear With Attitude

Casual footwear should certainly be built for comfort but there are certain types of footwear uniquely adapted to sharp casual style. One of those types is, of course, the sneaker. Like jeans, sneaker styles come and go but some seem eternal. The Converse All Star is that eternal sneaker, showing up year after year on fashioned-informed feet everywhere. Originally created as basketball shoes, “Chucks” (named after professional basketball player Chuck Taylor who designed the shoe) are now a pillar of casual fashion.

For men and women, Chucks are as classic as Levi’s 501s. Immediately recognizable, in either high-top or low-cut styles and a selection of colors, the Chuck is a style statement all by itself. With jeans, shorts, leggings, or even skirts and easy summer dresses, these are the “it” sneakers that just won’t die.

While high-top Converse All Stars bring a rebellious punk edge to anything you’re wearing, low-cut Chucks are more versatile and thus, a wardrobe staple. For an edgier version of this classic sneaker, choose your Chucks in a bright color like the brand’s “action red” or “soar blue”. Your classic style sense will garner appreciative stares when you step out in this iconic footwear.

The Casual Cool Jacket

The right jacket, like the right jeans and the perfect footwear, is a driver of casual style. When you nail this triad of casual fashion pieces, you’ve got a strong look just waiting to be styled to perfection.

This year, the coolest jacket in town is the leather moto jacket. With leather and moto looks stalking every runway you can think of, this is the coolest choice out there. And the true glory of it is that the look doesn’t age. It’s an eternally stylish choice that brings uplift to your casual wardrobe for many years.

Sometimes called a “Hollywood” jacket, the black leather moto jacket is a surefire winner, especially when fitted well. Nothing looks hotter with a pair of 501s and “action red” Chucks. Wear it with that slouchy t-shirt or choose a form-fitting tank with your black leather attention-stealer. Remember those pleather leggings? Wear them with your leather jacket and rock your world with total cool!

Pulling It All Together

Focusing on classics creates a worthy foundation for trendy flourishes. Winter dressing may see you add a deconstructed grunge sweater or a vintage band t-shirt to your casual wardrobe. Or you may add a pair of metallic cowboy boots to tip your Stetson to the Western trend. But you may prefer the look of combat boots to grunge your look up even more.

Casual handbags can be anything from a belt bag to a hobo (preferably with abundant fringe trim). Choose a bag that’s reasonably durable but which makes a strong style statement that works as a counterpoint to the classic styling you’re rocking. Add trends to classics to update and move with the fashion moment. With classic casual styling as your foundation, you have tremendous latitude to add on-trend accessories without looking like you’re trying too hard!

Deploy these casual fashion ideas well and soon, you’ll be the attention thief nobody can ignore!