How, Exactly, Do You Wear Wide-Legged Jeans? We Have Tips.

The Viva team offer up their top styling advice on what to wear and how to wear it. Beauty editor Lucy Slight shares her tips for making a pair of wide-leg jeans look refined.

I have many pairs of jeans in my wardrobe — most of them are a relaxed fit. A looser jean just fits my vibe far more than a skinny jean ever did (though of course, I wore skinny jeans to death in their heyday).

My go-to at the moment is a pair of loose-fitting ‘dad’ jeans from Assembly Label, which have become the pair I reach for on many occasions, and they’re comfy enough to work from home in too, yet don’t have the dagginess factor that trackies do.

The outfit

Recently, when flicking through the racks at the Muse boutique archive sale, I stumbled upon a pair of Tibi Murray jeans — an ultra-wide silhouette in dark indigo blue, that, while a departure from my usual style, I just couldn’t leave without.

The jeans themselves will ooze with nostalgia for any millennial; they evoke memories of Boom skater jeans and soggy, puddle-soaked denim. They’re stupidly long and stupidly wide, and that’s all part of their charm.

The advice

I’ll admit, this style is still stumping me some days but if I fall back on a simple formula, I find everything balances out and the jeans get to shine. The jeans are big, so balancing them out with something slim, like a fitted tee or plain long-sleeve top makes the most sense. On cooler days, though, adding a big jacket is fine — but letting the slim fit of the tee show through helps refine the silhouette that much more. A cropped knit with some texture would be an easy swap for a jacket too.

I also feel that showing some skin helps me feel more comfortable in this style. Whether that’s making sure I push up the sleeves on my long-sleeve tee or knitwear, or wear an open-toed shoe rather than something that’s closed-in or too chunky. In the early noughties, we wore our wide-leg Roxy jeans with our Globe sneakers, but as a 37-year-old in 2023, that’s no longer the look for me. Let’s keep things a bit more sophisticated, yes?

On wet, winter days, the length of the jeans is less than ideal, but it’s nothing that a simple folded cuff can’t fix. Nothing too neat, just flick them up by one quick fold so they don’t drag as you get from A to B.

The shop

Levi’s Jeans, $189, from Fabric.

Citizens Of Humanity jeans, $490, from Simon James.

Closed jeans, $675, from Muse.

Agolde jeans $432.

The Frankie Shop Jeans, $319, from Seletti Concept Store.

With thanks to Fuji Instax.

Previously: How, exactly, do you wear cobalt blue? We have tips.