Style Secrets: The Best Fall 2023 Shoes to Wear with Jeans!

Skinny jeans, straight leg jeans, flares, boot cut. There are so many choices in jean styles today, but what shoes do we wear with them? Keep watching to find out. Hello everyone, it's me Serena and today I'm going to be talking about all the different jean styles and what are the best shoes to wear with each style. This is something that has come up repeatedly in comments on my channel and I know it can be tricky to figure out the best shoes to wear with the different style jeans, so that's what I'm going to be going over today. So you can wear any style of jean as long as you know what to pair it with and the shoes. The shoes can be the trickiest part, so hopefully today's video will clear up some of that for you and give you ideas of how to wear all your different jeans. And by the way, everything that I show in today's video will be listed down in the description box below. So the first jean style I'm going to be talking about is skinny jeans or the slim straight jean, which is what I have on. These are from GAP and they are just a little baby step up from a skinny jean. They are fitted through the hips and thighs down to the knee, but then from the knee down to the ankle they just aren't like super tight and restrictive around your calves like a true skinny jean is. They give you just a smidge more room, but you can style them the same as you would any skinny jean. A couple of different looks for skinny jeans. One to update it is a chunky loafer. These are from Walmart, so they're very affordable. I have a couple of different pairs here. A pair that's more flat and then a pair that has a little bit of a heel on it. And this chunky loafer kind of grounds the jeans and gives it a more updated look. And along with that, I'm wearing this kind of chunky knit sweater from Amazon. Y'all, this is a great sweater. I ordered it because I've been on the lookout for a striped sweater and when I received this one, I was shocked to discover that it is made out of 100% cotton. It's a perfect weight and it's a perfect length for petites and I like it so much I've ordered one in another color. But back to the jeans. With this chunky knit on top and the skinny jeans, the chunky loafers, this balances out the outfit really well and gives it an updated look. This would also look great with sneakers. Retro sneakers are very popular right now, but if you're not into the retro sneaker, any kind of white sneaker or white platform sneaker is going to look great with this outfit also. So these are two styles that you could wear casually with a sweater and skinny jeans. Either loafers or sneakers. Now you can also wear mules or clogs with skinny jeans, but again, I would wear something with a little bit more volume on top to balance it out and make it look more current. Here I'm wearing this faux leather blazer. This is from Loft with these same jeans and these mules from Walmart. These cognac color mules that have been such a fall staple for me. This goes great together and you can wear a heel with skinny jeans. You can even dress up skinny jeans, but this is a nice way to wear something with a little bit of a heel. The blazer makes the outfit look a lot more current because blazers are so hot right now and it just balances out the outfit perfectly. Now what you don't want to do with skinny jeans is wear a short ankle boot and this kind of goes for all the jeans. If the top of your boot and the bottom of your jeans are right next to each other and they keep bunching up and your jeans get wrinkled because they don't go down over the shaft of the boot or they're not short enough to sit above the boot, then you've got on the wrong shoes or jeans. Either find a pair of jeans that are a little bit shorter or a little bit longer or find a pair of different booties because this is not a good look. It's just kind of messy and frumpy looking, so this is what you definitely want to avoid with your skinny jeans. Let's see what's next. And by the way, I did a whole video about how to update and style skinny jeans for this year, so I will link that video up here for you and link it down in the description below so you can check that one out if you haven't seen it already. Now we are moving on to straight leg jeans. These are really the most versatile jeans you can have in your wardrobe and they have been the most trending jean for the past few years now. They're very easy to wear, despite what some of you may think, and I'm going to show you how versatile they are. Now some straight jeans are fuller through the thighs. I don't care for those on me. I think you have to be really careful with that if you're petite like I am, so I prefer a straight leg jean that is more fitted through the hips and thighs and then more relaxed from the knee down to the bottom of the jean. The jeans that I'm wearing here today for the straight leg style is my jeans by Mother and yes, I know these are expensive and some people can't believe that I paid this much for a pair of jeans, but I look at it this way. Well, for one thing, they fit me better. They fit me better than cheap jeans and I would rather have one pair of $200 jeans that I wear five days a week than ten pairs of $20 jeans that don't look great on me and are not going to last as long. Pick and choose how you want to, but that's the way I look at it and when I invest in a great pair of jeans, I always get my money's worth out of them. So these have that more fitted through the thigh and then straight down silhouette, which I like and with straight leg jeans, you have a lot of different shoe styles you can play with. You can wear any kind of boot or bootie as long as that shaft, as long as the shaft of that boot or bootie stays under the leg of your pants. You don't want any of that bunching up like I just showed you with the skinny jeans and if you wear something with a pointed or even an almond toe, this look is going to make you look really tall. Here first, I'm wearing these western inspired booties. These are by Sam and Libby at Walmart. These are so comfortable y'all and they're in this beautiful cognac color that goes great with this blazer. This gives you a really tall, long, and lean silhouette with a straight leg jean and then the boot underneath it and that pointed toe on the boot really makes your legs look long. Another shoe you can wear with straight leg jeans like these is clogs or mules. So I swapped out the booties for these mules. I actually got these last year. They're from Target. I will link them. I don't know if they're still available, but I'll also link those ones from Walmart, which is a very similar look. So this again has that pointed, not super pointed, but a more pointed toe and it has that heel. So it really is a leg lengthening look. So you can wear mules or clogs or slides with the straight leg jean. Another shoe that you can wear with straight leg jeans is sneakers and I didn't put on sneakers with these jeans because I have another pair of straight leg jeans that fits better with sneakers because what you don't want to do with sneakers or loafers, which I'll show in a moment, you don't want the bottom of the jean leg to overlap the sneaker because that is what makes for a really frumpy look. If you're wearing straight leg jeans with sneakers, you want the leg of that jean to be a little bit shorter, you know, ankle length or so, so that the jean leg doesn't wrinkle up against the tongue of the sneaker or the top of it. That is where you get into frump territory. So do not let your jeans touch the tops of your sneakers if you're wearing straight leg jeans with sneakers. Now you can wear loafers with straight leg jeans as I've done here. Again, I think a more pointy toe on these helps elongate the leg and these are just barely short enough that I don't have the leg encroaching on that top part of the loafer. I would actually prefer my other straight leg jeans that are a little bit shorter than this to wear with loafers because you really want that ankle showing or almost showing with a loafer to keep it from veering into that frumpy territory. But you can wear loafers with straight leg jeans, it's just all about finding your right length. And yes, that may mean having straight leg jeans in two slightly different inseam lengths. You know, one a little bit longer to wear with boots and a heel and then one a little bit shorter that you're going to wear with loafers and sneakers. That is another tip and I know it means buying more jeans, but if you're going to wear them with a variety of shoes, sometimes that's what is necessary. Next, we're going to talk about boot cut jeans. And you can use the guidelines for boot cut and flare leg jeans pretty much interchangeably. And the thing about boot cut jeans that really intrigues me is that so many people are saying that they don't want to wear boot cut and they want their skinny jeans and all this. But my question to you is, back in the early 2000s, what kind of jeans did you wear? Because there was a time period from, you know, 99, 98 or so up until about 2006 or 7 that all you could find was boot cut jeans. That's what everyone wore all the time. So what were you wearing then? Because there were no skinnies. But I digress. Let's talk about how to style boot cut jeans because they are back. And I feel like boot cut jeans are the most universally flattering jean because they are fitted through the hips and the thighs like a skinny jean, but then they do flare out at the bottom. And this does two things. One, if you are someone who is more top heavy, either broad shoulders, big bust, or if you're pear shape and you carry a lot of weight in your hips, that flare at the bottom of the jeans helps to balance out your top half, making you look more proportional. Whereas if you wear a skinny jean, that is going to emphasize the broadness of your shoulders or the width of your hips. So boot cut jeans really do a good job of balancing out the figure. And the ones that I'm showing today are called the baby boot and they are from Gap. And these are just a little bit of a boot cut. They're not a big flare. They're very wearable. So that's why I chose these. And I ordered them in two different lengths. Gap has short, petite, regular, and tall. So there's something there for everyone. So I chose the short length, not petite. Petite was even shorter inseam than the short, and that would have been too short for me. And that's another point. You've really got to know your inseam. So find a pair of jeans that you love the length, that does all the things for you, and measure the inseam of that pair of jeans and see what it is. And then look for that when you're jeans shopping. And when you shop online, all these retailers, if you look in the product details, sometimes you have to dig around to find it, but you can find the inseam on most jeans. And then you'll know, oh, do I need the regular length or do I need petite? Do I need tall? So know a pair of jeans that fits you well in the length and look for something very close to that length in your inseam. Okay, for boot cut, of course, boots go great with boot cut. But what you want to look for now in 2023 is a boot with a pointed toe. So your western style boots and booties or any kind of booty or pump, as long as it has a pointed toe, that's what you want to look for to wear with boot cut jeans. That's going to look great. Same for mules or clogs. You want to look for something with that pointed toe. Now you can wear flats with boot cut jeans. And remember, we all did it back in the early 2000s because that's the only jeans we could find, remember? So you can wear a ballet flat or a loafer with your boot cut jeans. Just make sure they have a more pointed toe. Don't choose a rounded ballet flat to wear with a boot cut jean. That's going to look a little bit dated and it's also going to make you look a little bit more stumpy. So choose something with an elongated toe to lengthen that leg. And I ordered these jeans in two different lengths. Here I'm wearing the short length with these pointed toe Madden NYC loafers. And as you can see, these jeans are the perfect length for me to wear with the loafers. They're not dragging the ground. They're, you know, the perfect length. But when I put these boot cut jeans on with a pair of boots with a heel, they're just too short. So again, I know it kind of stinks, but you got to figure out what shoes you're going to wear with the jeans. And sometimes that means having jeans in more than one length. So here I am wearing the regular length in these gap jeans, and these are the perfect length for me to wear with my boots with a heel. So you just have to play around with this and decide what kind of shoes you're going to be wearing the most and buy your length of jeans accordingly. Another thing to mention about boot cut jeans is I would avoid the chunky boot with the boot cut jean. I know there was a time back in the early two thousands that people were wearing, you know, the very rounded toe boots with the real blocky heel with boot cut jeans. I would avoid that now because that is going to look rather dated. So anything like this style of Chelsea boot with the big thick sole and the chunky heel and the rounded toe, I would avoid this kind of boot with the boot cut jean if you want to keep your look more current. Now moving on to what is probably my favorite jean silhouette and has been for a while. It is the straight crop. I just find these so easy to wear with everything. They are so versatile and I'm going to be showing two different pairs. First pair I'm showing is by Good American. These are called the Good Straight Crop. They hit right above my ankle and they are again a straight leg jean, but they're fitted through the hips and thighs and then they get relaxed from the knees on down. But they don't have a super wide straight leg. It makes them just really versatile. You can wear this style of jeans with clogs, with slides, mules. They look cute with a chunky loafer. You can wear them with sneakers, sandals, really any kind of shoe. I have not found a shoe that does not look good with this style of jean. Now this is the style of jean where you do want to bring in a chunky boot like this Chelsea boot. As long as the leg of the jean is long enough to come down over the top of the boot and stay there and not be catching or bunching up on the top of the boot. This looks really cute with a sweater and a straight leg jean. But I wear these all the time because they are just number one comfortable and stretchy and number two because I don't have to think about what shoes I'm going to wear because I know that anything is going to go with them. And then the second pair I'm wearing, these are a little bit darker. These are called the Kick Out Crop from Madewell. And these are kind of a baby boot cut at the bottom, but they're cropped. So they just have that slight flare at the bottom. But again, they hit right above my ankle bone. So these jeans I wear all the time. They look great with loafers, with a chunky loafer. They look cute with ballet flats, with sneakers, sandals, so versatile. These just really go with almost any kind of shoe. Another jean style that I am really loving right now just for the versatility of it is the slim straight jean. These are kind of in between those gap slim jeans that I showed at the beginning of the video and a straight leg jean. So they still have that slim fit through your hips and thighs and they are slim down across your calves down to the ankle. But they're not a skinny jean. These are from J.Crew. These are called the Vintage Slim Straight and I'm wearing them in a size 27. What I love about these jeans is just how soft and stretchy and comfortable they are, but they snap back. They don't stretch out and bag out and lose their shape, but they're very comfortable. And again, this leg silhouette is extremely versatile. You can wear these with sandals. You can wear them with clogs or slides. You can wear these with mules. You can wear them with ballet flats, loafers, sneakers, almost any kind of shoe. You can even wear these with a booty if it was one of those sock booties. It's like really tight to your ankle. So as long as you've got something like that, you can even wear these with a booty. But these are just so versatile and I love the wash on these. It's just kind of a nice medium wash. And this is another just great pair of jeans that I've found recently. And I love the silhouette on these and they're so versatile. They can go with just about any kind of shoe. Now some of you may be wondering why I haven't shown any skinny or straight jeans tucked into boots. And I don't know that that's just not a look that I personally go for. It's not something that is super popular right now. You do still see it, but I have a problem with that because I have thick calves. And I do well to find a pair of knee-high boots that fit over my calves because I have a small foot. And apparently shoe manufacturers think that if you have a small foot, you must have skinny calves. And I do not. So I don't have the extra room inside the shaft of the boot to tuck a pair of jeans down into. I can do it with western boots. I can do it with leggings. But with jeans, I have a tough time. So that's why you haven't seen any of that in today's video. If you've enjoyed today's video, be sure to hit that subscribe button. It really helps out my channel. Let me know what your favorite jean look is in the comments and what you have learned from today's video. Thanks so much for watching and until I see you in my next video, have a stylish day. Bye.