My business casual clients are always looking to style black trousers in interesting ways. My first suggestion is to change up their footwear from the usual black to animal print, metallic, white, red or grey. Then to create a complement with the footwear by repeating the colour somewhere else in the outfit, like in the top, scarf, bag or with jewellery. Bookending hair with footwear counts as colour repetition.
Here are four more ways to add interest to black pant outfits for work:
1. Animal Print Footwear & Patterned Top
The snakeskin footwear breaks up the black of the suit, as does the polka dot blouse. The black background of the blouse creates a low contrast against the suit, but feel free to wear a high-contrast patterned top. Leopard boots, pumps or loafers would have worked as well. Keeping the palette neutral makes the pattern mixing easy to pull together.
2. Silver Shoes & Pussy-Bow Blouse
Combine a patterned or non-black pussy-bow blouse with black pants and silver footwear like pumps, ballet flats or boots. Top a black moto over the blouse to create a juxtaposition of tough and pretty. If the silver hardware of the moto picks up the silver of the shoes, so much the better. Add silver jewellery or hair to complement the silver shoes too.
3. White Boots & Top
Create a complement with a top and boots in a shade of white. Add that to a pair of black pants and finish things off with a topper in just about any colour and pattern. If the pattern has black in it, the palette will come together very easily. A black and white plaid is shown here, which is serene and classic.
4. White Boots, Tunic & Oversized Topper
Combine white pointy-toe footwear with full-length black bootcuts or bell-bottoms. The black soles of the boots here do a great job of picking up the black in the rest of the outfit. For the top part, layer a shorter voluminous topper over some type of solid and streamlined tunic and watch the magic happen.
