BY ZADOCK MALIKA
Casual dress emphasises comfort and personal expression over presentation and uniformity. It includes a very wide variety of styles.
Smart casual is an ill-defined dress code that is generally neat yet informal attire. The locality, type of event, context or culture determine the various interpretation of the dress code and therefore the designating of certain clothing pieces as smart casual is disputed – for example, jeans.
Menswear is typically broken down into different groups, identified by names such as formal business, business casual and casual.
Official casual for men includes khaki pants, polo shirts, buttoned-down shirts, sweaters, blazer and loafers. Casual clothing includes all the items from the business casual category as well as nice denim jeans, nice T-shirts and sneakers, tank tops, African attire, shorts and sandals.
Official casual wear for women
Both sexes can fall prey to business fashion faux pas, but women face some added risks. Dressing for work was easy enough when business suits were the norm – it’s hard to go wrong with a uniform that’s respectable, neat and serious with the occasional addition of stylish. Sending the right message was as easy as shopping in the “career woman” section. These days, picking out an outfit is a lot more complicated.
Casual wear for women includes harem pants, harem leggims, skinny jeans, skin tights, French coats, water fall tops, chiffon tops, dress tops, skater dress, maxi dress, peplum dress, chiffon dress, mini dress, dolly shoes, sandals, wedge shoes, slim bags and clutch bags.
