21 Cool Pants to Wear When You Can't Get Away With Jeans
Let’s get one thing straight: I LOVE jeans. I wear them almost every day and even enjoy lounging in them when I’m home (which I’ve recently been told is insane). However, as much as this pains me to acknowledge, there are, unfortunately, those occasional times when wherever you’re going is a no-denim zone. Think certain office environments, formal events, certain places of worship—you get where I’m going with this, right? In order to avoid an emotional breakdown of sorts whenever I have to go somewhere that jeans just won’t cut it, I’ve found that it helps to have a pair of cool stand-in pants I can style in a similar manner. In my case, that means with a T-shirt, but I’m sure it varies from denim lover to denim lover. Continue on to shop my favorite pants that are sure to (stylishly) play second fiddle to your jeans in the season ahead.
Also available in more sizes.
Up next? 36 cute tops to wear with jeans (or the pants you just bought) this fall.
Since starting as an intern back in 2013, Nicole Akhtarzad Eshaghpour has held several roles here at Who What Wear, and she is currently Editor-at-Large. Upon joining, she was a senior about to graduate from business school at USC. Fast-forward to 2025, and she's moved to NYC from her hometown of Beverly Hills and spends her workdays a little differently from when she was just starting out. Currently, she focuses on a weekly mélange of shopping content and her Trust Me—Buy This newsletter. As far as her personal style goes, she's largely drawn to neutral, classic pieces but will always make an exception for something colorful or bejeweled as long as it's deemed worthy enough. After all, the only thing she loves more than a party is dressing up for one. On her downtime, she can usually be found at home eating something delicious and trying to force her husband to watch Summer House.
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