It clicked for me in a pair I'd bought for a job interview and then kept wearing long after I got the job, with flat loafers and a plain jumper, nothing else going on. No blazer, no cardigan hiding the waistband, just the trousers doing all the talking. That's when I understood they're not a backup to a nicer outfit, they're the outfit.
They're not for everything though, and I had to learn that the hard way after wearing a pair to a long dinner where I spent most of it tugging at the waistband under the table. Anything with a lot of sitting, travelling, or food involved is a fair test, because slim through the leg usually means slim through the waist too, with not much give. If you're on your feet moving around all day they're fine. If you're folding yourself into a car for three hours, you'll know about it by the time you get out. The fabric matters more than people admit here, a trouser with a bit of stretch in the weave behaves completely differently from one that's rigid cotton, and you often can't tell which is which until you've sat down in them for a while.
Getting the fit right is mostly about the waist to hip relationship, which sounds obvious until you're standing in a changing room wondering why a size that fits your waist gapes at the back, or one that fits your hips won't do up. I go by the hip measurement first and then look for ones with some stretch to deal with the waist, because taking in a waistband is a much smaller job than letting out a hip seam, which on a slim leg often can't be done at all. Watch the knee too, that's where these either keep their shape or go baggy within a month, and once that happens no amount of ironing brings it back. Length matters more here than with a wider leg, because there's no fabric to pool and disguise an inch too long, it just sits on the shoe looking like a mistake.
Where they properly fall apart is paired with anything else fitted up top, a tight jumper over slim trousers and you've accidentally dressed as a drainpipe, all one silhouette with nowhere for the eye to rest. Give yourself some volume somewhere, a looser shirt, a coat with a bit of shape, something. Chunky shoes work better than you'd expect, delicate heels can look oddly mismatched against a very clean leg line, though I'll allow that's personal taste more than a rule.
The one mistake, and I've made it twice, is buying the size that fits standing still and forgetting you also need to sit down in these at some point.
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