The short answer on BDG Cargo Shorts: pick one anchor piece, keep the palette to two colours, and let the shoes decide how formal the whole thing reads. Repeat one element, a metal, a texture or a colour, and an outfit looks deliberate. One piece should lead and the rest should stay quiet; two competing pieces read as an accident. A flat front reads sharper; pleats give you room to sit. The groups below run from the decision that matters most to the ones you make afterwards.

What decides this is rise, break and fabric weight. Everything else is preference. Two from the first group show the range: wildoakboutique.com's Kayley Risen Cargo Jeans - Sage at $69, and aliceandolivia.com's CAY CARGO JEAN - BREA BLUE at $395. The first is the easy entry point; the second is where the money goes. A flat front reads sharper; pleats give you room to sit. Get the rise right and the length is a ten minute alteration. A higher price mostly buys materials and finishing, and occasionally it buys nothing at all.

A trouser that breaks once looks intentional. Twice looks long. From the second group, alcltd.com's Carter Cotton Cargo Pant ($395) is the one that earns its place, because it works in more than one context without being restyled. The third group is smaller and deliberately narrower, trousers, for the decisions you make after the main one. None of this needs the whole group. One piece from each is usually enough.

There are 20 pieces here from 11 brands, $56 to $520, all in stock when this was written. We would not buy all of them, and neither should you. gymshark.com's Gymshark Rest Day Essentials Cargo Joggers - Light Grey Core Marl at $56 is the low-risk way in, and alfieparis.com's The Cargo Pants at $520 only makes sense if this is a category you already use constantly. On bdg cargo shorts specifically: the difference between the top and the bottom of this list is real but smaller than the price gap suggests. Nothing here is included because it is famous, and price is not used as a proxy for quality anywhere on this page. If you take one thing away: buy the one you can picture using this week, not the one you are saving for later.