The short answer on High Rise Straight Jeans: 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. Anything over about 2 per cent elastane will bag at the knee by the afternoon. The groups below run from the decision that matters most to the ones you make afterwards.

What decides this is rise, leg opening and stretch content. Everything else is preference. Two from the first group show the range: pistoladenim.com's Charlie High Rise Classic Straight Jean - Rhythm Vintage at $228, and us.boden.com's High Rise Straight Jeans-Navy Red Stripe at $160. The first is the considered buy; the second is the one to start with. Check the leg opening, not the name; two brands can call the same measurement straight and wide. Rigid denim gives about half a size after a week. Stretch denim gives it back after a wash. A higher price mostly buys materials and finishing, and occasionally it buys nothing at all.

Hem to the shoe you actually wear with them. Rise decides everything above the waist, so pick the top second. From the second group, retrofete.com's Brooklyn High Rise Straight Jean ($51.60) 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, jeans, 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 jeans here from 10 brands, $35 to $440, all in stock when this was written. We would not buy all of them, and neither should you. nobodyschild.com's Dark Blue High Rise Straight Leg Jeans at $39.97 is the low-risk way in, and Ramy Brook's Emory High Rise Straight Leg Jean at $440 only makes sense if this is a category you already use constantly. On high rise straight jeans 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: if you would not buy it at full price, you do not want it on sale.