The short answer on Jeans Straight: pick one anchor piece, keep the palette to two colours, and let the shoes decide how formal the whole thing reads. Proportion does more than colour: volume on top wants something narrow below, and the reverse. Repeat one element, a metal, a texture or a colour, and an outfit looks deliberate. Rigid denim gives about half a size after a week. Stretch denim gives it back after a wash. 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: beginningboutique.com's Faded Favourite Mid Wash Denim Mid Waist Jeans at $20, and meshki.com.au's Shelly Flared Denim Jeans - Washed Indigo Blue at $95. The first is the easy entry point; the second is where the money goes. Check the leg opening, not the name; two brands can call the same measurement straight and wide. Anything over about 2 per cent elastane will bag at the knee by the afternoon. 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, elvdenim.com's Freya Wide Leg Jeans Beige Black ($553) 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 16 brands, $20 to $553, all in stock when this was written. We would not buy all of them, and neither should you. beginningboutique.com's Faded Favourite Mid Wash Denim Mid Waist Jeans at $20 is the low-risk way in, and elvdenim.com's Freya Wide Leg Jeans Beige Black at $553 only makes sense if this is a category you already use constantly. On jeans straight 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: pay for the thing that touches your body and economise on the thing that sits on top of it.