The short answer on Bottega Veneta Metal Loops Belt: pick one anchor piece, keep the palette to two colours, and let the shoes decide how formal the whole thing reads. One piece should lead and the rest should stay quiet; two competing pieces read as an accident. Proportion does more than colour: volume on top wants something narrow below, and the reverse. Buy to your trouser waist, not your natural waist. The groups below run from the decision that matters most to the ones you make afterwards.

What decides this is width, buckle and leather quality. Everything else is preference. Two from the first group show the range: Otte's Dorian Frame Belt Grainy Calf at $390, and Ramy Brook's Drea Chain Belt at $145. The first is the considered buy; the second is the one to start with. Buy to your trouser waist, not your natural waist. A higher price mostly buys materials and finishing, and occasionally it buys nothing at all.

Match the belt to the shoe and the outfit reads finished. From the second group, thecoutureclub.com's EMBLEM FAUX LEATHER BELT - TAN ($74) 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, belts, 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 belts here from 11 brands, $50 to $900, all in stock when this was written. We would not buy all of them, and neither should you. Cole Haan's Women's 32MM Hinged Buckle Belt at $50 is the low-risk way in, and Scanlan Theodore's ITALIAN SPHERE BELT at $900 only makes sense if this is a category you already use constantly. On bottega veneta metal loops belt 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.