Does “Smart casual” have to be an oxymoron?

My OH is quite self conscious so is careful in his choice of outfits. He does wear jeans and trainers but loves his leather brogues which he shines to perfection.

When I was young my mother and g'mother always wore a hat and 'summer' coat / jacket even on the hottest days. On Sundays and 'occasions' they also had to have gloves even if they only carried them!!!

Official uniforms are not as smart as they used to be (police, post etc.) but a lot more practical.

Merlot agree with country casual.

A couple of years ago I was having an evening meal with some family that had travelled down to attend my father's funeral the following day.

When my husband arrived to pick me up, my cousin's wife turned to her husband, who doesn't do jeans or trainers and said 'See, you can do country casual'

My DH was wearing a wax jacket, leather boots and a hat.

Yesterday we took our grandson's to the local country show.
Because of the weather I had resorted to a black waterproof jacket, jeans and boots. The only nod to fashion was probably my purple scarf.

However there were quite a few well dressed 'casual' ladies with fitted tweed jackets and long riding style boots topped of with trilby style hats complete with a feather.
They seemed to arrive at the time as the sun made its entrance

I never venture into shopping malls at weekends ,comes from a lifetime of working every Friday ,Saturday and Sunday .The very first Saturday off we had we thought we'd do a big shop...h a ha ha.The shops were chaotic and had hundreds of screaming babies and toddlers .If I do have to go to a mall it would be Silverburn on a weekday evening and its never too busy .Other than that supermarket shopping is done after 8pm weekdays and the rest is local shops and farm shop bought .

I agree Maw
Our local large supermarket is a 2 min walk from the beach. I love sitting in the cafe which is behind the tills people watching and seeing all this and more. Including young girls wearing virtually no more material than a bikini with a shirt thrown over the top. I don't think they can all have been on the beach but it's a seaside town so I'll just wander round in my beach outfit, it's fine !

I've never understood the attraction of ripped jeans....or pre-bleached and creased. Surely they get scruffy by themselves soon enough. I also dislike the "cold shoulder" style because I'm usually already cold!

In a way I'm glad I'm not like my mother when she went out because it was complete with hat !! Even shopping in town.
Smart, mind you------but the hat ? Even dad wore a trilby !

m.youtube.com/watch?v=KCYU2mJJuwA

Try shopping in Harrogate Maw

You all make good sense, but I remain underwhelmed by the British way of casual summer dressing.
Paddyann have you been to the Gyle recently, especially on a Saturday afternoon? I was sadly behind a couple dressed pretty much as I described yesterday afternoon.
I suppose it depends on where you are- Kensington or (as I was) making my first and last foray into our local Primark.
I think summer aggravates my disillusion with “casual” dressing which is also “smart” but perhaps I am becoming my mum who used to “dress” to go shopping in our wee town .
Another possibility is that I was in the Wayne and Waynetta Slob capital of the U.K.

I'm wearing a maxi dress today and will top it with a short denim jacket when I go out ,My husband has black jeans and a short sleeved checked cotton shirt .Thats smart casual here.I dont know men who dress as you describe ,my OH has always been very image conscious and has wardrobes full of nice clothes which he adds to on a weekly basis.

MawB you obviously haven't been to" suburban " Italy! We have our share of scruffy folk here too! It's a myth that all Italians are smartly dressed.
They will attend weddings or funerals in jeans ( both sexes) ! They only dress up for 1st communions and baptisms!! In the winter it's uniform black for the women , especially the young ones!!

I think it depends whether the emphasis is on smart, or on casual.
If it’s casual but not smart, that’s something I’d slop around at home in but wouldn’t go out to the shops in, and might feel slightly embarrassed if I had to answer the door.
If it’s smart casual, it’s something that looks stylish but I probably wouldn’t have gone to work in it, and it’s different from formal or just smart.
Confusing isn’t it. Many people do go to work every day in clothes that could be described as smart casual.

I’m not sure I’d agree that the British don’t do smart casual very well Maw.
I think it’s simply that some of them have appalling taste in clothes

I think we do smart casual well in the country - I never refer to it as the countryside.

Corduroys, quilted or waxed jackets, checked shirts, moleskins, skirt lengths that meet your boots, scarves, etc., etc., all look good in the winter. Autumn colours can be flattering.

Summer casuals tend to be jeans or linen trousers, loose fitting shirts or tops and floaty skirts. Shorts and cut offs if you have good legs.

Shoes can be whatever is comfortable and suits what you are wearing.

When magazines promote 'Country chic' they're not making it up.

The " ripped jeans " look was an appalling invention to start with so that anyone with holes in their clothes had suddenly become fashion icons.
I can't abide tight jeans/trousers on anyone. What's that about ? Or those tights/jeggings, what a lazy way of doing instead of dressing properly and probably worn for a week without washing !

I don't like trainers and certainly don't like to see them on older people. Gone is the sight of a good pair of shoes on a man as at one time you could tell by a man's shoes what sort of a character he was overall, especially if they were well polished.

Around and about town in the summer isn't a pretty sight, worse still at a seaside town.

That’s sort of my point- why can’t we do “casual” but still look “smart” ?

Personally I wouldn’t consider any of those looks to be ‘smart casual’, except the Italian and French ones.