I’ve been on a mission to replace my tall Hunter rainboots.  They just….they bug me.  I’m no longer used to tall boots, so these feel like clodhoppers, and they’re just so hot and uncomfortable if I ever go inside anywhere.  However, they’re also crazy practical, and for walking the boys to school in the pouring rain (and it can really rain in Philly)….they’re hard to beat.

So for the maelstrom of early morning drop off in the driving rain (which, if you follow me on IG, you’ve seen plenty of examples of – like this), I’m sticking with my tall Hunters.

But for the wet and drizzly days, or for the softly raining days…I’m switching to these little Chelsea rainboots.  I recently wore them to drop the kids off at school, then walked – in a light drizzle – to a doctor’s appointment, where I sat comfortably waiting for hours inside.  My feet were warm (but not overly so) and dry.  Besides, the pattern is fun, and a nice counterpoint to all of my neutrals.

Hey, hey, HEY-AY, it’s Fall!  Officially.  And I’m so excited to talk Fall Trends.  I’ve been watching and reading and perusing for months, trying to come up with an easily digestible, totally achievable list of the key pieces you need to know about this Fall.

In order to make the list, the trends had to meet three criteria:

1. Accessible – There must be multiple options at every price point, not just, say, one pair of designer shoes that all the bloggers are wearing.

2. Easy – If a trend is overly tricky or complicated or requires a whole new wardrobe in order to rock it successfully….it’s not on this list.

3. New(ish) – This one is probably up for debate.  But in general, if a trend has been around for so long that it’s now a classic, I left it off of this list.  That doesn’t mean we won’t be covering it later, but it’s not a trend.  Leather jackets, leather pants and menswear, I’m talking to you.  (They’re like florals for Spring.)  Also?  Lace-up flats.  They don’t have the lifetime longevity of a leather jacket, but we’ve been talking about them for years now.  Yes, keep wearing them, I just don’t want to TALK about them.

A complete list of Fall Trends and styling notes are below, in this post.  However, you can shop all of our favorite fall trends in the drop-down menu at the top of the blog.  It looks like this on your computer…

Or this on your phone….

But the first thing you need to know about the 2016 Fall Trends is that denim….is a disaster.  A few years ago I could order a bunch of jeans, like most of them, and then have a tough time choosing which pair to keep.  Now?  I order 10 pairs and 10 pairs go back.  Rises are all over the map, hemlines are jumping around, sizes are the most inconsistant they’ve ever been, and the determination of leg widths (straight, skinny, slouchy, flare, wideleg) defy logic.  I swear the denim makers are out to get us.

The take-away?  There’s a major shift happening in denim.  It’s like when we went from bootcut jeans to skinnies.  Something…is…happening.  I can’t quite figure out exactly where we’ll end up (my gut feel is that high rise and mom jeans aren’t going anywhere), but in the meantime, I have a few strategies to keep our beloved skinnies current.  (And I promise we’ll talk about cropped flares SOON.)   But if there’s one thing we can learn from bloggers the world over…it’s that no one trend will ever dominate.

On that rather ominous note (ha, ha…ha)….keep reading for my list of the Most Wearable Fall Trends of 2016.

Gang, get excited:  Cargo pants are a major trend this Fall.  I have loved, I mean L-O-V-E-D cargo pants since their first iteration in the early 2000s, when we’d wear them all super slouchy (like falling-off-the-hips-slouchy) with a lingerie-inspired cami.  Bonus points if a sliver of belly showed.  Remember?  Then roughly 8 years later JBrand reintroduced them again but as skinnies (aka the “Houlihan”) and we were all MIND. BLOWN.

If I could do cartwheels in these heels, I would.  Because this fall (roughly 8 years later again) JBrand’s Houlihans are back.  (I swear my friend Amber never stopped wearing hers.  Atta girl.)

One might argue that these cargo pants aren’t perfect.  I’ll grant you that they are a *touch* too long on my 5’3″ self.  A fact that was completely covered 8 years ago by those tall boots we all insisted on wearing.  Even over ankle zippers(!?!).  Therefore if you are shorter than I am, the Houlihans may not be your best bet.  But in the grand scheme of life (take a seat – getting philosophical here), a *touch* of extra length is something that doesn’t keep me up at night, especially for a pant that machine washes so well.  When nostalgia comes to play as hard as it did here, I’ll happily take ‘close enough’.

(I do wonder if I could shrink them in the dryer a bit…hmmm….)

So.  Keep reading to see two of my favorite outfit combos for cargo pants.  I have a date night version (I swear, the power of the cargo pant swells when flirty little tops and heels are involved), and an everyday version.

Let’s start with the date night version, just for fun.  Heels and lipstick, and happy happy happy.