What does casualwear mean?
Casualwear denotes clothing intended for informal occasions and everyday comfort, standing in contrast to formal or business attire such as suits, gowns, and dress shoes. The term functions as an uncountable noun and appears most often in retail, fashion journalism, and corporate contexts—describing everything from jeans and T-shirts to knitwear, chinos, and trainers. Its prominence reflects a broad cultural shift over recent decades: workplaces, airlines, restaurants, and social events have progressively relaxed their expectations about what counts as acceptable dress, making casualwear the default mode of dress for much of daily life in Britain, America, and beyond. Related terms such as leisurewear, sportswear, and smart casual overlap with it but carry narrower connotations. For learners of English, casualwear is useful chiefly in shopping and workplace contexts, where dress codes are frequently described using this vocabulary.
nounClothing designed for informal or relaxed occasions, as opposed to formal attire.
- Informal clothing worn for everyday or non-formal occasions.
"The dress code for the retreat is casualwear, so leave the suits at home."
"Her weekend wardrobe consisted almost entirely of casualwear: jeans, T-shirts, and trainers."
"The retailer's profits surged thanks to booming demand for comfortable casualwear."
Rarely used in the plural; casualwear is treated as an uncountable mass noun in standard usage.
"The store's casualwears section was reorganised last month."
From Friday dress codes to Silicon Valley hoodies, casualwear quietly dethroned the suit as the world's default uniform in barely a generation.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does casualwear come from?
Casualwear combines "casual," an adjective borrowed from French casuel and ultimately from Latin casus meaning "fall" or "chance" (hence something happening by chance, then informal), with "wear," an old English word denoting garments. The compound emerged in twentieth-century English as mass-market clothing retail developed categories to distinguish informal dress from formal attire. It shares its Latin root with words such as casualty and occasion-related derivatives like casually.
How casualwear is actually used
An uncountable mass noun used mainly in retail, fashion-industry, and commercial contexts; ordinary speakers more often say "casual clothes" or "casuals" (chiefly British).
Easily confused with casualwear
Leisurewear refers specifically to clothing worn for relaxation or sport at home or leisure settings, while casualwear is a broader category covering any informal everyday dress.