If we have early (6:30/7:00) dinner at a brasserie or cafe, is it okay to dress nicely but wear jeans?
(We're trying to avoid having to go back to the hotel to chage after sightseeing)

I'm not a fashion expert, but I have been to Paris numerous times and have seen just about everything on the streets and in tourist-filled cafes and brasseries. A lot of men wear jeans with a sport coat and women tend to dress up jeans with a cute jacket or sweater, and Paris women almost always wear a scarf. I think unless you're dining at an upscale restaurant, nice jeans with jacket look fine. Hopefully, the real experts on fodors will chime in.

Nobody gets dressed up to go to brasseries or cafés so wear what you'll be comfortable in. I assure you there will be no tuxedoed patrons at either type of establishment.

In a café or brasserie in Paris, you can walk in stark naked and they will serve you without batting an eye. The only important detail is whether you can pay or not.

I think they might bat an eye if you were stark naked. But people eat at cafes all day long (or have a drink or whatever), and no one changes clothes to go have a coffee at the cafe.

However, there are some cafes that try to have a specific, deliberate dinner service, and then they will have certain tables set with tablecloths for the dinner service (and sometimes the mid-day meal, also). These places usually don't start serving at that area at 6:00, I'm pretty sure, I think the adhere more to restaurant hours (ie, 7 at the earlist, and more likely 7:30). They may have a special menu of the day, it isn't just the regular cafe food. I never eat dinner that early so may not know the full details, but I know one of my favorite cafes in the neighborhood where I often stay has taken to doing that in the last few years. I don't sit in that area, I'm more of the casual type and plop down in the cafe area, regardless of the time.

Now I do like Bofinger's (brasserie) and I am pretty sure they will serve you that early as they are open all the time, and people do tend to dress a bit nicer there than your average cafe on the sidewalk , but you could still wear jeans if you wanted and looked nice. Some other brasseries aren't quite as nice as Bofinger's on the inside.

Brasseries and cafes are casuale so you should be fine as long as the jeans aren't holey and worn levis worn with cartoon tee shirts and giant white clown sneakers.

(Yes, many locals will look more chic - but I don;t know how to do that without going back to the hotel to shower and change - which you have plent of time for if you eat at 8 instead of 6 in the afternoon.)

Some of the locals may look chic but there'll also be tourists in jeans with holes, giant white clown sneakers and cartoon t-shirts.

clean dark jeans, NO, HOLES a nice top can let you in anywere.

Agree. Lunch at Bofinger is often dressy since a lot of business/political types seem to come in then.

But at 11 one night, after the Opera, we saw all sorts and conditions of men and women as we ate our choucroutes: parties in jackets, ties, and lbd's; actual people in evening dress; one woman, beautifully dressed with a man in a black t shirt, jeans, and armsful of colorful tattoos. We hoped he was a rock star. All of us were intermingled, not segregated by dress.

I agree with the big white clown sneakers and usually seem to be who are quite loud in restaurants.The French people seem so quiet and reserved which is nice and the women do wear scarves beautifully but wondering do they wear them in warmer months like May or June also?

Drop the baseball hat

I have never actually seen tourists in Bofinger's with clown tennis shoes and logo Tshirts and baseball caps. If they are in there, they are not a big majority.

French women wear scarves all year round, even July and August. So do I, actually (maybe not in day time, but I might at night in summer if it is coolish). The weight of a scarf can vary and you can buy lighter weight ones for summer. It's an accessory for design and color, not just to keep warm.

I've seen French men in baseball caps.

If I wear really nice jeans (say over $25), and no baseball cap, can I wear a fanny pack? With matching scarf?

cold, I think you should wear your white Bermudas. If you wear a baseball cap, make sure it matches the fanny pack.

:-0

cold - I'll wear my backpack and we can dine together. I'd bring my scarf except my 100% French wife doesn't wear one.

FMT, I might join you both with my 3/4 length golfing plaids, black socks and birkies. I suspect we might soon be the only diners there, but who cares, so much more... Pernod... for us !

Be still, my heart!

You mean I can't wear my 8€ jeans that I just bought at Carrefour?

kerouac - You shop for clothes at Carrefour too? I sense a kerouac, Mathieu, colduphere, toupary6 and FMT dinner is in order. I'm sure we'll have the place all to ourselves.