We're informal people from the Philly area headed for a week's getaway at the end of December and into January. We'll be staying at a B&B about 4 miles NE of the city and we will probably spend most of our time browsing around the desert & mountains, but I guess we'll visit the city a bit. I'm assuming that jeans, long sleeved tees, shirts, and a light jacket and sneakers will be OK for most circumstances. But what about if we decide to go to one of the nicer restaurants in the city or at one of the resorts? When we were eating out in Santa Fe a couple of years ago, it didn't much matter what the men wore, (of course!) but the women were dressed quite attractively, often in western-style dresses or skirts & blouses, boots and several pounds of gorgeous silver jewelry. I'd appreciate your advice about Tucson.

Tucson isn't near as affluent or fashion-y in a Western way as Santa Fe--I know what you mean about all the gorgeous jewelry on display there! In Tucson, a casual skirt and top with anything other than sneaks or hiking shoes will look fine anywhere; if you want to look "dressed", wear darker colors and add a bit of jewelry. That's my take--enjoy your trip!

I live in Tucson and rarely see anyone dressed in western clothes and/or wearing pounds of silver jewelry. As for affluent - there are plenty of people well off here, they just don't go around advertising it

Dressy casual will get you into any "nice" restuarant at any resort.

No offense intended, Lori--we can agree that Tucson is much lower-key than Santa Fe! I thought the outfits I saw there looked like costumes at times--saw Suzanne Somers, as a matter of fact, in the flouncy western skirt, the Tony Lamas, a big concho belt and equally impressive squash blossom necklace. And she didn't look out of place, just blonder than most!

No offense taken, E.

No offense intended here either, Lori. I just seem to have a gift sometimes for wearing the wrong thing, and thought I'd try, for once, to do it right!
Thanks for your opinion, & to you too, Lori.

....and the way the weather has been you may need shorts and short sleeved tees.

Most of the people that you see in Arizona that are wearing western wear or tons of silver and/or turquoise jewelry are tourists. We locals dress just casual, shorts/jeans, tees, light jacket and sneakers.

Same thing in Hawaii. If you don't want to look like a tourist resist the Hawaiian shirts. 8-)

I think some dressy clothes are just fine in Tucson, depending on where you plan on going. Bring some dress clothes but also casual/dressy and you will do fine. If you are out at nite it can be in the upper 30's and 40's and then warm up to 60's 70's in the day. Just be flexable. And yes I agree I don't see any one wearing western wear of any kind.