Black and Brown

What do you think about style rules? Do you find them helpful? Stifling? Kinda outdated?

To me, they are mostly BS. Why would you limit your self-expression with clothing just because somebody once said that certain colors are a mismatch.

Case in point: I love to combine black and brown and blue and black.

Technically, those combinations are anathema as per traditional style conventions. To me, they feel elegant and sophisticated. A little mysterious even, especially when you mix the right shades of blue/brown and black.

Case in point: today’s brown-and-black outfit

Friday is farmers’ market day in my town. It’s also one of my favorite opportunities for playing dress-up. Style is an expression of creativity for me - at the same time, it’s always great to have a prompt (sometimes, also an excuse) to put yourself together.

I wore:

Black: Pleated pants (vintage), black belt (vintage Etro), black fedora (Akubra, bought it 20 years ago while visiting Australia).

Brown: Riding boots (vintage), fur jacket* (vintage, see my thoughts on used fur at the bottom), brown mens’ cashmere sweater (mentioned in yesterday’s email, as well)

Here’s the color combination from up close:

How to make it work

I find there are two ways to wear black and brown together well:

(1) Either, when the shades are fairly close together like in today’s outfit. That way, you add interest to your outfit without breaking the visual lines in your appearance [This is important to me because I’m tall and incorporating long vertical lines in my outfits works best. More on this in a future post]. I find this works quite well for evening wear, too. It’s a panther aesthetic.

(2) Alternatively, I also like when the shades are quite far apart. For example wearing a cognac shade of brown with black. You can use the brown to accessorize a black outfit for example. While I like it, it’s for people with another body type but mine. It would break up the long vertical line I have way too much. It feels put together, though, in the way I think of elegant Milanese or Florentine men and women. Few things communicate Italian style, sprezzatura to me like combinations with cognac-colored leather.

If you don’t wear black well, because it’s outside of your color season or just washes you out, the brown is also a way to tame the black parts of your outfit. I prefer wearing dark brown close to my face over black, just like I did with today’s fit. That way, you can still look cool or elegant in black - and also alive :D

This was fun! I love to talk about this stuff!

Have a lovely weekend,

Johanna

*PS: On wearing fur:

I buy vintage fur. It’s incredibly warm and I care about using existing resources. I dislike wearing fake fur, because the plastic fabric is terrible for the environment. My intention is to give the pre-loved fur I own a long second life.

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