Do black and brown go together?

The other way looks better. Brown pants and black shoes. Black shoes (for women) go with everything.

I like the two colours together. It’s hard to go wrong with black. But I think Gail’s correct in her response – brown pants with black shoes would look better.

can you match some sort of accessory with the shoes?
ie. brown shoes, black pants, brown scarf?

I’m with Gail. In general, brown and black can go together, but I think it looks kind of funny when it’s black pants/brown shoes. My theory FWIW is that your shoes should either match or be darker than your pants.

Huh? I wonder why black shoes with brown pants but not the reverse? Interesting.

No.
You may wear brown shoes with charcoal or medium grey pants, but not black.
With black pants you may wear black shoes or red pumps.
Please don’t question me on this.

@august – I’m with you mostly, but a popular street style is to wear extremely bright shoes with any shade of pants.

@breed – Sarcasm?

Personally, I think that wearing a lighter shade of shoe makes the foot look less defined and doesn’t properly finish the leg. It makes the leg look shorter than it is.

breedmitch you remind me of my friend that always says that you need to ALWAYS wear red when wearing black

@Shad; Breed is THE glass of fashion here on Fluther. (He would have an embolism if he saw my present pre-bedtime outfit, altho Milo makes a nice warm boa.)

But I have cute light pink heels. What do I do with those? :(

Light pink will do. :)
Just wear a light grey top.

@molly: Your friend was raised right.

The whole don’t wear black with brown thing is old.
Kind of like not wearing white after Labor Day.

If you’re unsure, they’re good rules of thumb to stick to.
Generally, I’d agree with what Gail and Breed already mentioned.

But if you can pull it off, fuck the rules.

Hm. Oops. I wore a black t-shirt with a brown skirt, brown stockings and black flats. Was this bad?

@shrubbery: Due to my great affection for you, I’ll ask that fashion gods to overlook it.

Along with the black, the trick in combining black with brown (non-shoe) garments is to use only one color of brown, not trying to combine a yellowy brown with a reddy brown with a greeny brown with a violety brown. Granted, there could be exceptions we can’t address in print. But lots of random browns could get barnyardy fast.

Aww thanks Breed, I promise it won’t happen again :P

If you’re going to mix black pants with brown shoes you need to be really careful of the shades you are trying to match and the degree of dressing up you are doing. This will never work unless you often try to also match navy blue and black together, stripes with plaids and my least fave; mixing different shades of white or cotton with rayon…I could go for hours. This is the only subject I tend to be snobbish about.
YOU MUST NEVER MIX BROWN AND BLACK TOGETHER unless you are mixing solid black and they must be black not grey black or faded in the knee black with brown chucka work boots. You must also match with a brown belt and possibly even a brown shirt or jacket but do not over mix the shades of brown.

When I was a youngster, we had Doberman Pinschers…

No it just wouldnt look right. You could however wear like say beige pants with black shoes, but just remember no black and brown combinations.

What about white socks with black shoes and brown shorts? Even I, a member of the schlub police, frown on that.

I think brown shoes would be fine with black pants if you’re wearing another item that’s brown. It’d be nice if it was the same shade, but it doesn’t have to.

I have a really cute outfit I wear that’s a black dress with a visible brown camisole, black shoes, and a brown purse. It might sound weird, but it looks great!

(Gail, visible white socks? that’s a “don’t bee”.)

La Chica. You should see the way people dress here (12037). I went to a memorial service last Sunday. Everyone was appropriately dressed, but a cousin went to the podium to give a weepy and ex-temp speech. He was wearing hunting camouflage.

oh dear.

Hell yeah, black and brown go together

Just want to say that ever since I asked this question I have seen lots of people wearing black and brown. It actually looks good in certain combinations.

Gail- did he look like this? And how could you see him…ba bum pshhh

@Knot; I can always count on you. This guy was not disguised to look like the interior of a Synagogue.

2 things i love about that, knot:
#1. one of the categories is “wedding”.
#2. you can see the kid’s mullet even though you can’t see his head.

“Durable, wrinkle-free, waterproof, and lightweight.”

Laughing my ass off!

@Knot: a good description of Milo.

Just be careful with browns that are too dark: like a lot of color combos, when it’s too close, it looks off and tacky. Medium and light browns of the more tan variety look pretty bangin’ with black, but black pants are way too heavy for brown shoes, especially if they’re dark brown.

Caramel brown and black look great together because there’s enough contrast. sort of like khaki and black, which is classic.

why not?