Wearing Black & Brown Together

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Eleanore asks: 

"Can you wear black and brown together? Lately I've been told "no." I always do and never thought it looked bad at all but my friend who actually is a stylist said it's a "no-no." I don't agree."

Fashion rules are being broken all over the place these days (i.e. no wearing white after Labor Day? Who listens to that one anymore?). In fact, part of what makes revolutionary, unique, up-and-coming, and fashionable clothing stand out is the idea that fashion rules have been broken or altered by trendsetters and the fashion-savvy. I've mentioned it before, but my favorite example of this is The Sartorialist -- the street fashion movement has taken off since the beginning of this blog & photography experiement, and is now heavily influencing major runway shows and collections with its rule-breaking, quirky ideas.

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That being said, I do think there are outfit combinations that look better than others and let's face it, are more acceptable in normal society than others. So my simple rule (which you can feel free to break -- this is just my preference) is that black and light browns (tan, cognac, camel, etc.) work best together. Chocolate browns and black are little more dicey. I mean, you can go for it, but it always looks a little off to me, personally. I think it has something to do with the fact that black is so absolute. So to throw a medium, lifeless, nondescript brown against it makes for a muddled idea that can't fully decide what it wants to be.

If I sound like I'm anti-chocolate brown, it's probably because I OD'ed on it in highschool. Convinced that I couldn't wear black, I settled for brown, and now I tend to hold it at arms length. But I digress. Bottom line is, if you're craving dark colors to wear with chocolate brown, I recommend trying a dark navy blue or a gray.

What do you all think? Is wearing black & brown a fashion "no-no" or a fashion "go for it"?

Also, I managed to use "no-no" in this post like three times, so that's pretty great.

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