[Sternchen]

Hi everyone,

I'm having a big problem trying to find an outfit for my graduation on Friday. I had a pair of brown jeweled heels that I would like to wear. I'm not very fashionable and I tend to wear what I see on the manikins and what I know matches.

Can I wear brown heels with black trousers?? If not, I have a pair of brown trousers (chocolate brown) that I could wear, but I don't have a top that goes with it! I used to have this beautiful pink tank top, but I can't find it for the life of me!

Anyway, here are the shoes that I'd like to wear:

[Olgavd]

Yes you can if you have something else brown or cream in your outfit, or white. You could pair it with a brown handbag, a white blouse and some jewelry in yellow gold (yellow gold looks great with brown). I don't think pink would be too good, but you can try. If it's warm pink, it should do. Also, jewelry and accessories must be simple, because you've got lots of rhinestones on your shoes.

[chloe-babe]

Duck egg blue looks fabulous with brown. If I was wearing the brown shoes with black trousers, the top would have to be black or brown really. But if you wear the brown trousers with the brown shoes, then you can be much more experimental with your top. Golds, creams, blues, pale pinks, you will be fine.

Hope your graduation goes really well :)

[Sternchen]

Thanks you guys!! :) Good to know that gold can be worn with brown!

[ShimmaPuff]

Brown is a neutral, which means you can wear anything with it, including other neutrals.

What you SHOULD wear with any given brown thing depends on you - everything from what you want your entire outfit to look like to your skin tone.

I love pink with brown, and pale blue and aqua and lavender as well, but all those are colors that look good on me.

What I would suggest is that you choose the top that looks best on you. Whatever it is, it will go with both your black pants AND your brown! shoes! :)

[BagLovingMom]

I love chocolate brown and black together, I think the combo of colors is very rich.

[Menna]

Yes , i love brown with black

[ZoeyZoo]

You can do black with brown depending on the top. If you wear it with a top that has brown in it I think it will look better to pull the outfit together. If you wear the brown shoes with the black pants and another colored top it will look odd to me. I think you could get away with it better if it were a lighter or metallic shoe.

I prefer to keep my shoes darker than the pants/skirt unless I'm making a statement (i.e., animal print, red) to perk up a boring outfit. Brown is lighter than black and I'm not sure the embellishment alone would be enough of a statement. I think black shoes with brown pants is more forgiving. Brown shoes with black pants is tricky.

That pink top with the brown pants sounds good - I usually like the two together. What other colors do you have that look good on you? What were you planning to wear with the black pants? Most colors that work with black also work with brown. Both are neutrals so they would go with any other color. The issue is when pairing neutrals together is some neutrals look better together than others IMO. So they are trickier to match in the same outfit.

[ShimmaPuff]

Originally Posted by ZoeyZoo

I prefer to keep my shoes darker than the pants/skirt... Brown shoes with black pants is tricky.

Ah, yes, the old "a lady does not wear a shoe lighter than her hemline" rule. I was glad to see that one run out of town on a rail by an enormous athletic shoe invasion, "running shoes" they were called back in the beginning of it.

You make a good point about the trickiness of black pants and brown shoes. However, at least on my monitor, the little dots in the middle of the flowers look black, which removes the trickiness in this case.

It is the same thing that comes up, it seems whenever we talk about mixing black and brown, or navy and black, etc - the trick is successful if you can manage to convey that the mixing is intentional - and not merely a case of having gotten dressed in a very dim light...