colors that actually do go better w/ black shoes than brown.

[epa]

I think it is a mistake to talk about combinations of colours in these general terms. Brown is not always brown. Sometimes it is burgundy, somtimes cognac... Not even black is black all the time...
Shades are so important. Some of my brown shoes go great with navy, others don't. Black shoes go great with most of my suits, including a brown one...

 

[yfyf]

Originally Posted by Dewey

brown shoes require color coordination. even dark brown shoes are a color. they are not neutral. to make brown shoes work with a navy outfit, it has to be the right brown. an orange-ish brown like cognac is easy with a navy suit, because orange and navy love each other, but i would only do that in bright light (say to be outdoors on a sunny day).

i only wear black shoes at night. and there are a bunch of earth toned clothes that i only wear at day.

you need brown and black shoes in your rotation, and while there are surely cases where black works best, it may be only because your palette of browns is not wide enough, or because your use & selection of browns is clumsy.

black in the day is just a placeholder. it projects austerity and, in lots of environments, authority. it is puritan, it is military, it is conformist, it is a lot of things that are not very artistic or aesthetically warm and inviting.

the irony is that it is known as color of people who work in the arts today (in the US at least). some of this, i think, is wanting to be slim and black is slimming. but also it is wanting to complement or balance out the artsy-fartsy creativeness of jobs in the arts. "professional" and "arts" should not go together easily, and a self-denying military outfit of black shoes, black suit (or black jeans and black leather jacket) keeps the arts professional from looking too flakey.

to make a long story short, of course black goes with everything. but i doubt there exists a suit that cannot look more impressive, sartorially, with just the right brown shoes working with just the right shirt, tie, socks, etc.

... i don't mean this as a challenge. there can be many good reasons for wearing black in the day, or as much as you like, in my opinion. the thing i object to is the idea that some colors cannot work or do not work well with brown. brown is too broad a category of colors for such a statement to make sense. and for sure, we can't all have the whole rainbow of brown shoes in our closet.

Interesting and very well written, Dewey, but I have to disagree with your statement that black is merely a placeholder. Black is as valid a colour as any particular shade of brown and black does *not* go with everything. While it sometimes gets a bad rap as the easy, tasteless choice, I do not think it is simply the domain of the emo kids, the corporate robots or the flakey art set. Black shoes can be stylish or unobtrusive as well, but it should be treated as a colour not an absence of colour. It is not a default.