Ode to the Brown Suit

Despite the world moving toward a “no context” approach to dressing, it’s still very apparent that our clothing choices are still informed by outdated rules and traditions. And one of those oft-maligned garments is the brown suit.

Okay, “maligned” might be a strong word but it is certainly an iconic piece of menswear that is usually not concerned by many dressers, even among tailoring enthusiasts. At least for a while. I realize that times have changed and that the brown suit is currently enjoying its time in the limelight. But just bear with me on this– I’ve wanted to write this out for a while!

I just want you to love brown suits as much as I do.

In my discussions with various people throughout my life, I’ve found that people have an aversion to brown tailoring. To their credit, brown is indeed a natural color as most cloth is brown or beige before being dyed. While this might work for casual clothes (just think of all the workwear and milsurp that is in varying shades of brown), this doesn’t make a good case for it to be used in tailoring. If tailoring is meant for special occasions or (like a funeral, wedding, or job interview), brown doesn’t fit into that pragmatic priority. Brown just can’t stack up to the “correct” choices of navy and grey. On that note, it also lacks the boldness and vibrancy of other colors that people may choose (like green or white). Brown is blah. It’s soft and not severe..

We must also be aware of the maxim of “no brown in town”, which has its roots in British culture. It simply meant that brown was the color of the country (casual or even lower classes) and that when you’re in the city, you must wear navy, grey, and black. Granted, the rule mainly refers to shoes, where the theme still applies: the city is meant for black leather shoes, not brown. Brown is rustic, tired, and slouchy, qualities that people tend to not want when it comes to tailoring. At best, it can feel academic (which again, isn’t always an aspiring vibe).

While it is true that some conservative firms (with their big social benefits) adhere to anti-brown in town sentiments, even this article cites that Brits are largely alone in this, as other European countries and the USA are open to wearing brown in business. But since the UK is the center of traditional tailoring (Saville Row is there after all), a lot of budding (and current) menswear guys blindly follow this rule, playing into their perceptions that a suit in brown makes little sense and therefore shouldn’t be considered.

It’s obvious that I find this sentiment quite unfortunate. So many guys out there are missing out on the glory of brown suits!

Brown suits among grey! Note that they even have it in 3PC with peaks (two qualities most people find formal).

I’ve never had a problem with brown tailoring. This is most likely because I got into menswear not through learning “correct dress” from infographics on the internet, but by diving deep into old photographs and illustrations. And you know what I saw? Guys wore brown suits– often! At least that’s what ads made it seem like.

Despite the fact that Golden Era menswear of the 1920s-1940s took plenty of direction from the British styles, plenty of advertisements, editorials, and catalogs featured brown suits equally among navy and greys. Illustrated Esquire Man scenes displayed brown suits (as well as brown shoes) being worn by corporate gentlemen, serving almost as a form of good ol’ fashion American rebellion. I am aware that Esquire Man is a marketing function, serving as an ideal to dress as, but you’ve got to hand it to them for always making a case for brown.

Again, it’s hard to tell in black and white photographs if brown suits were indeed common IRL, but if we go off of those ads and illustrations, I’m sure they were. Ads show that whether it was in worsted wool, soft flannel, breezy linen, or scratchy tweed, brown suits have always been here! I truly believe that at a time where people wore tailoring almost daily, brown was an acceptable garment to wear even within the city. Anyone could wear a brown suit!

This egalitarian view on brown was reinforced when I went to vintage events, which largely became the only place where I was around other tailored people in general. And since brown suits were common in the Golden Era, vintage collectors would wear their brown suits. This wasn’t a corporate event or an occasion built on formality, this was simply about wearing what made us happy. Brown certainly fit in just fine!

I just needed to get it for myself.

My first brown suit, a 1940s piece in a heavy flannel.

A 1930s brown suit, which was my grail for a while.

The Brown Brooks Bros sack that Spencer and I both own.

My beloved MTM brown suit from Atelier Fugue.

The constant search for and evaluation of brown tailoring as it fit in my life, create an allure for such suiting that formed a lot of who I am today. It showed me that I wanted to dress for fun and that I liked being slouchy (while not going too crazy). That’s why some of you may remember that lot of my vintage suits were indeed brown! But as time went on, I wanted them to “evolve”. I wanted to show that brown suits did not have to live in the past and that they didn’t have to just be in their Golden Era form or worn like an ivy league professor, at least not every time you wore them. I knew that they could do everything I wanted.

This desire to make a case for something I liked in a modern (but still referential) way ended up being a formative moment for my life. My passion to put brown on equal footing as navy and grey meant that I had to be able to wear it year round in LA, which was one of the pushes for me to expand past just wearing vintage and start considering contemporary clothing (in RTW and custom). That journey, which some of you may have followed through the course of this blog and my social media presence, is what formed my philosophy on staying true to taste, how to be critical when purchasing items, and forced versatility since you guys know I wear my brown suits in a myriad of ways.

If brown had kept up its ubiquity in tailoring until the modern day, who knows, maybe I wouldn’t have been drawn to it as much as I am today! We’ll never know.

What I do know is that brown tailoring is such a tenet of my personal style. And the more I get critical with how I connect with clothing, I know my love of brown suiting is inextricably linked to its vintage vibes (as it seemed to only be acceptable in the past and its unpragmatic nature. While its lack of availability (at least when I was first aware of brown) might play a factor into how “special” it is to me, I truly think that I like the color for its own sake, though again I can’t escape its social connotations.

But those connotations are what makes brown tailoring so good!

Arnold Wong. A brown suit just has an old charm that combines gravitas with slouch.

Drake’s leverages into the casual-ness of brown with its workwear inspired jackets.

It’s a way to wear a suit without “wearing a suit” in the everyday, corporate way.

Dries goes further into the slouchy vibes of brown and creates something that leans more Fashion than trad menswear (to great effect).

The appeal of brown tailoring isn’t exactly because its use is a thing of the past, but because the cloth calls to mind a specific vibe due to its connotations and history. Blue and Grey are agnostic, while brown is inherently thematic. Wearing brown means you are intentionally going for something casual, something rustic, country– something not corporate or formal. Coding and signaling are all at play here, and I can’t deny that. A brown suit inherently creates a bit of an oxymoron, as it pairs an unpragmatic color with a garment that is typically viewed as pragmatic.

To be clear, I don’t like brown tailoring just because it’s weird or uncommon. I truly believe in the power of brown. Its soft, inoffensive shades just feel so welcoming. Brown feels rugged yet accessible, having a gravitas that isn’t too austere or cold, a vibe I often get (and intentionally invoke) with navy and grey. It’s the perfect color for the exact vibes I want when I get dressed.

The funny thing is that while brown is considered unconventional to the mainstream, the color itself actually isn’t too bold. Wearing it is just as “non corporate” as donning a green suit, but that isn’t exactly right either because brown is not as weird as green (but it is weirder than blue or grey). Obviously you could get the same slouchy, casual effect with brown separates (which most people do), but we can’t deny alluring effect of a full suit, enveloping a shirt (and tie) in a single color. A brown suit almost has the same formality level as separates (since brown is casual), but it’s still a full suit.

This unique mixture of qualities makes it easy for it to be worn in the modern era where we are constantly changing and subverting contexts. While you can definitely have fun dressing down a navy or grey suit by wearing denim shirts and tees, the appeal comes mainly from the juxtaposition of a typically corporate suit with incoherent (casual) elements. This isn’t exactly the case with a brown. Brown cloth enjoys a bit of “pariah status”, which frees it up to be worn however we want. You can pair it with vibrant alohas, bold striped shirts, and wild geometrics. Brown suiting is all about fun!

People tend to play further into fun by doing brown in casual fabrics like cotton, flannel, tweed, or linen. It seems like a natural choice, doesn’t it? Many brands have made a good case for this, especially ones like Drake’s where workwear-inspired tailoring is their whole thing. But this doesn’t get at my view of brown suits. I want them to be on an even playing field with navy and grey, just like Esquire Man taught me.

This is why I don’t believe that you inherently have to do a brown suit in a fully casual way. I mean this in reference to the fact that most people do browns in decidedly casual fabrics like linen, tweeds, and flannels. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, but I prefer to have a brown suit be standard, just like it was in the Golden Era. I want to make a case for an egalitarian future that has Breathing Room for brown suits.

A brown full brown suit can still be somber or even corporate if you pick your cloth carefully. Shades of taupe or khaki, can be seasonal, which again contribute to its use as a casual garment. You can get around this by opting for darker shades. I often prefer a chocolate or charcoal brown so that I have the option of going “formal” with my styling despite brown being a “casual” color; you could echo this with somber pairings in shirts and ties. This quality of specific brown suits is a reason why I firmly believe that I could wear them to the office without issue. It’s all about the styling, as Frasier clearly shows it’s possible to be sleek in a brown suit.

It’s not that going ivy or fully country-trad in a brown suit is bad (it is fun to lean into), but it’s that we don’t have to relegate ourselves to that. Yes, the color’s vibes cohesively work with casual moves like a chambray shirt or knitwear and comes off less jarring than a navy or grey suit fit with the same moves. But brown also naturally works with non-casual things too. We can wear poplin shirts and smooth, silk ties with a brown suit. Brown can exist outside of the countryside.

Brown can definitely work for Going Out. Brown can be sleek and sexy, leveraging its understated status to be a launching point for cool moves like black shirts and footwear. Even if people may not know you’re wearing a brown suit in the dim lighting of a fancy restaurant, you’ll know that you look cool.

Overall, brown tailoring is unconventional, which helps make it fun in any way you want. And as someone who dresses for fun and personal enjoyment rather than dress codes, brown is the best color for that. No wonder brown is mentioned whenever Derek talks about putting on a Happy Suit!

I hope people get the case that brown suits should be seen on equal footing with grey and navy, especially for the guys who dress up for fun rather than for a pragmatic reason. Obviously it can never compare to the corporate history of grey/navy, but in the realm of no-context dressing (where we can make our own parameters), brown should be considered an appropriate choice. I know that’s how it’s been for me.

My brown suits are the ones I wear most often, which is quite telling since I do own a navy and grey suit. Those navy and grey guys are there when I want to lean into a more correct look. But when I’m just me, my default suit is brown as I wear it casually, formally (business appropriate), and sex-ily. I can wear it with a sweater vest and spearpoint and go for that Esquire Man look. I can do it with a solid OCBD and knit tie for ivy. A western shirt, aloha, or rayon sportshirt can easily be swapped in at my whim. Yes, a navy and grey suit can do those things too, but they aren’t brown.

Brown is truly something special, not in a “pick me, I’m different” way, but that the color truly represents me. It has an old charm, it’s intentional, it’s slouchy, and can still uphold the vibe of classic menswear, even if it’s not exactly a pragmatically correct choice nor one that is too dandy or bold. Wearing a brown suit is a different way of going “full send”.

Thankfully I’m not alone in this sentiment. And as I alluded to in the intro, the wider menswear world has definitely embraced brown tailoring more over the past few years. In order to survive, menswear has needed to show that suits can be more than just wedding or corporate attire. This can be solved by pairing items but this can also be helped with considering what colors we can consider for a suit. That is where brown comes in. And it’s clear everyone has been enjoying it, as brown has enjoyed the limelight in countless lookbooks, fit pics, and tailor commissions across the menswear space.

Perhaps we’re finally back to the brown suit friendly world that Esquire Man showed me all those years ago.

Spencer and MJ obviously both love brown suits for all the same reasons (it’s also one of the only suits they own). It’s the subject of our latest podcast, so I suggest you take a listen below. Hell, you can have it on while you scroll through all the amazing photos I’ve compiled for you.

What’s interesting is that this blog post really shows how much I’ve changed…and how much I’ve stayed the same, all through the power of the Brown Suit.