Welcome back to the Gentleman's Gazette. In today's video, we'll discuss six stylish
outfit ideas for a slightly more unique wardrobe choice - a brown patterned suit.
When it comes to the basic building blocks of menswear in terms of color,
brown definitely takes a spot on this list alongside shades of blue and shades of gray
as well as black and white to varying degrees.
However, while blues and grays have been staples of business wear for centuries, brown historically
wasn't quite at this same level of formality. The reasons for this are numerous and varied so
for more information and comprehensive history on the color brown in menswear
you can find our video on brown and why we think it's underrated here. (link in description box)
Suffice it to say though that gray and blue were considered business wear for the 19th
and early 20th century while brown was considered more appropriate for country wear. And as evidence
of this, we need to look no further than that old-fashioned dictum no brown in town.
As we covered in our video on style rules to ignore though, this old chestnut has
been falling away more and more with the increased casualization of wardrobes over the last 50 years
or so. And in this case, we'd say so much the better. We think that brown suits are a stylish
addition to any man's wardrobe and that they can be worn in a wide variety of settings. So to prove
this point, we've rounded up six different outfits indeed not just for brown suits but for brown
patterned suits. Of course, any of these ideas could just as easily apply to a plain brown suit
with minor modification. But, we thought that by taking the least commonly worn off the base
menswear colors adding the further complication of patterns and still getting six varied outfits
out of it we could cement the point that you can get a lot of mileage out of a brown suit.
Before we get to the individual looks though, here's just a bit more
style theory as to why they work. In the broad strokes, brown can now be worn relatively easily
across a broad spectrum of formalities with the exception of black tie and white tie.
This is because brown fundamentally works to ground an outfit complementing various other
colors and counterbalancing any bright hues you might be wearing elsewhere in your ensembles.
In particular, brown pairs especially nicely with one of the other
base hues of menswear blue in fact we've done an entire video on pairing blue and brown together
which you can find here. (Link in description.) That video contains a more detailed analysis of
why blue and brown go so well together but in the broad strokes, it's because blue and orange are
opposite each other on the color wheel acting as complementary colors and because brown often
contains orange tones, it pairs similarly well with blue. Secondly, because both blue and brown
come in a wide variety of shades, it should be easy to find hues of both that work well for you,
but more on that in a moment. Similarly to how brown pairs well with blue, it can also be paired
well with the other base hue grey, and indeed, we've also done a video on that topic which you
can find here. While this pairing is a bit less conventional, so long as you're working to match
the formality and seasonality of the garments, you can pair brown and gray easily and be good to go.
As an example, some gray flannel trousers paired with a tweed jacket featuring brown tones would
fit nicely into the smart-casual category for fall or winter. And again mentioning our video on rules
to ignore, you can even wear brown and black together well so long as they're harmonizing in
terms of formality and intensity. And one more color with which brown plays especially well
is green. This is likely because of how often these two colors are seen together in nature.
One additional point here is a good idea to make sure that the shades of brown along with whatever
other color you're wearing be it blue, gray or something else harmonize well with your skin tone.
For example, lighter skin tones might go well with lighter or paler shades of brown whereas darker
skin tones could go well with a dark charcoal brown and a white shirt for a strong contrast.
Medium skin tones could also benefit from some contrast though maybe not quite to the same
degree. These rules aren't ironclad of course, and indeed some of the looks we'll be featuring today.
Don't follow them, you can just think of these suggestions as
guard rails or ways to play it safe when pairing colors together so for our video
on finding the best colors for your skin tone you can go here. (link in the description.)
Alright, with style theory out of the way let's now get into the six different
outfit ideas we've put together for today's video. We'll start with a formal office look.
As we mentioned earlier, the old rule about no brown in town is now going to be untrue in all
but the most formal of workplace environments. In most scenarios, wearing a full suit even in
brown is still going to be comparatively formal to what many others are wearing. Still,
a suit that's both brown and patterned will always be at least somewhat informal.
If you work in an especially strictly formal environment like a law firm, for example,
where charcoal and navy suits abound, a dark charcoal brown suit with a subtle pattern
is likely the least formal you'd want to go. In these cases though, the outfit can be further
formalized by your other elements. You're likely going to want to go with a white
shirt for strong contrast preferably with french cuffs, a conservative tie, dark shoes,
and tasteful accessories. A three-piece suit would likely be the most formal and conservative
option here followed by a double-breasted suit and then a two-piece single-breasted.
The outfit I'm wearing here is a good example of this highly formal look. I've augmented it
slightly by wearing an off-white shirt to better harmonize with the brown color palette overall
but the tie pattern is still relatively conservative in Macclesfield neats and
I've also got on conservative cufflinks and a slightly more playful boutonniere.
The socks and pocket square also ultimately work within the color family
and my shoes are darker brown cap toe oxfords which are also fairly conservative.
Moving down a step in formality, if suits are worn only occasionally in your office or intermingled
with combinations of odd jackets and trousers, you can still wear the same suit we just discussed
but make it slightly less formal with the addition of more color. For instance, a blue shirt or one
in another pastel shade, perhaps, even with a micro pattern could be a good choice here. The
same would also be true of bolder accessories in terms of color, pattern, texture, and so on.
Now might also be the time to experiment with bolder shoes as well. Furthermore,
this is also the time at which you could experiment with
not only wearing a dark brown patterned suit but also something with a lighter base color.
Our third look today continues along with this theme of adding progressively more color
into your outfits and here, this is accomplished by wearing either a contrasting odd waistcoat
or a sweater. This can be done easily with both a two-piece suit where the odd waistcoat or sweater
is simply added underneath the jacket or with a three-piece suit where the waistcoat or sweater
substitutes for the original matching waistcoat. A sweater in a contrasting but harmonious color
might be a bit easier to get your hands on than a contrasting or odd waistcoat
but if you are going the sweater route, this could be accomplished with a cardigan,
a v-neck, or perhaps even a sweater vest. The one type of suit we wouldn't recommend for this look
would be a double-breasted suit as the under layer of the contrasting waistcoat or sweater would be
largely obscured by the double-breasted jacket given that it should be buttoned at all times.
On the topic of wearing suits with sweaters then, an even more casual option and one that would be
particularly good for fall or winter would be pairing your brown patterned suit with a
turtleneck sweater. In this circumstance, you'll be foregoing a collared shirt
tie and many other accessories though not all, of course, so your main points of customization
are going to come from two sources. The first of these will be the relative boldness of the
outfit determined largely by the pattern of the suit and the color of the turtleneck.
You could go with louder patterns and or richer colors or you could lean into the inherent
minimalism in this look with neutral tones. The second point of customization then would come
from how you choose your remaining accessories and garments which would here include shoes,
socks, pocket squares, and boutonnieres. For instance, for our remaining two looks today,
we're going to start breaking up the suit itself. Perhaps, the easiest way to do this
would be by wearing the suit jacket with a pair of odd trousers. Remember that because
the suits we're discussing today are patterned. The jacket will look more appropriate on its own
paired with a contrasting pair of trousers than a plain suit jacket would in the same circumstance.
Plain suit jackets worn on their own often have a tendency to look orphaned somewhat
because of their largely non-descript character whereas odd jackets like blazers and sport coats
usually have multiple elements of visual interest to them that make them look better when worn with
contrasting and plain trousers. The reverse of this technique then is to say wearing a
pair of patterned suit trousers with a plain odd jacket is a bit more bold and unorthodox
trousers, more often than not, serve to ground an outfit while the jacket will incorporate
the majority of the pattern but this isn't always the case. After all, you can look at
morning dress or formal day wear for an example of a plain jacket paired with patterned trousers.
With this said though, we wouldn't recommend taking your patterned suit jacket or trousers
and pairing them together with an odd garment that also has its own pattern. While it might
work in some rare cases, this more often than not is probably going to result in an
outfit with too many clashing patterns which would look jarring to the eye.
Our sixth and final look today is something of an advanced form of the previous look. This is
the Italian technique known as spezzato where elements of two suits are combined together.
You could wear the jacket and waistcoat of a three-piece brown patterned suit
with contrasting trousers or conversely, you could wear the trousers and waistcoat
of a three-piece suit with a contrasting jacket. As you can tell from those examples
it will help to reinforce your intent with this look if one or both of the
suits that you're meshing together has three pieces. This way, the waistcoat provides a
bridging element that will help the two suits blend together across the body. So hopefully,
these outfit ideas have provided you with some general style inspiration as well as convinced
you that a brown suit whether patterned or indeed plain should have a spot in your wardrobe.
As mentioned earlier, my outfit for the majority of this video aligns most closely with our first
outfit suggestion for a formal office look. I am only wearing a two-piece brown pattern suit here,
this is a vintage model that I picked up online hence the somewhat power shoulders you
can see here. My shirt, as I mentioned before, is off-white to better harmonize with the brown tones
and my shoes are cap toe brown oxfords from Allen Edmonds. All of my remaining elements
in this outfit are from Fort Belvedere -- we'll start with my tie which is in an orange-red madder
silk featuring a micro pattern in buff because of the black outlines on the micropattern combined
with the red-orange and buff colors, you do get the suggestion of brown tones which harmonize
well with the suit. Meanwhile, my pocket square features sapphire blue as its main color and its
design is an art deco Egyptian scarab motif. It also features burnt orange-yellow madder blue and
a teal contrasting edge. My Edelweiss boutonniere harmonizes well with the off-white color of my
shirt and my cufflinks are in gold-plated sterling silver in an eagle claw design and
they feature a tiger's eye as the stone to again bring out some of those orange yellow and brown
tones. The pattern on the suit is a fine pinstripe in light blue and off-white which harmonizes well
with some of my various other wardrobe elements. My final Fort Belvedere accessory today are my
socks which are in charcoal gray with orange shadow stripes. Again, these two colors work
together to suggest a brown feel from a distance so they work well with the suit and also with
other elements like the pocket square. You can find all of the Fort Belvedere accessories in this
outfit as well as many others featured throughout today's video in the Fort Belvedere shop.