How the Seventies’ favourite colour made a comeback
This year, tan is not just for the summer months. The colour brown, signature shade of the Seventies, is back in a big way for autumn 2017. During show season the formerly dark and dingy tone emerged as a counterpoint to other mid-century hues – deep red, orange and yellow, teal and forest green.
The first two looks at the Simone Rocha catwalk show were head-to-toe brown velvet – big, thick, Victorianstyle belted coats (my childhood self swooned). Quite the statement, but a brown coat in some less dramatic form may turn out to be just what you need.
At The Row they teamed a mud-brown coat with grey tailoring, while at Victoria Beckham (right) it was the fluid Seventies-style trouser suit that came in a sandy tone. Elsewhere, brown was a major tonal player in prints, checks and stripes.
At Net-a-porter they’re calling brown the “new neutral”. “For this season we really saw an emergence of the off-colour palette – everything from mustard to beige and brown,” says Lisa Aiken, its retail fashion director. “There is a retail myth about the colour brown and that it doesn’t sell, but it’s extremely chic and modern.”
The trick to pulling it off, she says, is what you wear it with. “The new rule is to wear brown with black – it’s replaced the classic navy and black combination. And browns mixed with other natural shades and white accessories will really show your style clout.”
The easiest way to adapt is to switch black accessories to brown. Slouchy, oversized bags, hobo-ish and easy or neat satchel cross-body styles in shades of chocolate, mole, tan or beige, have emerged as a trend – the kind of thing that Mary Tyler Moore would have slung her notebook and pen into. So, if you’re going to buy anything brown, make it a Big Brown Bag.