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Should I avoid wearing black if I have brown hair?

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Casablanca

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
One of my female friends told me that I should try to avoid wearing black altogether if I have brown hair (as I do). I personally think that this is ridiculous, as black is a very basic color that everyone has to wear sometime in their life (e.g. a tuxedo or a black business suit). I suppose I could try to keep black out of my casual wardrobe, though I have black polos, button-up shirts, sweaters, and loafers, and I don't particularily want to part with them. I think that wearing, say, black pants with a brown shirt makes a person look like they have a bad sense of fashion, but I don't think that just a person's hair color being brown means they should avoid wearing black. Askandy.com's guide to color coordination doesn't even list black as a color that should be avoided if one has brown hair anyway. But I wouldn't mind some opinions on this. And by the way, the same person ironically told me that wearing brown if one has black hair is fine, yet it somehow isn't the case the other way around.
 
#2 ·
Casablanca said:
One of my female friends told me that I should try to avoid wearing black altogether if I have brown hair (as I do). I personally think that this is ridiculous, as black is a very basic color that everyone has to wear sometime in their life (e.g. a tuxedo or a black business suit). I suppose I could try to keep black out of my casual wardrobe, though I have black polos, button-up shirts, sweaters, and loafers, and I don't particularily want to part with them. I think that wearing, say, black pants with a brown shirt makes a person look like they have a bad sense of fashion, but I don't think that just a person's hair color being brown means they should avoid wearing black. Askandy.com's guide to color coordination doesn't even list black as a color that should be avoided if one has brown hair anyway. But I wouldn't mind some opinions on this. And by the way, the same person ironically told me that wearing brown if one has black hair is fine, yet it somehow isn't the case the other way around.
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Your female friend is absolutely correct. The next time you are out on the street, take a moment and observe those idiots with brown hair who are wearing black or...my God, even worse...charcoal. Don't they look to you like rank fools? By the way, neither black nor white are colors per se. Your question might better be addressed to another forum, perhaps https://www.Dyemyhair.com.

Buzz
 
#6 ·
Like Buzz said in his post, if you eliminate black because of your hair color you should also eliminate charcoal. With the exception of a pair of black pants, I only wear black with casual clothing; but I wear a fair amount of it.

I wore black when I had brown hair. I wore black with grey hair. Now I'm on the verge of wearing black with no hair. Hair color has never factored in to it.

I think this is a bigger deal with women than men. They get into coordinating things with eye color, eye shadow, nail polish, hair color, etc. My ex was always convinced that she couldn't wear red because of her skin tone and the truth was that she looked great in red.

Cruiser
 
#7 ·
My wife has brown hair and black looks just fine on her.
I think your friend is...at the risk of being ungentlemanly..wrong.
As a matter of fact, I've read that every woman should have a little black dress.
 
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#8 ·
That's definitely wrong. Like a previous poster said, only so much a girl says about men's clothing should be taken to heart; for my part, I say that so much is pretty small.

There was, however, one problem with your post. Reread your examples of times when a man would have to wear black. What's that second one? Black business suit? I don't think so, chap. This is not a nightclub, and you are not James Bond (although he did pull off a black suit with brown hair quite well); a black suit is not business attire.
 
#10 ·
Casablanca said:
One of my female friends told me that I should try to avoid wearing black altogether if I have brown hair (as I do).
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Actually, I agree with her 100%. Colours such as black and white tend to make anyone with light to medium brown hair and complexions look washed out in daylight. Things change in the evening under artificial light and black does look good. However, in daylight colours like charcoal look more greyish and thus wash the wearer out less. "Charcoal" is also an imprecise colour, and there can be much overlap in swatches of cloth merchants between "dark grey", "charcoal" and "Oxford grey". The last of these should, in principle, be the darkest, and close to black, but those with lighter brown hair should ere on the side of choosing a cloth that is more clearly greyish. If in doubt, one should always take the swatch book out of the store into the sunlight.

Lastly, there is also no such thing as a black "business" suit, unless you are an undertaker. Black lounge suits have no place in the workplace.
 
#11 ·
Casablanca said:
And by the way, the same person ironically told me that wearing brown if one has black hair is fine, yet it somehow isn't the case the other way around.
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Actually, this too is correct. You will see recommendations from colour charts (such silly things they are) stating that those with black hair should avoid brown. Though there is some ring of truth to this, I must admit, it can easily be overcome by choosing the right shade of brown.

What really changed my mind was my shirtmaker who said that if the cloth is a really high end cloth, it matters little what colour it is. Quality cloth is made with quality dyes, with beautiful rich and complex depth to them, that flatter any complexion. When you first try on bespoke items in colours you thought would be a bit much, you can be amazed at how flattering colours are that these charts say "avoid like the plague". These colour charts work best for cheap Chinese made RTW items, to make them look less nasty than they really are.

The only exception to this is black. Black remains an extremely difficult colour irrespective of the quality of the cloth or dye. It is a very strong colour which should be reserved for formal dress only, and even then preferably only at night. Black casual items look particularly ghastly - t-shirts, jeans, polo shirts, sneakers etc. There is a veritable modern plague of black casual garments.
 
#17 ·
As I recall, There really are no rules but guidelines. If you can pull off the outfit then wear it. Rules are meant to be bent or in some cases broken. I don't know one woman that doesn't have black in their wardrobe. Most women change their hair color more often than they change clothes. I agree that black should be worn more casually, not in business. Wearing a black suit in the evening to a dinner or party is fine. Wearing it to the office is not. the exception would be a pinstripe or windowpane.
 
Discussion starter · #18 ·
Tonyp said:
As I recall, There really are no rules but guidelines. If you can pull off the outfit then wear it. Rules are meant to be bent or in some cases broken. I don't know one woman that doesn't have black in their wardrobe. Most women change their hair color more often than they change clothes. I agree that black should be worn more casually, not in business. Wearing a black suit in the evening to a dinner or party is fine. Wearing it to the office is not. the exception would be a pinstripe or windowpane.
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I didn't expect so much backlash from my black business suit comment. I guess it shows I'm still learning. I'm nineteen years old and I work at Wal-mart and Banana Republic, so I don't have to much occaision to wear a suit at all. As of now, I only own one suit, a black suit with white pinestripes. The only occaison that I might need to wear it is if I want to go downtown. I live in Round Rock, a suburb of Austin and sometimes go to downtown Austin. I don't really like club hopping all that much, so I tend to go downtown in daylight hours and visit restaurants more often than clubs, so I don't know if a suit is really called for. Maybe I should have saved my money and waited on getting a suit when I had more occasion to wear it.
 
#19 ·
CONTRAST in clothing and complexions

Black is for dinner jackets/suits only, not lounge suite ("business suits"). Personally I don't see anything wrong w/ very casual black clothing such as T-shirt, jeans and the like -- as long as these are not worn when a lounge suit would be a better choice.

No gentleman needs a black suit for any reason (unless, as another pointed out, you are an undertaker).

Rather than looking at a single color, I would look at the contrast between colors in what you're wearing. Even a very dark color like navy blue in a jacket with a dark/light color rep tie will not look good on a person with a complexion similar to their hair color. The issue here is CONTRAST. Dark clothing paired with light clothing looks best on persons with dark hair contrasted with fair complexions (most Japanese men, "black Irish" guys such as the way Tyronne Power looked). Conversely, men w/ med brown hair and medium complexions (low contrast faces) will look very washed out by high contrast clothes (like the above navy blue jacket w/ high-contrast tie example). It may be what your girlfriend was getting at here.

There is a very nice discussion of this subject on complexion vs contrasting clothing choices in Flusser's "Dressing the Man."
 
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