Features

Chocolate: The New Black

Oct 01, 2007 | by Kenneth Hein

Fall apparel and accessories featuring the sweet color

We all know chocolates are sweet, but now so will apparel and accessories be based on our favorite candy. For the fall season and beyond, chocolate colored suits, shirts, suede boots and sunglasses will be among the must-wear items.

“Chocolate is the new alternative to the forever boring and over-used, lack-of-color black,” said Leslie Thuet a publicist and fashonista based in Las Vegas. “Much like black, it goes with every color, especially bright colors like teals, corals and pinks. It adds a bit of flare.”

The rise of chocolate is part of a larger trend, according to Joanne Stoner, CEO of eDressMe. com. Metallics arrived on the scene and have now hit full stride for the fall and winter seasons. This includes silver, gold and bronze as well as all of their toned down offshoots like chocolate and grey.

What makes chocolate garments truly delicious are the accessories.

“Wearing brown means that you have to accessorize more,” said Sandy Dumont, the Image Architect. Dumont is a leader in the field of color psychology. “Choose styles of chocolate clothing that are close to high fashion or, at least, fairly dramatic and accessorize it wonderfully. Of course, if you’re looking for clothes for a country weekend look, brown is perfect.”

Pairing chocolate brown with fun colors “makes for a completely trendy, modern look,” said Thuet. For the office, a brown suit is a stylish alternative to black and is sure to turn heads. Only “pair it with a foam green top!” said Thuet.

When selecting brown shirts, slacks and skirts, make sure that it is a “dark, Italian-roast coffee bean shade,” warned Dumont. “Yellow-toned shades are not as elegant.”

While chocolate colored apparel works well with adventurous-colored accessories, dark brown also works as the accessory itself. Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Simpson and Rachel Ray have all been spotted wearing Farylrobin Footwear. Its chocolate thigh-high boots and suede pumps range from $150-$300 and can be found everywhere from Anthropologie to Amazon.com.

For eyewear, Carolina Herrera and John Varvatos frames feature a wide spectrum of browns like butterscotch, bronze, toffee and amber tortoise.

Because fashion is so cyclical (a trend can last anywhere from four seasons to four months), Dumont said like with the candy, don’t go crazy with the chocolate. “Because it is not a sexy or powerful color, next year when it is not the favored color, most people will be sorry they bought a lot of it. Better to find just one garment of exquisite
style and the perfect dark brown color.”

Comments

Add a Comment

Name:

Email:

URL:

  Remember personal information ?

Comment:

Enabled HTML: ‹strong›bold‹/strong›, ‹em›italic‹/em›, ‹a href="http://"›linked‹/a›

 

Features: Archived

all feature archives

Additional Features

Features: Recent Comments