Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: chocolate, mocha, cacao … whatever you call it, brown is autumn’s chicest shade

Black feels like a no-brainer for boots, handbags or coats - but if you swap it for brown, the same outfit looks more considered

There are a bunch of names being thrown around for the colour fashion wants us to wear this season. Espresso. Chestnut. Cacao. Ganache. Coffee bean. Truffle. Mocha. Caramel. Hazelnut. Nobody seems terribly keen to call it brown. Brown has never been the sexiest word in the paintbox. Red is passion. Black is chic. Pink is romance. Blue is serenity. Brown is the colour of wheelie bins. Except that right now, brown – specifically the deep, glossy, edible-looking chocolate end of the spectrum – is probably the chicest colour you can wear.

It is probably not incidental that we so often describe it in terms of what we eat or drink. When Pantone named Mocha Mousse its colour of 2025, it linked brown’s popularity to the “food-ification” of culture: the idea that coffee and chocolate represent small moments of comfort, bite-size affordable treats in anxious lives.

Which makes a certain amount of sense. We are living through an era in which food has become lifestyle content. The bakery, specifically, has become something approaching a cultural institution. Gen Z do not just want to eat croissants: they want to queue for specific croissants, post the croissant, engage in online discourse as to which arrondissement, postcode or Copenhagen side street is producing the correct croissant. And yes, I know I bang on about gen Z, but all the vibe shifts of this decade demonstrate that they are the ones leading culture now. So, you know, suck it up, grandma.

Or this might be nonsense? Colour trends rarely have one neat origin story. But they do have a funny way of capturing a mood. Brown is more cosy than jolly, luxurious rather than flashy, nostalgic but not sugary. It is also emphatically analogue. Do you know what is never brown? A smartphone, that’s what. Brown is leather, wood, coffee, earth, suede, chocolate. It is the colour of IRL. Which is possibly why it is having an aspirational moment now. Brown has historically been the colour of poverty – brown dyes and raw brown fabric being cheap, practical and good at disguising dirt. The urban poor of ancient Rome were pullati – literally, those dressed in brown – while medieval English sumptuary laws restricted peasants to “russet”, a coarse reddish-brown cloth.

Some nugget of this remains lodged in our attitude towards brown. It feels grounded and real. It had a moment in the 1970s, when after the theatrical fashion of the 1960s it felt earthy and authentic. It is rarely seen in the more razzle-dazzle stores – not a lot of brown at Versace, for instance – but often crops up at more alt-coded labels. Brown and green is very Marni. It is beloved at Prada, where it’s part of the vocabulary of “ugly chic” precisely because it is not an obviously pretty colour.

Now, how to wear it. The simplest way is to substitute it when you would reach for black. A boot, a handbag, trousers, a coat are categories where black feels like a no-brainer. But if you engage your brain just enough to swap black for chocolate, the same outfit looks more considered. Chocolate-brown leather boots with jeans and a navy jumper. A dark-brown handbag with a grey coat. Brown is less draining against many skin tones than grey, and less corporate than navy.

Brown is great with black and with colour. It’s terrific with pale blue, butter yellow, pale pink or burgundy. It works well if you mix different shades: conker with caramel and espresso, say. Brown exists in nature in a million slightly different tones, so our eyes accept the mixture. Texture will help it look luxurious: velvet or fuzzy mohair, corduroy or suede. A practical note: invest in protective suede spray and apply it before the first outing. Otherwise, those tidemarks you get from puddles never really go away.

Puddles aside, there is not much here to trip you up. The conundrum of what to wear has a deliciously simple solve. The answer is chocolate. Which tracks, right? It usually is.

Stylist: Melanie Wilkinson. Model: Imogen May at Milk. Hair and makeup: Sophie Higginson using Davines and Lisa Eldridge. Top, £19, River Island. Culottes, £45, and boots, £56, both Next. Bag, £26, Marks & Spencer. Earrings, £27.99, Pilgrim. Rings, model’s own