How to Pair Brown & Gray – Color Combinations for Tans & Greys in Menswear

While both gray and brown are foundational colors in a classic men’s wardrobe, they’re less conventionally paired together. Why pair them together in the first place, then? Read on to find out.

How Can You Pair Brown And Gray?

Brown is generally a warmer tone, whereas gray is generally a cooler tone. Under normal circumstances, these two shades are combined with more contrasting and sometimes also more vibrant shades, rather than with each other. There’s no reason why you can’t pair them together, though, especially because brown comes in so many different shades–all the way from a very light beige or tan, to dark chocolate brown, with medium tans and browns in-between. The same is true for gray! Because both colors have so many shades, it’s very easy to find a combination that provides enough contrast. Even if the tones are rather similar, you can add a pattern to mix everything up.

1. Pay Attention To Contrast

Simply put, there has to be a lot of it. The issue here is that if there isn’t enough contrast between your brown and your gray, it all looks muddy; close in color but not quite the same. A good combination would be to pair a softer gray with either a richer tan or a darker brown. Also, it’s okay to pair two lighter shades as long as there is enough contrast–and if your brown and gray are similar in color, you can still create contrast with a texture. So to come up with incredible outfits, keep in mind that the closer the gray and brown are together in color and the less contrast there is, the more you’ll need to augment with textures or different patterns. 

2. Always Consider Seasonality And Formality

If you pair brown and gray, make sure there is a match in both seasonality and formality. For example, you’ll want to combine an overcoat with flannel, not with fresco or seersucker. On the flip side, you wouldn’t want to wear brown loafers with a dark gray flannel suit without any socks. Traditionally, loafers were too informal for a double-breasted suit. In this day and age you can pull it off, but make sure you have a pair of socks (and maybe not a woven leather pair of loafers, but a plain leather pair).

3. Give It Some Pop With Colors

Frankly, while both gray and brown are in the “neutral family” and can just be worn together without any other colors, I find a little splash of color can sometimes make or break the outfit. Fortunately, it’s very easy to use the brown and gray basics in your wardrobe, and supplement with color to make it look like an entirely new outfit. Good places for colors are accessories, such as ties, bow ties, and pocket squares, and maybe your shirt. As an example, one of my favorite colors to incorporate into a gray and brown outfit is off-white. Why? It’s another neutral tone and it looks very harmonious and elegant. It’s unusual, it’s neutral, and it’s classy.

Another color I like to add is petrol. For example, a petrol blue fresco jacket paired with a white shirt, a gray mottled knit tie from Fort Belvedere, a light brown seersucker pair of pants, and dark brown woven penny loafers to underscore the summery character. Now, in this outfit, if I would have swapped the jacket for a light gray fresco one, I would have a perfect summery combination of just brown and gray. Another very easy color to incorporate with brown and gray is blue. If you have a brown corduroy jacket and a gray tie, try combining them with a blue and white striped shirt.

4. Utilize The Optical Illusion Of Gray

What do we mean by this? For example, look at this houndstooth suit pictured above. The individual colors are actually beige/off-white and dark brown–but when you take a step back, it looks like a gray suit from afar. So if you combine it with a brown turtleneck and suede boots, as well as a pocket square in brown, you’ll have a pleasing mix between gray and brown; very harmonious for the fall/winter season, elegant, but not over-the-top.

There are also other colors such as charcoal brown which consists of gray and brown in the weave so they’re both in there so they easily combine with brown tones and gray tones that always looks well put together. Likewise, let’s say you have a suit or pants with a black and white houndstooth, from afar, they look like a solid gray and you can easily pair them with shades of brown.

5. Consider Wearing Dark Brown Shoes

They just make the entire outfit softer especially if you decide to wear suede shoes rather than regular leather shoes. By doing so, you’ll still have a formal outfit that is slightly more casual and just great for fall/winter ensembles. I mean don’t get me wrong, a pair of black and white pants will always look great with black shoes but if you compare it, here we have a black pair of double monks and here is the same pair of pants with some chocolate brown boots. Also, a flannel is generally more casual than a worsted wool and so a slightly more casual shoe which is a dark brown works better versus black.

6. Vary The Colors On Gloves and Overcoats

Pair gray gloves with brown outfits and overcoats or brown gloves with gray overcoats and suits. Traditionally, well-dressed men would not wear black gloves. They would have a chamois yellow tone, maybe something in cognac or in a brown or of course, with other suits, they would wear a pair of gray gloves.

Classic Brown And Gray Outfits

Now that you know the basics of pairing brown with gray, let’s look at some specific outfits and how you can learn from them. If you don’t know where to start, having a gray suit with brown shoes is the easiest and simplest way and chances are you already have both of them in your wardrobe. A brown and off white houndstooth suit looks like gray paired with a reddish-brown shoes or I always like to pair my light gray fresco suit with dark brown suede shoes, I might wear boots or just regular derbys.

Another cool outfit consists of classic gray flannel pants paired with a brown sport coat. It can be something lighter like this herringbone jacket or it can be something that has other colors just in brown but gray flannel is very easy to pair not just with your navy blazer but with all sorts of brown shades.

One more great way to pair the colors brown and gray is to have a brown overcoat paired with a light gray scarf and then you can choose the tie you can either have a gray tie or a brown tie, it will always look very harmonious especially if a contrasting shirt in white or light blue. When it is colder outside, think about wearing a tan turtleneck with a gray suit, that way, you can skip the neckwear, it’s a little more casual but still a very nice combination and of course, if the suit is too much for you, you can always just wear a sport coat and have a non-matching pair of pants.

If you have a darker brown suit, such as a charcoal brown suit, you can just add gray accessories. It’s a little harder because you need something like a white shirt to create some contrast, otherwise, the outfit can look a little dull so it may help to add a dash of color in other parts of your outfit.

Of course, when it comes to overcoats and gloves, you’re a bit limited to what you already have. Personally, I have a bunch of different overcoats in brown, I also have some in gray, and I always play with the color combinations and I am not so dogmatic that I must wear brown and gray together but sometimes, it’s really fun to force yourself to do it because you come up with new combinations that you would have otherwise missed.

My favorite brown and gray summer combination is my light gray fresco jacket which is part of a suit paired with brown seersuckers. I like to combine them with those brown penny loafers from Scarosso which have a woven leather which is very summery and very contrasting to the pants but overall, it just looks very elegant.

If you already have a lot of gray suits, an easy way to add brown into your wardrobe is by using ties. You can go with something like a grenadine tie which is great, but what’s even better is a knit tie because it has more texture and it just creates that lovely more casual effect and you can wear a brown knit tie with any other color too so it’s not just limited to your gray wardrobe. No matter if you get something, let’s say in brown, which is more of a medium brown or let’s say in a two-tone brown, it’s just a wonderful accessory to have into your wardrobe that you can pair with gray garments.

Conclusion

While brown and gray aren’t necessarily the most intuitive of partners despite their both being neutrals and menswear staples, this article should serve as proof that if you pay attention to seasonality, formality, contrast, and color, outfits assembled from grey and brown garments can unquestionably look smart and stylish.

Did you find these brown and gray pairing tips useful? What are your favorite combinations? Let us know in the comments below!

Outfit Rundown

In today’s outfit, I am wearing of course a combination of brown and gray with little hints of
blue to make it visually more interesting. My jacket is a medium brown herringbone jacket, which is part of a suit. It’s very warm in its tone and so I’m pairing it with a white shirt and a brown two-tone tie because you see flecks of white and brown. From afar, it could be mistaken as gray.

My cufflinks are brown tiger’s eye with gold from Fort Belvedere and you can find it in our shop. Just like the tie the pants are gray striped and have flecks of blue, which is also picked up by the dark brown and light brown paisley pocket square, which also has elements of blue. The socks are brown solid color with clocks that pick up the color of the pants and tie over elegantly to my medium brown shoes, which is a mix of the colors that I have in my tie and my jacket.

If we take a closer look at the pocket square, it has elements of brown that are very close to the jacket. So, in theory, it’s not a good fit. However, the blue tones and the dark tones create enough visual contrast so it all works together.