Orange Is the New Brown
In the world of good clothes, brown is the new black. Brown clothes are, as I've said before, simply the greatest in the world — versatile, nuanced, rich. Interesting but quiet about it. And since orange is basically just brown but lighter, that makes orange the second-greatest.
Is that take as spicy as orange itself? Only to to those who don't know ball. There's a longstanding notion that "loud" hues like orange are downright unwearable even if styled sparingly. Pshaw! Clothing of all colors can and should be worn. And orange is especially wearable. In fact it's arguably the most wearable of the non-neutrals.
Does it help that orange having a moment? Blame Marty Supreme, whose signature orange jacket was repped by Timmy Chalamet himself, or NASA, which revived classic International Orange for the Artemis II mission. Orange in the news!
But orange has always been here. It's a staple of collections from the world's coolest clothing labels, like AURALEE, visvim, Casey Casey, Lemaire, Jan-Jan Van Essche, and Niceness. They often use orange as a spice. Just a dash to add flavor, because common sense says that too much ruins a dish. But without spice, food is bland, and same goes for your closet.
I hear the concerns. Orange is a hybrid of yellow and red, two colors typically considered too advanced for daily wear, let alone special occasions. And logic might suggest that two crazy colors could come together to create an even crazier color. But the true beauty of these high-vis shades is that they're so unconventional that they supersede normalcy.
They don't blend in because they can't blend in and, thus, they can be treated as effortlessly as monochromes. Don't try to make them work, because they won't. Instead, appreciate their singularity. Lean into it. Embrace the flavor. Sure, a full yellow or red or orange outfit is a learning curve but a single statement item goes with everything — precisely because it goes with nothing.
Orange is a great place to start. Whereas even I'll admit that yellow and red take some warming up to — literally! You know, because they're warm shades. Please clap. — orange works as both the main course and the fixings.
Orange can be a standalone flex, a shirt or socks. It can also be a set, with orange jacket matched to orange pants. Orange has the grounding factor of brown with the tanginess of something louder. It's tasty like orange chicken, or actual oranges. Perfect as a treat. It makes the palette pop.
But it really isn't as loud as it sounds. Wearing orange is not the same as dressing like a crossing guard (no hate to crossing guards). I'm reminded of a superlative orange set that consistently excellent Australian label MAN-TLE produced in 2020, which looked really good both as separates and a cohesive look — only to remember that it just did another one in its most recent season.
Orange is funny like that. You can keep finding new facets because it's such a squirrelly shade.
Brown is an inherently soft shade that becomes even softer when too dark or too light. Orange is potent in all forms. Of course, this only makes a really good orange a prize to be treasured, epitomized on either end of the spectrum by Evan Kinori's washed-out ochre and Rier's retro-punchy citrus hue.
Like its paternal shades, orange is a DGAF color, meaning it takes an ounce of confidence and style to pull off. The more desaturated it is, the easier to wear, which is true for all shades. If you spend your life playing it safe, though, are you really living at all?
Yellows, reds, deep blues, and, yes, oranges are the colors you ought to reach for when things feel stale, to pump up dark colors and give paler hues more depth.
Don't buy into the stigma — these are workhorse hues worth more than the compliments they'll inevitably earn you. They'll enrich your life! Designer Bill Blass said, "When in doubt, wear red." The same is true for orange.
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