The Best Brown Pieces to Invest In This Fall

Brown has spent years being the colour you wore when you'd run out of ideas. Not this autumn. Camel, espresso, chocolate — it's turning up on everything, and it looks expensive.

Think of it as the answer to black. Just as easy, just as forgiving, but warmer, and considerably less severe at eight in the morning.

Here's the thing that makes it work, though, and it isn't the colour. It's the texture. A suede jacket, a wool trouser and a leather boot in three shades that don't quite match will read as one very deliberate outfit — because the surfaces are all doing something different. Try the same thing in three matching flat browns and you'll look like you're in uniform.

So the pieces below are grouped by what they are, not by how dark they are. Pick the texture first and the shade sorts itself out.

The trench, the jacket, the boot, the dress, the bag and the knit.