I counted them last night. Sorted into two lines against the back door like kids’ shoes at a police station: there are nine pairs of brown boots in my house. Not brown shoes. Boots. Specifically brown boots. At least four distinct shades of brown boots, crowded into a hallway that is decidedly not big enough for nine pairs of boots.
My flatmate Priya walked past and surveyed both the row of footwear and my face. “so we’re doing this now,” she said, in the tone you would usually reserve for someone who had started amassing plastic parking cones.
I don’t blame her. For years I thought brown boots were the boring option. The thing you picked when black was too severe and you couldn’t be bothered with something more interesting, the Mary Poppins of the footwear world, practical but uninspired, will probably look weird in photos. I’d had one pair for ages, a brick coloured hybrid that came from Primark at the very height of their attempted bohemian phase circa 2016, and wore them exactly four times because they clashed spectacularly with everything in my wardrobe, which was mostly black and grey at the time, before giving up on brown boots entirely. The whole category, I decided, was utilitarian to the point of exploding my entire aesthetic.
Which is how I ended up talking about brown boots with real authority for approximately ten years. To the point that when I recently discovered I actually like them, enjoyed picking them out, was fully upgraded to not one but nearly double figures, I felt…well, kinda bad about it all.
Until I started wearing them.
Here’s what I realise now. Brown boots go with everything. They lift blue denim. Caramel suede works with purple (I promise). Tan booties make anything you’re wearing ten shades cooler by association, including jeans that might otherwise just look like jeans. They’re the boots that carry outfits rather than complete them, which means they get worn more, which means you end up keeping them longer. And everything I just said about boots can also apply to boot cuffs, boot cut trousers, most of your coats probably and about half of what’s in your cupboard already.
That’s what changed my mind. Not some majestic lightbulb moment but a series of near accidents that stacked up evidence against my previous brown boot prejudice until it was clear I was just wrong. Borrowing my sister’s tan boots for a weekend away and returning home having destroyed them in mud without damaging the boots. Trying on a pair of suede ones from the sale rail that turned out to go with literally everything I already owned. Jeans. Skirts. A green coat I’d resigned myself to not wearing because nothing else clipped together properly.
By the time pair number seven went home with me I stopped pretending this was willpower and accepted it for what it was: a full on leather based conversion.
So hi, I’m the person who used to insist black boots were the only option. Now I send friends unsolicited photos of boots asking “look at this colour though.” I’ve met the bougie boots lady and she wears brown and owns exactly nine pairs. Learn from my past mistakes. Here is everything I know now about brown boots, split by function rather than any delusions I approached this task in clinical Style Magazine research kind of way.
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Tan ankle boots that do literally everything
Let’s start with the obvious. If you’re only going to take my advice on one type of boot, let it be this. The perfect tan ankle boot is, for me at least, the one you pull on when you haven’t quite decided what you’re doing that day but know it won’t be jeans. Somewhere between biscuit and honey depending on the light, mine are slightly scuffed from wear with a low block heel that means I can also wear them with leggings, bought from some fabulous must’ve been tiny shop in Leeds that has now shuttered forever.
They’ve also been resoled at least once which is testament to how often I wear them. Full disclosure: I only have them because my beloved oldest brother bought them for me second hand as a present and I would have been devastated to give them up. But I share them with you because of what they taught me about brown boots in general. Namely; everything.
The one thing nobody mentioned about tan is how amazing it looks with blue jeans. And I mean not dark/navy blue jeans, actual indigo or mid blue that sometimes struggles with black hardware. Tan booties with jeans are one of those fairy godmother combinations where everything suddenly looks more expensive than it is. I wore mine with straight leg jeans, an oatmeal jumper and met my cousin for lunch. Fran’s not someone who discusses what other people wear, she prefers politics or deals in friendly insults about our respective children. And yet when we were saying goodbye she paused and said “those are a good colour on you,” which is basically a pat on the back from heaven.
They’re also my “but this isn’t really an outfit” saver. If I’m wearing grey trousers, a white shirt and nothing else screaming quite hard enough I’ll throw on tan boots and they do work an outfit in the same way a big coat or funky bag would. The mistake I used to make and pair brown boots with black everything. It can work! But it always feels slightly as though you got dressed in separate rooms with very little communication. Tan wants to be near camel, cream, olive, rust. It wants to be near other warm toned neutrals. Or denim. Tan/bootleg are probably my favourite, they always look intentional rather than accidential.
Dark Chestnut Knee High Boots that make skirts look incredible
Honestly I avoided knee high boots for the longest time because my failing bohemian pair from college gave me calf gripe like nobody’s business by 2PM every time I wore them. Understandably I assumed that was the boots, not the style, talking. It wasn’t until I tracked down a pair with an actual stretch panel at the back from a brand (ROC!) that my work friend Deb has sung the praises of for years that I realised how insanely versatile boots that go over the knee can be.
Specifically the colour dark chestnut. Properly dark brown, not slam cafe latte tan but brown enough that it almost rivals a conker from the trees in colour comparison. These are the boots that make you feel like you left the house even on days you basically wore pants and a coat. I’ve worn mine with everything from midi skirts to dresses and gone from feeling basically frumpy to I’m sort of halfway competent at getting dressed in about two seconds flat. I’ve even learned that pairing dark brown boots with opaque tights is a trick because the skirt of your tights disappear into the boot and your whole leg looks like a column, which is exactly the opposite of what happens when you pair black boots with black tights and end up with…well, muddy leggings.
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And finally my fashion people mistake that I thought these two colours had to be worn together. Like beige chairs and beige sofa. They don’t. You don’t need a brown belt or a brown bag to wear brown boots, just the opposite. A tan boot looks incredible with a cognac handbag. Not the exact same shade, but close enough that it feels put together without screaming matchy matchy.
Chunky Lug Sole Boots that actually keep your feet dry
Probably the pairing that won me over for good. I spent far too long thinking of brown boots as these precious things you only wore when it was dry. Keep them away from puddles, don’t tromp around in them. While that might work for leather you can totally make the same style shouts in rubber. Buy a pair of proper, overweight lug sole boots in mid brown with visible tread. They won’t just survive the great British winter, you’ll actually forget they’re there.
Testament to that; I had mine on once in the pouring Manchester rain, standing at a bus stop for twenty five minutes whilst the sky opened up and dropped upon us. There was freezing wind, the rain was coming in sideways. Around me people slipped on the pavements – but my feet remained completely dry. To this day I think about that bus journey and wonder how something so simple was the whole problem I’d built up in my head about brown boots.
How to wear them? Think less Vogue Italia boardwalk and more sneaking out in. You’re not looking at delicate sandals here. Throw them with thick tights, or better still, wear a sock rolled down over the boot. They want wide leg trousers cropped to show a bit of boot, oversized coats. I’ll wear mine with a khaki parka and cheap costume jewellery when it’s 3pm on a Sunday and I have zero intention of being seen by anyone. They’re the pair I actually feel most ‘me’ in which is probably the nicest compliment I can pay a pair of boots I was suspicious of until very recently.
Suede brown boots when it’s time to dress up a bit
Fair warning this was the shade I trusted least. One-too-many drinks in Margate involving a boxy pale grey suede pair and a wine stain that couldn’t shift them off rankles to this day. Suede boots became a mistrusted category thanks to one careless evening. Until I realised light brown suede was swear word, dark brown could actually handle a lot of things lighter suede couldn’t.
Water rings disappear into the colour instead of creating a noticeable tide line. Knocking the dirt off them with a dry cloth when you get home really does restore the nap more often than not. I have worn my mid brown suede ankle boots through one entire autumn and that bleak commute where the pavement turned into an actual stream and they still look like boots that have been loved, not boots that can’t be worn ever again.
The thing suede does better than any other material? Everything in between. Slip dress? Add a jumper. Wide trousers with a silk shirt? Suddenly you’ve got occasion wear that’s not quite formal without shouting TRAINERS at the person hosting. Off duty chic is suede boots territory and I’ll wear mine with just about anything that needs helping out, like this burnt orange dress I threw on for a dinner party my sister hosted. She had to stop mid plate clearing to compliment them which, for my sister, is the highest compliment of them all.
[Suede Brown Boots]
What actually works with brown boots?
I wish someone had told me this when I was wrong about brown boots for the better part of a decade. Black is restrictive. Brown is not. Brown picks out other colours. Co-ordinates with more pieces in your wardrobe than you think. It’s the colour that makes everything else you’re wearing look like you tried.
Start with navy. I cannot stress how much better a navy coat looks over brown boots than it does over black. Not by much, but enough. Think of olive green doing the same thing on the other end of the colour spectrum. Or brighter colours – nothing about tan and forest green says we ever have to take ourselves seriously all the time. Even rich, red burgundy looks good with dark chestnut boots. Logically? They’re both autumn colours? Warm shades. Shouldn’t work. Does.
My one remaining grey area with brown boots? Cool toned greys and tan specifically. Try a warmer charcoal over that dark brown boot and you’re sorted. Pale grey is a hard enough colour to wear anyway without it fighting with your footwear. Ask me how I learned that lesson….by sitting next to my brother in law at my nephew’s christening. He was wearing a pale grey suit and my tan boots looked like they were rescuing themselves from the same wedding.
[Brown Boots Colour Pairing]
TLDR: I was wrong about brown boots. Here’s why.
Ok so look. Nine pairs is not ok. And I’m not going to pretend that a chestnut knee high that does similar job to an oxblood ankle boot and this awesome pair of mid brown mud boots that are actually probably better on the Winter mudfront are remotely necessary.
What I will say is that brown was filling a hole in my wardrobe I didn’t realise was there.
Like being able to wear jeans and a coat and suddenly feeling put together. Boots that work harder than your typical black pump. Boots that will get worn more because they go with more. Boots that never quite look as good in photos as they do in real life. If you’re sitting on the brown boot fence the way I was, boots that don’t quite clip with your wardrobe but could? Buy the tan ankle boot. See how many outfits you can throw together while they wait for their shoes counterpart. Trust me, once you’ve experienced the bus stop/brown boot revelation you’ll start building your own collection too.
[Final Thoughts]
