Plum Crazy

"Brown shoes don't make it." - Frank Zappa

If you're a woman, navy shoes. If you're a man, oxblood.

YES! Someone remembers the auld rules. I think my mother had that etched into my brain before I was 10. That is exactly it, with the possible exception (given that navy is so hard to match) that a woman may also wear plum/oxblood/maroon-colored shoes. Because if the shoes are blue-navy and the slacks are what I'd call true navy, that is, near black (or the other way around, blue-navy pants to darker shoes), it just looks bad to match blue-on-blue.

But no brown, ever. That should be obvious. Cool tones must match other cool tones. Brown is a warm tone. Nuh-uh.