The Best Chocolate Brown Dresses For A Night Out

I have one friend who thinks chocolate brown is the sophisticated alternative to black for a night out, and I have another mode entirely, the one where I get the dress home, hold it up under my actual bathroom light instead of the store’s flattering amber everything, and go “oh no, this is a UPS truck.” That’s the ongoing argument in my own head, honestly, no outside party needed. One half of me buys it convinced it’s going to read rich and warm like a good coffee. The other half has been burned by a “chocolate” that turned out to be the color of wet cardboard the second I got it out of the bag.

The math on this one was annoying because I bought two. Thirty four dollars for the first, secondhand, and it pilled at the underarm by the third wear, so that’s out of the good column immediately. The second one cost sixty two full price, which physically pained me to type, but I’ve worn it nine times now and the fabric hasn’t budged, so we’re at under seven bucks a wear and climbing, and I’m furious that expensive won this round.

The shade thing is real, by the way. Photographed under phone flash at home it looked like a very fancy brownie. Under bar lighting it went almost black, which honestly worked better than I expected, but under the flat white light of my friend’s kitchen before we left it looked a little muddy, a little like it needed to apologize for itself.

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That’s the gamble with this color, it’s not consistent, it reads different depending on who’s hosting.

Shoes took three attempts. Black heels made the whole thing look like I was headed to a funeral reception. Gold sandals I’d been saving turned out to be the move, they pulled the warmth out of the brown instead of fighting it. Jacket got swapped last minute too, a black moto felt heavy, so I grabbed my mom’s old cream trench off the hook by accident basically and it ended up being the entire outfit.

The real test was the walk home, forty minutes, half of it in light rain, and the dress didn’t crease or go weird at the hem, which after buy number one’s pilling disaster felt like a genuine relief.

I will say this one isn’t for everyone’s coloring, my friend with cooler undertones tried mine on and it did nothing for her, went flat instead of rich, so don’t take my word as universal. But for me, at nine wears and counting, this is going in the good column, right above buy number three from last month, which we don’t talk about.