Chocolate brown trousers are replacing black – here's the 11 chicest pairs to shop now, from £20

Is brown really the new black? It's the sort of question fashion editors and designers love to debate, but recently M&S womenswear designer Maddy Evans offered a surprising answer. Speaking to The Times, she revealed: "We recently launched a pair of trousers that are selling better in brown than black. I've never seen anything like it in my entire career in retail."

It's a fascinating statistic because it confirms something many of us have been noticing for a while. What began as fashion's flirtation with chocolate brown as a trend colour, has evolved into a genuine wardrobe shift. And while M&S has the data to prove it, they are not the only brand responding to this change. Boden, Arket, Next and Uniqlo as well as smaller brands like Hush and FatFace has embraced brown as the new everyday neutral.

Trousers are turning out to be the place to start, with cords, barrel-leg, tailored styles and relaxed joggers all being ordered in a rich chocolate brown. In more than two decades of writing about fashion, I can't remember another neutral displacing black in quite this way.

So why chocolate brown? Quite simply, it's softer. It flatters almost every skin tone, works well with cream, burgundy, lipstick red, pale blue, olive and dark indigo denim, and makes an outfit feel richer, softer and simply less harsh than a black item would.

Chocolate brown has all the versatility of black, but with a warmth that feels perfectly suited to the relaxed yet sleek mood of fashion today. The only question now is which shape you'll choose.

Here you can decide between from lustrous brown cords by French brand Comptoir de Cottonier, now owned by Uniqlo, and one of their lesser known partnerships that is very much worth a look.

For an everyday style look to cotton barrel leg trousers which you can find at Arket and M&S. Fat Face is majoring on brown cords, though M&S also has plenty of these. For something more work or office look to Zara, and for jeans Next is hard to beat.

The 11 Best Everyday Brown Trousers You Can Shop Now