Well, black to bookend surely? or a very dark mahogany at any rate?
That said, I'll also play devil's advocate and throw in my experience. Black is indeed 'safe' for me, but I find that especially if it is glossy (ie, patent), it becomes a bit much for my personal style and brown is easier to work with for me. Maybe it's the colours I generally wear---sometimes with saturated brights, black becomes a very harsh contrast or too heavy with pales? And I also adore grey as a neutral but find it more interesting to pair with brown (a bit less obvious than black?); though I used to wear a bunch of navy before and loved black with that---and you know what else I like black with? Brown!
A possible factor is also the contrast between pale legs (well, even brown skin is pale against black), whenever I'm wearing a skirt or dress or even jeans that aren't the darkest... especially challenging for petites if you want to look not-stumpified. I find my black heels get more wear than black flats, due to this.
Take all this with a pinch of salt, though---I have notorious difficulty figuring out how to wear black pants, skirts, jackets and have stopped buying black pants after a long, hard lesson... yet for some reason, I can handle tops and dresses!
