Using Color Reference in Styles

Why can't I use a reference to a color in my styles.xml?

<style name="LabelStyle">
    <item name="android:textSize">12sp</item>
    <item name="android:textColor">@color/Brown</item>
    <item name="android:textStyle">bold</item>
</style>

It works fine with a defined color such as #FFFFFF, but a reference to a color does not show up.

I apologize, the fore mentioned, does work. I was just using it the wrong way. You can reference colors using a reference color exactly the way I described.