Steel isnt brown. If that was rust from bare spots, you should be able to remove it easily and retake the pics and both areas would be silver/gray.

As Mark alluded to, decorative chrome can flake due to the copper plating underneath (this is why ammoia-based cleaners destroy chrome faucets and such).

Industrial hard-chrome is bonded directly to the steel. Flaking would be from oils or oxides being on the steel as it entered the plating phase of the process. Its ussually big areas and you can see the cause of the failed adhesion... ussually.