“Black as midnight black, as pitch, blacker than the foulest witch”
is a quote from Ridley Scott’s 1985 fairytale of a movie: ‘Legend’ ––and I think it perfectly illustrates the sinister connotations that this colour, or lack of colour (if you’re so inclined), has had in our culture. It’s associated with the dark forces of our common fates ––death, devilish interference and its funereal aftermath. Not the sort of connotations one would hope to be associated with if one owned a fashion label perhaps ––and yet the most avant-garde of those labels have turned this much maligned of our colourless colours into a virtue. How have they achieved this? I hear you ask, well ––by using it as a neutral background to best display their use of abstract cutting and textural juxtapositions, none of which, I would argue, would be possible or merely obvious in any other colour: for example, we’ve never heard anyone praise both a designer’s avant-garde use of cutting and materials, while also praising their use of pink to best display these features ––or, indeed, duck-egg blue ––if pink leaves you feel queasy, as it does me.
The other reason you’ve never heard such a thing (as that aforementioned use of bright colours) is that the other newly established laudable association for the use of black, as a block colour, is its ‘seriousness’. It is the colour of choice for the serious designer, with a serious message and a serious purpose for this message ––even if that message rarely is anything more proud than “Please dress well ––i.e. like a creative in a monastic habit”. Would we take Yohji or Rei as seriously as we do ––if their palette of choice came from any randomly pointing to a box of Lego? Of course not ––unless you’re one of those people who can’t get that song ‘Everything is Awesome’ out of your head and you have a penchant for primary colours and angular work suits ––you do? Each to their own I guess.
My own choice of black is rather different than those described above, rather I usually use it as a backdrop for a statement colour, rather than as a complete block colour ––yes of course you can your LBD (Little Black Dress) as far as I’m concerned ––but only so long as you accent it with one other colour ––yes it’s still a LBD only now it’s a Little Blackish Dress ––with the ‘ish’ taken up by an accent of white or yellow. Listen ––the silhouette is unaffected, in fact ––used properly, you can play with silhouette by contrasting the proportions of the differing parts of your LBD ––with the black elements having the classic LBD silhouette that Coco thought to be so ‘de rigueur’ ––but you can also play with the upper element so that it contrasts proportionally with the lower ––in a way which would give our divine Coco here sleepless nights worrying about the reputation of its wearer ––and when it comes to Coco’s taste for the LBD, I’d rather side with that which upsets our less than poor ‘Madam’ du Troisième Reich ––i.e. My own punked out version of the LBD that says the wearer is not trying to seduce an Officer du Troisiéme Reich, but is someone who knows her mind and the extent of her own pleasures, thank you very much.
Thus my take on the use of black (and yes I do use it extensively in my work) is therefore far less serious than the asceticism and self-flagellation of either Yoji or Rei ––and certainly less rigid or ‘conforming’ than our petite Madam Coco’s use ever was ––rather my use of black plays with its pre-avant-garde and historically dark leaning associations of the colour, that is it’s: fetishism ––buckles and belts feature a lot (bondage anyone?), proportion ––a little indulgence to upset the avant-garde nuns, belonging as they do to the new holy order of po-faced self-deniers, and, last but not least, its darkly joie de vivre associations ––come on people, let’s enjoy ourselves here ––I mean, what the else is there in life? Another Y3 collection?
