Black is without a doubt the most popular colour I see people dressed in as I walk down the street – or, as I’m sure any primary school kid would pedantically correct me, black is undoubtedly the most popular shade I see people dressed in. This colour (that’s not even technically a colour at all) is everything from an enigma, a chameleon, to a magician and a mythical creature. Almost everybody wears black all the time – it is the colour of our formal footwear, our day-to-day bags, our college puffers – but how much do we really know about this colour that we will use both to make a bold statement, and as a comfortable crutch when we’re feeling tired? Whenever you think you know the colour black, she can still always surprise you with something new that you haven’t realised about her before.
When you first meet the colour black, you will be struck with the authority she commands and the drama she strikes up. Black is the shade which creates the most contrast, standing out against any bright colour – black is the colour of the text on a blank sheet of paper. When she’s worn on someone’s body, black is dangerous, striking, and sexy, and she’ll flirt with you until you want to wear her all the time. Once you start wearing black you will realise how bold she can be, how radical and unapologetic, and that for this reason she is the close friend and accomplice of anyone interested in the fashionable and the avant-garde.
“You may begin to doubt whether you ever knew anything at all about black in the first place”
Black is also able to hide a multitude of sins, allegedly slimming, and able to transform any simple look to appear more expensive and elegant. You will begin to realise that in many ways black is a very safe colour, as well as a bold one – stains (both literal and moral) blend into her seamlessly. Black is discreet, and is a colour of servitude, of asceticism and quietness: we wear her when we are in mourning. Then you will realise that this quietness and safety can make black a lazy colour, a disappearing colour which you can throw on when you can’t be bothered to think of anything else to wear. Then, seeing all of these contrasts and contradictions, you may begin to doubt whether you ever knew anything at all about black in the first place.
It really takes a mythological marvel to be supposedly the boldest and quietest colour, the sexiest and most reserved colour, the most fashionable and most lazy colour, all at once. Christian Dior famously claimed that black “could be worn at any time, at any age, and for any occasion,” and once you start looking out for how much people are wearing black on a daily basis, you will quickly realise that Dior is being proved right. Black really is everywhere, and yet most people wouldn’t say that it’s their favourite colour, or even their favourite colour to wear. This is because black has somehow become seen as a neutral option, something which we can wear in the background to brighter colours.
“In using it as a neutral colour in this way, we are neglecting black’s potent potential”
This seems obvious to us now, but has not always been the case: think back to when black was repurposed from a mourning colour to the colour of outcasts and otherness, of goths and punks. Here, black was striking because of how unusual it was, upon which depended the power it wielded. However, what draws many people to black nowadays is a desire to conform, to blend in and assimilate, and in using it as a neutral colour in this way, we are neglecting black’s potent potential. This eventually leads to all sorts of questionable fashion choices, where people take the idea that black goes with anything for granted – carelessly sticking black shoes at the bottom of an otherwise colourful outfit, or defacing it with an incongruent black coat. Even in cases where the colour does fit, we must be careful not to lean too far into black’s slimming, disguising, and disappearing magic, lest we risk any interesting outfits disappearing altogether…
All that glitters is gold (or silver)
However, if I’ve found anything out about black, it’s to know better than to think she can’t still surprise me. There’s plenty of room for the colour to be safe and easy as well as bold and dynamic, and it can be a great colour to experiment with more unusual looks with, while still feeling comfortable and effortless. Black doesn’t have to be neutral or safe (as whatever colour we consider neutral is dependent on the rest of the outfit anyway) but it also doesn’t have to be any one thing at all. The colour black is so many different things, and can be a fountain of fashion opportunity if you wear it right. When it comes to understanding such a formidable mythological figure, I think it’s undoubtedly best for you to get to know her yourself.
