Why black is the most overused underused color
Go on Twitter for exactly one second and before you can even set up your timeline or block Jeff Tiedrich, you’ll come across a teen-made meme from some alt highschooler, lamenting about their inability to wear any colour other than black, while also celebrating it because black is objectively their best colour. And while these people may not demonstrate such an affinity for black politics-wise, they certainly are correct in that no colour has been conquered, reimagined and repurposed quite like darkness, especially in fashion.
From collection to collection, label to label, it is the most usable colour by far and for any brand trying to tell any story. It can be the shroud that hides its subject away, covert and sleek. But its also very grand and opulent, and pompous, and sexy, and chic, and confident. There is no shade quite like the darkest.
In actual effect it can be slimming and optically illusory but its also just a cool colour. It is evidentiary that it is so heavily worn and admired by younger people because black is often thought of as a “young ” colour. Pierre Balmain, a monarch of the colour black in fashion, said it himself in 1968:
“We designers are tremendously sensible to what happens around. Women want… they want to look younger. In order to look younger they must look a little more carefree. They must look a little more casual. Black is the only colour that young people can wear more successfully than old people. A young girl dressed in black is always tremendously beautiful. In older women black can be dreary. That’s why black is not an old colour. It’s a young colour. Black velvet is the epitome of young and sexy charm, because there is also a touch of sex in fashion now.”
The statement has held up fashionably well despite the half-century elapsed since it’s uttering. Black is the essence of youth. It is the indirection, brazenness and misplaced confidence of adolescence and the uniformity of young adulthood. And every great designer to embrace the colour black knows and embellishes this in their collections.
On the other hand however, however, that does not mean that black doesn’t have a statement for those of greater age. A certain 2006 Meryl Streep role wholly captures this angle— that role being Miranda Priestly. On screen she is demanding and thunderous, while having calculating reservation. Her show of politeness throughout the screenplay is inverted quite cleverly. And being a movie about the tumultuous world of designer fashion coverage, her portrayal is exorbitantly supplemented by her costume, which is where her employment of the colour black shines. She is a “dark” character but not in an intentional expression of herself, only in the demeanour she takes on in order to assume control. Her actual self is still self centered but in an almost enviable way. Her wardrobe mirrors this nicely. There are a lot of dark colours in play that generate a feeling of ominousness, but she still manages to be playful and show a “touch” of sex. She is the old boss, but she owns this trait.
Which is why black is the greatest thing to happen in fashion and the best colour ever. There are thousands obsessed with using black to convey their lack of confidence or distaste in unique self, and also thousands that can wear it empoweringly, and many more that don’t know why they like it but they do. Black isn’t overused — it is used just enough.
