Why Black?
February 4, 2015
MARIAN T. HORVAT, Ph.D., in this 2003 piece, examines the pervasiveness of black clothing, especially for women:
When did black begin to be considered fashionable wear in the West? It seems to me that we can follow two distinct channels of acceptance. The first upsurge to make black acceptable came from the fashion houses of Paris and London and was directed at the fashion elites – the rich, the glamorous and the chic. Chanel’s revolutionary “little black dress” for the elite lady of style entered the fashion scene in the post war period.
In the ‘50s Christian Dior made popular the black afternoon dress and jacket, but again, only for the wealthy and super fashion conscious. However, it wasn’t long before the black dress lost its revolutionary tone and had become a staple at any fashionable gathering. By the early ’90s it took a lot more to startle a gathering than a scintillating black dress, and it became quite the fashion at high society London and Paris parties to masquerade in Frankenstein-Marilyn Manson black costumes with clearly Satanic tones. This is not to say that everyone who, for fun or shock-value, joins in the fad is involved in outright Satanism. It is merely to point out where the first channel seems to flow.
The second channel flowed through the beatnik and artsy-academic circles to reach the university students, the middle class, and everyone else. In the ’60s the beatniks made black the core color of what became known as “Beat style.” Black became the favored color among artists and intellectuals. The black apparel of the reactionaries not infrequently seemed to accompany the popular revolutionary longings of the day and to provide fertile soil for fermenting utopic communist and socialist ideas.
— Comments —
Mrs. Emily Lawson writes:
Interestingly enough, Chanel’s interest in the color (technically, complete lack of color) was sparked by grief. Her lover, polo player Arthur Capel, died in 1919 in a car accident (on his way to Chanel for a rendezvous – his daughter and pregnant wife were safe at home). Coco Chanel was devastated by his loss and swore that she would “put the whole world in mourning.” Aesthetics were secondary.
I studied Chanel briefly during a greater study of French fashion in an endeavor to add more sophistication to my wardrobe once I became a mother. As a Jew and a descendant of Holocaust victims and survivors (one of whom turned 100 last year), I make a point to wear LOTS of color to parties rather than mourn the boy-toy of a Nazi sympathizer.
Jeanette V. writes:
Is it just me or are those dresses ugly?
I tend to wear a lot of black with color. I love black and red.
Laura writes:
I don’t think it’s just you.
Buck writes:
I have always thought that black was the presence of all color, and that white was the absence of any color. It seemed logical to me that if I mixed together all the colors of paint in my basement, the last color that I would end up with would be white, even if most of them were white. Oh, well.
I’m the antithesis of fashion. For practical reasons, during the hot months I wear white shirts during the day. I wear black shirts at night or when its cold. I have three tall stacks of shirts, one black, one white and one of various colors, all of them otherwise the same. I remember reading that Alfred Hitchcock, who could affort to dress any way he wanted, wore only black suits, black tie, and white shirt. You will never see a photo of him dressed otherwise. One less thing to think about.
The Wikipedia entry on “black” outlines the fascinating history of black; from the Ancient world, to its controversial use in fashion at the end of the Middle Ages and today, and its symbolism among different religions and different cultures.
But, like sound, and all of our physical senses, color is an illusion. Color doesn’t exist in the physical world. It only exists in our minds. The physical world is silent and colorless. Like everything that we deem to be the good, it’s good only in a realm realized and shared by our minds. We “all” believe that we see red and experience red. But, red is nothing more than a sensory impression that we misinterpret as the true character of an actual rose.
For some reason, this reminds me of a post by Lawerence Auster, in which he explains the meaning of a passage by Eric Voegelin. The entry: If God is good, why is there so much evil?
Laura writes:
I don’t believe it is correct to say that color is an illusion. It’s effects of light perceived by our eyes.
But that is not the main subject here.
