It all started this past spring in Europe during the showings of the fall collections. Word went out among international retailers who buy and sell clothes and the fashion press that the much-publicized editor of Vogue, Anna Wintour, had declared ”Black is Out!”
”Oh, no! Say it isn`t so!” murmured the merchandisers and writers, clad in their black jackets and raincoats, their black pants and skirts and hose and shoes and bags and scarves and hats and their shimmery, dangly earrings that somehow had escaped the scourge of jet.
But the dictum did indeed seem possible: Wintour herself appeared in pink or red Chanel jackets above her taut black tights, and her associates were all Pucci-ed out in their print shirts and tights beneath their chartreuse or spice Prada silk parkas.
As time went on, word trickled out that Wintour had not only damned black to oblivion, but had decided to think pink for fall.
Shivers and tremors went up the collective fashion spines. Pink? Mon Dieu! No black?
Oh, no! Say it isn`t so!
Out came the July Vogue with Cindy Crawford on the cover in pink and orange-plus an essay titled ”Black is out . . . or is it?” and pictures galore of New Yorkers from Bianca to Paloma and Trigere all decked out in black.
Then came W with a sizzling front page touting, ”Color, Color,” but also blatantly urging, ”Forget black and white. Color is the only way to go for fall.” Inside, pages and pages of blues, reds, greens from De la Renta to Drizzle, Armani to Ungaro.
And so it goes. In New York, in Chicago: Store windows display vividly colored clothing. In New York: Eric Goode and Serge Becker, the owner/wizards behind terribly trendy restaurants such as MK, open yet another-Time Cafe-but decide the wait staff will not wear black. Instead of ”solemn, somber black, they wear vibrant, lively, colorful clothes.” Egads.
In Chicago, New York, everywhere, fashion folks wonder, ”Has black had it?”
So, we asked: Is it time to say goodbye to black?
YES
Anna Wintour
Editor in chief, Vogue
Yes, goodbye to total black-to the rather mournful, head-to-toe black look that has been a real uniform for some time and that most of us have, and for good reason. It`s chic. It`s practical. It can take you anywhere. You can wear it to the office; you can wear it at night. But I think we`ve all got that look.
And fashion is about change.
There was quite an explosion of colors for spring and there`ll be many, many more colors for fall. So we thought moving away from that total black look is right for the moment.
I certainly think black will be around next fall and forever because it`s a classic-it`s a classic. We`re seeing black, though, in a new way: We`re seeing it with shine, with sequins, in satin-so rather than being a dull black it has some interest going on.
Our September issue does indeed have to do with color.
Of some 200 editorial pages, there are 40 pages just on color, but not only pink-all kinds of color. Yes, that certainly is unprecedented-in my time, at least. We talk about the appeal of color, the joy of it, the excitement of it. We concentrate a lot on red and pink and purple. To us, it looks very new and fresh.
We are also profiling four international designers that we are calling the ”kings of color”-Isaac Mizrahi, Gianni Versace, Christian Lacroix, Rifat Ozbek.
And we`re covering our bases. We have about 20 pages on black, but, no, no head-to-toe.
P.S.: I wouldn`t have any staff if I told them what to wear.
Margaret Walch
Associate director, Color
Association of the United States
Fashion began to say goodbye to black in 1988. The forecast we made that year for now-summer, `90-clearly positioned black as an accent color and showed instead three whites-creamy, sand and gardenia-assuming greater importance as black assumed a lesser position.
Black`s strength hit in `87, even though it had been with us since `81. It was definitely the color-actually, the non-color-of the `80s, and it influenced everything, from electronics to automobiles to the little black dress.
It`s all part of a normal cycle. The `70s were earth tones and they were relevant to the American movement. But color sourcing in the `80s came from Japan and Europe. It was the Japanese who taught us that black has many guises-that it actually looks different in different fabrics and in different types of clothes. Picture a black Norma Kamali pair of shoes, a black T-shirt, a pair of black denim jeans-all black but so different.
The thing about black is that you can`t go wrong in it. You can dress in black and always look OK.
We`re going to discover white in the same way. White will be for the `90s what black was for the `80s. There will be all kinds of whites, but white will also affect colors: Pastels will be paler; darks will have more visibility. They will be lightened darks like indigo, olive, teal; they`re still dark but they`re readable. And brighter colors will be clearer-not neon bright, but clearer.
Our color forecasts for fashion now go up to `92, and there are four whites for that year.
If you ask someone on the street to name different whites, that person will hesitate but finally say there are two-bleached whites or cream. In 10 years, that person will be able to mention many more-maybe 10 different ones. Carolyne Roehm
Designer
I did not include one black thing in my fall collection. Anthracite, yes, but real black, no.
I love black. It`s easy to wear, easy to accessorize, easy to pack. But I was fed up with going to every party in New York and seeing every woman in black. If I went to a dinner party for 14, the 7 women were in black. If I went to a party for several hundred, nearly all the women were in black. So I decided not only to design a collection without black, but I also made a point to wear color, and I`ve found that people really respond to it. Just the other day I wore a peach organza blouse from my spring collection to lunch and the response was amazing. Isaac (Mizrahi) said, ”What a color!” and people that I didn`t know stopped me to comment on the color. Color just makes an impact. And at trunk showings of my fall collection, customers are responding in the same way.
At this point, I`m not planning on doing any black for spring. I`m back to using navy again, and brown will be my neutral. But much of my spring is bright-chartreuse, vibrant red, bright pink, aqua.
Kal Ruttenstein
Senior vice president for fashion
direction, Bloomingdale`s
This is not the moment for black, so it is time for a farewell-for now. The world has been saturated with black, especially black stretch. Have you ever seen the people in malls or at a Madonna concert? Black. Nothing but black. Now they`re ready for something new.
Color has been selling. It is the beginning of a trend of prints and colors while black goes on hiatus. Pucci prints, patterns, bright solids.
And the look in men`s clothes will reinforce this. A navy blazer will look passe. At the showings in Milan for spring, 1991, we saw men`s suits in every shade of white-cream, vanilla, ivory, pale beige-all in the new unconstructed silhouettes. There were also whitened pastels, then blues in all their tonalities. Versace did powerful, wild print pants as well as red suits. Adrienne Vittadini
Designer
Some women will always feel most comfortable wearing the little black dress. However, for fall, I see black as an accent color. Bold `60s brights in modern silhouettes seem right to me now. It`s so refreshing to see a woman wearing a splash of color instead of black.
Isaac Mizrahi
Designer
You can`t say goodbye to black completely. What would you work out in?
What would you travel in?
But black has become boring for both men and women. It`s just too easy.
Black-and-white patterns are OK. But it`s over for head-to-toe black. It`s so over that it may become interesting again-later.
Michael Kors
Designer
Goodbye to anything in basic black.
You own black. You wear it all the time-and you should continue to wear it, but only if it is something special.
There are so many replacements for black. Depending on a person`s coloring, it could be charcoal or navy. Or creams, taupes or beiges.
The core of a wardrobe should still be neutral. Going forward, I have no black in my resort or spring collections. Both of those collections are really color-intensive-especially bright pastels and colors that aren`t colors:
shades of bronze and pewter, taupe. All those tones that are very urban.
Bob Mackie
Designer
Black is so boring.
Granted, it`s so much easier to wear everything black, because everything goes with everything. My assisant has nothing but black and white in her wardrobe, and now she`s branching out to khaki. That`s so ironic because I deal in so much color.
But it is time. At formal parties, half the room is already in black with white beacause men are in black tie. Then probably 80 or more percent of the women are wearing black. When a woman walks in wearing color, she`s the center of attraction. I went to a party where there were three women in red dreses and you looked only at those women. Everyone else faded.
It`s been black, black, black, black since the early `80s. We`re now just finally coming out of it. I never stopped doing color. It`s my thing and always has been. But I never stopped doing black either. I even do it for summer. I love black and I love black with color. It`s a basic you can`t overlook, but it doesn`t have to be everything. A little color in your life can make you so happy.
I have some black in the spring collection but there`ll be a lot of color, a lot of white, soft colors, bright colors, tropical colors.
The next neutral? White`s beautiful, especially for the summer and when it`s crisp. But you can`t wear white in the cities and women won`t wear it in the winter. Why not red? To me, red is a neutral.
Becky Bisoulis
Designer
Whether it`s a color or any other trend, it`s refreshing when it first starts out. When the idea becomes a uniform for everybody, it`s time to give it a breather. That`s why it`s time for a change now. Black is and will always be beautiful, but when we have too much of anything, it gets tiring. We should not become victims of one color.
When everyone started to wear black, I stopped. I wore red or white. If white becomes the color, I`ll stay with red or maybe start wearing black. Or green.
Louis Dell`Olio
Designer of the Anne Klein
collections
I didn`t do any black, but it`s not because I don`t love it. It`s just time to give it a break. People relied on it too much, and do you know any woman who doesn`t have a black skirt? Some customers have 10 or 20 black suits! My clothes have longevity and women have been collecting black clothes. Now, wardrobes need a transfusion. That`s a message I got from customers during my store appearances. For fall, I did lots of neutrals. A pale putty, a granite that`s really a deep taupe, an elephant gray, a dark dark brown I call espresso.
Black is not boring. I`ll do it again. Don`t tell women it`s dead, because they`ll be horrified.
