One of the progenitors of this unfortunate trend towards uniformity was British socialite Beau Brummell, who is generally regarded as the inventor of black tie attire. The generic black tie uniform took the place of flamboyance and whimsy in men’s dress. This, in my opinion, was an incredibly sad transition in men’s fashion. Men’s black tie attire emerged during a period referred to by psychoanalyst John Carl Flugel as “The Great Masculine Renunciation.” At the turn of the 19th century, Flugel says, “men gave up their right to all the brighter, gayer, more elaborate, and more varied forms of ornamentation.” However, black formal attire still retains associations with the upper class, despite its origins in the uniforms of the working class. Now, black is professional, clean, and practical, and it has largely lost its associations with wealth. Though the color was originally reserved for the wealthiest members of society, it is now so commonplace that it, to some degree, serves as a symbol of egalitarianism. The story of how black clothes came to occupy their current place in modern fashion is deeply tied with class.
Thankfully, wealthy individuals who were not part of the noble class demanded the production of solid, vibrant, black dyes so they could circumvent the prohibitions of sumptuary laws.
But, in the Middle Ages, most people couldn’t wear bright clothes OR black, because sumptuary laws prohibited all but the nobility from wearing vibrant fabrics or sable fur, one of the only true black textiles available prior to the 14th century. Personally, I can’t even imagine a world in which I couldn’t just grab a pair of black jeans to go with whatever brightly colored top I just bought. In fact, before the Middle Ages, black clothing was very uncommon, because the dyeing processes that allowed for the production of deep, dark, striking shades of black had not yet been developed. However, black has not always had a presence in the everyday wardrobe. It’s clean, it’s striking, it looks great on everyone, and it’s just easy to wear. When I wear an all black outfit, I feel powerful, and maybe a little rebellious, but the symbolic meanings that may be associated with my clothes are far less important to me than the fact that black always looks fantastic. Scholars of both fashion and color have discovered that the black has an incredibly wide range of symbolic meanings, including austerity, virtue, wealth, sophistication, eroticism, mourning, and evil. Black is a staple color of nearly every modern wardrobe.
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