I'm noticing it all around me, wherever I go. People entirely dressed in black.
I'm now watching a chamber music concert from the Barbican, on BBC4 TV. And all the musicians are wearing entirely black.
This works well. Black is black. There can be no argument about whether a garment is or is not black. It either is black, or it is not black. So, provided all their visible garments are black, they end up looking like team players, even though in all other respects their garments are completely of their own choosing. Convenience, and style.
But it isn't just classical musicians; it's everyone. Take a random picture of a crowd in London. What you get is black.
I never realised I had a blog posting in this until now, so I haven't been opportunistically snapping people in black. I have just been doing it anyway, in the natural course of photographing other things. It took me about one minute to dig out this picture from my photo-archives, which shows you exactly the kind of thing I mean. It was taken at Victoria Station, just near where I live, because I liked the way the station framed the view of the distant cityscape and because I had some idea of blogging about how the camera sees very warm and very blue colours when the eye sees only grey. But in the process I snapped a typical clutch of People In Black and here they are:
It's not total. There are some guys in light coloured trousers, and another guy in a beige top. But on the whole: black, black, black.
I can't be the only one to have noticed this. Come to think of it I have girl readers, who probably know about fashion and all that. Maybe they can enlighten us all. I.e. me and my boy readers.
What is going on here? Does 9/11 have anything to do with it? Is Nazism on the rise? (Guess: no. Another guess: the memory of Hitler's Black Shirts had to dim as a precondition for this happening.)
Is it something to do with the Baby Boom getting old, and needing something Dignified yet Not Done Before to do with their clothing? It is noticeable that black clothing and the grey hair of the rather elderly piano player do look rather good together.
