Fashion has a new black. Guys, this is a big moment. If fashion had a Sistine Chapel, white smoke would be pluming from the chimneys as it does when the Vatican gets a new pope.
We haven’t had a new It colour for ages. I mean, OK, there was Bottega green earlier this year, which some people may have gotten a bit overexcited about (hi!), but hasn’t yet stuck. Millennial pink is still a thing, but it jumped the shark once it was on so many kitchen walls that it became magnolia for Gen Z.
The twist is, this new black is actually old black. As in, black clothes that look old. Faded black. Washed-out black. The most-hyped designer-meets-high-street collection of last summer was Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga, a 36-piece collaboration between Kanye West, Demna Gvasalia and Gap. West is a troubled man of questionable political instincts, but capable of pure genius, not just in music but in fashion marketing, as evidenced by the fact that Julia Fox’s wardrobe dominated the soft news agenda for the entirety of their six-week relationship this year.
