FASHION - For almost 30 years black has maintained a stranglehold on fashion, even in Paris the avant garde capitol. But there are growing signs that things are changing and that red... isn't dead. In the early 1980s purist Japanese designers such as Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto claimed black was dense with meaning and subtext. They rejected colour and focused on form and shape. Colours were frivolous and only to be used as accents, if absolutely necessary. Black was existential, smart, artsy and serious. Wearing it meant separating yourself (like goths do) from the rest of the overly colourful society. For Kawakubo, black was a feminist colour because she felt it desexualized the female form. These days everyone wears black , but the high-mindedness and theory has gone stale. Now black is a cliche and is "so two decades ago". Women today who wear black will defend it by arguing it's easy to co-ordinate and that it visually flattens unwanted curves. Even now as th...
