The thinking shopper

Just say no to noir

Blue is the new black, says Alex Bilmes

Leave black where it belongs and dip your toe into something less boring, says Alex Bilmes

Any colour, so long as it’s black. That was Henry Ford’s famous marketing mantra for the Model T. When it comes to clothes, I take the reverse position: any colour, so long as it’s not black. Unhappily – though not unusually – this makes me deeply unfashionable. If there is a single message to be received from new collections of the leading menswear designers, it is: black is back.

The spring/summer clothes typically arrive in February. Even though it’s still cold, these clothes tend to be light, bright and colourful, in anticipation of blue skies to come. This year, some collections rival the Model T in their funereal uniformity.

Clearly fashion brands are responding to the spirit of the times. These are dark days, and the new collections are intended to chime with the present mood of seriousness: stark, austere clothes in which to weather the storm. But with the exception of a few excellent accessories – black leather lace-ups from Prada; a black leather backpack from Louis Vuitton – I’m not persuaded. I am pale and greying; black does me no favours.

When I wear black, I don’t look like Neo from The Matrix ,or Johnny Cash. I look like a devastated wine waiter.

We won’t go too deeply here into the political connotations, but I don’t think it’s controversial to suggest that men clad hatto-toe in black tend towards an unpleasant authoritarian streak. With respect to the New Zealand rugby union team, all black is for referees, hanging judges, federal agents and fetishists. (I believe, m’lud, there are sometimes crossovers here.) Either that, or it’s for the deliberately miserable: goths. Black is not for life’s celebrants.

Black T-shirts make most of us look anaemic. On me, black jeans say ‘alienated internet troll’ rather than ‘under-the-radar rock’n’roller’. In my younger, more optimistic days, I bought a black suit from a Neapolitan tailor. It was soft and slick and beautifully cut. On an oliveskinned Sicilian, it would have looked the business, rather than borrowed from an undertaker.

You know what most of us chaps look best in? Navy. I say fooey to Henry Ford. Any colour, so long as it’s blue.

Alex Bilmes is editor in chief of Esquire

Harrison Ford showing us navy rules, 1981