Back in Black

The black and white fashion trend seems to be slowly but surely taking over the world as we know it. Everywhere I go I see a stripey t-shirt, a gingham dress, dogstooth skirts, black nikes or just any general clothing item with a grid pattern and or black and white monochrome print. I literally cannot escape the trend and I'm finding myself becoming very much caught up in it all.

I recently purchased some grid patterned and gingham pants from fashion website boohoo.com for a pretty reasonable price. But now after thinking about what I bought and why I bought it I've begun to question whether I purchased those items to "look swaggy" or stay on trend. I legitimately like the clothes that I bought (however they are yet to come in the mail) but I have to question, would I have purchased them or would they have been made if it weren't for this massive monochrome trend?

The monochrome trend emerged during the revolution of Chanel's Little Black Dress in 1926. It faded until the 1960s where it became beyond a phenomenon. It was the symbol of the "mod" and typified art, fashion and design. Malevich, Yves Klein, Op Art, Bauhaus, Frank Stella, Karl Lagerfeld, monochrome was everywhere and the combination of black and white had never been sweeter.





So then why has it come back around?

I guess the answer can be seen in the timelessness of the colours. Black and white. Simple as that.

The colours have been the fore-fronters of most major developments during the Twentieth century through television and film appearing in black and white, unlike anything anybody had seen before to the newspaper or a book being printed entirely in black on white pages. There has to be some significance in that.

But what has this got to do with fashion and today and everything I'v been talking about?

You see, fashion is influenced by everything around it. Ideas form from other ideas which come from something else which lead to an entirely new thing yet it always has to come from something. The colours of black and white have been a significant part of this planet since forever, well since I can remember anyway, and I think this is the reason why this trend has never died.

This trend is effortless, its accessible, its low and high market at the same time, its simple, its chic and above all its timeless. It will never leave and its back more than ever now. Its a symbol of pop culture and its a symbol of the 21st century teenage generation. Its taken the planet by storm and its certainly here to stay.