Back to Black

Wilfred dress (similar)
Sezane cardigan
Celine necklace
Mejuri ring (similar)
Stella & Dot ring
Location: Osborne Village – Winnipeg, Manitoba

After two full years of living a blissful beige life, I started 2021 with a strong desire to go back to black. It didn’t come to me consciously, at least not at first. But when shopping, I found myself looking for pieces in black, rather than camel. I gravitated more easily towards shades of midnight than towards shades of sand.

I don’t know what changed, exactly – but maybe it’s less a change than a return. Black was always my favourite colour to wear. It’s the hue where I feel most at home, most myself. Shades of beige and cream compliment it beautifully. When they began to figure more prominently on runways and in stores a few years ago, I was happy to embrace them both. My love of a good camel coat will never waver. But when it comes to getting dressed in the morning, it’s still my classic black coat that I reach for most often. If I’m honest, that never really changed.

What has changed is the frequency at which I buy the beige version of a garment first, then go back to get it in black. As recently as last September, I deliberately sought beige toned garments. If I loved them, I bought the black version, too, These days, I almost always look for black pieces. In fact, in the first two months of this year, I’ve added only one beige garment to my wardrobe, compared to half a dozen black ones.

The most melodramatic part of me wants to say that I’m back to wearing mostly black because I’m mourning the life I might have had in the past year that never came to be. But that simply isn’t true. There is so much about the past twelve months that I wish I could change. Still, I recognise that they’ve allowed me to shed a lot of unnecessary clutter from my habits, my life and my wardrobe. With all of that now gone, I’ve come back to the place I feel most sartorially comfortable. Thus – back to black.

This isn’t to say that beige will disappear from my wardrobe. Far from it. But it’s returned to being just a part of it, rather than the dominant colour in it, and that makes sense. Of course, this could all change again. There’s no time like a pandemic for overthinking and overanalysing, after all. There’s so little else to do! For now, though, it feels good to be back in black.

We’ve all been through so much change in the past year that it only seems natural that some of it would spill over into our closets. So I’m curious – has your wardrobe, or your sartorial preferences, changed in the past year? If so, how?

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