WHY DO WE DRESS IS BLACK?

WHY DO WE DRESS IS BLACK?

I guess the fact that I like the songs of Johnny Cash says a lot about my sophistication in musical taste. I like his simple lyrics, his songs of the common man and his everyman persona. One of his songs that has been playing endlessly in my car is “The Man in Black”. The first two verses for those of you whose musical tastes are not as refined as mine are:

“Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,

Why you never see bright colours on my back,

And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.

Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,

Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,

I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,

But is there because he's a victim of the times”.

The song carries on for several more verses, but I am not using this example as a tune you must memorize. The theme of Cash’s song seems to me to reflect a lot of the clothing tastes that I see in our society today. 

I have gotten into the habit of observing the colours of clothing that people wear today, whether I am in the mall, or at church, or in any other large gathering. The vast majority of people seem to dress in blacks, browns, greys and other assorted dark and rather unexciting colours. If you look around church or sit in a mall for a few minutes, I will guaranteed that 75-85 percent of people are wearing dark, and often black, jackets, shirts, sweaters and pants. A person wearing bright red or canary yellow or lime green is rare indeed. Do a survey yourself next time you are in a crowd! The basic colours will be mostly dull!

Of course, I began to wonder just as Johnny did, “Why our appearances seem to bear a somber tone?” Some obvious answers are that some people like to appear inconspicuous and they do not wear peacock colours for that reason. Some believe that the colour black is slimming and who doesn’t want to look a few pounds thinner. If you tend to be a food dribbler, you can slop a lot of ketchup and mustard on a black sweater and after you wipe it off, you hardly ever see the stain. 

Then as I began to drill down (a lovely new expression that has replaced “do more research”) I wondered if it was some reflection of our economic times or mental state. When times are tough and people have trouble making financial ends meet, I wonder if this stress and anxiety is masked by the colour black. If we are sad, depressed,  or lonely, does that make us want to blend into the background where ever we are and not be bothered with human interaction?

Joyous and happy occasions like weddings, birthdays and festive holidays seem to bring our few colourful outfits out of the closet. On the other hand, funerals and unhappy events are not celebrated wearing bright and cheerful colours. After a lot of musing, I still can’t answer the question of why I often wear black. It’s probably some combination of all of the above reasons. What colour are you wearing now? How does it relate to your mood, or state of mind, or is it just happenstance and not reflect anything meaningful? Just wondering! I guess the answer just demands more drilling down!