Black: A Manifesto

Black is an attitude, it is the conventional which questions every form.

Black is a statement. I am bold, I don’t hide behind color and prejudice. I am. Look at me! Notice how I don’t stand out. But I do, because I have humility in my pride. 

Black is the expression of rebellion ; it has the courage to reinterpret itself, to change from the somber black garments of mourning and ascetics to the little black dress as a symbol of elegance and femininity. It is the essence which trumps form and gives you the gift of a powerful expression; because your art tells a story, one that you choose. It talks about personality and vision, about people who want to build their own world and are naïve enough to think that they can. This world was shaped by them. 

Black is the shadow that adds depth to a photograph, it creates the abyss from which the innate power of a subject comes forward to meet you. It’s there , a temperate presence , modest to the point of nobility. It accentuates : the sculptural form of a face, the graceful body in movement, the aura of your hair that catches the light, the sparkle in your eyes, the skin , the woman. It brings drama and even the tragic to a banal landscape, it is the foreteller of doom . Being modest, black does not announce its presence until you search for it, until you know how it evolves from adding dimension to becoming a subject on its own right, a reality . It is in one of van Gogh’s stroke of a brush or in Malevich’s squares. 

Black is authentic. Just see how it emulates the form and yet it interprets it. And in the absence of form and light, it just is. 

Black is a much needed pause. It is in the prolonged closing of your eyes, it’s the night that makes the morning look bright. In a world full of distractions , black is the hiatus that gives them meaning; the enforcer and the annihilator.

Black is the unobtainable absolute in nature, it stands for the abstract and symbolic. It is the yin, the feminine principle, the earth, the one that gives birth to materiality. It is the supreme affirmation of life. Black is the dark skin of Kali, the destruction achieved by time. It is change, death and reconstruction. The ultimate expression of reality. 

Black is the sign that documented the beginning of consciousness and it is the ink that brought knowledge into every home.

Black is the ashes of coal on which the industry was born, it is the oil that brought down the supremacy of distance. 

Dark is the night which knows how to keep a secret and revels in its mystery.

Shadow cannot exist without light. But when the light arrives the darkness is there to meet it. 

Why do I wear black, people ask me. Because I like the possibilities of a blank canvas with an attitude, because it brings fashion closer to art.

by Cristina Petre