When stars announced their plan to wear black for the Golden Globes, fashion fans couldn’t help but wonder: Why the somber shade?
According to the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which spearheaded the Globes blackout and aims to combat gender inequality in all industries, pretty much everyone owns something black. It’s not only serious, but democratic.
“Black has always had really complicated and multifaceted meanings,” says Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology and author of “The Black Dress.”
“It’s a very powerful color.”
In the Middle Ages, black was not only associated with mourning and sadness, but with glamour, since the dye was so expensive. It was an imperious shade: worn by kings and queens, priests, judges, executioners and then also the devil, known as “the black prince of death,” Steele adds.
When the US entered World War II, it asked actors to don black out of respect for the troops, but the color has been equally embraced as a symbol of defiance by anarchists, Black Panthers and, most recently, the Antifa movement.
“The layers of meaning are intense, but it also conjures up this idea of elegance,” says Steele, citing Coco Chanel and her little black dress. “So probably the [Globes] protesters are hoping that while it will convey something serious, it will also attract people who might refuse to wear something else ‘serious,’ like frumpy shoes.”