Now, this is remiss of me in the extreme. A major shift has taken place on my watch, yet I’ve only just noticed. I was wondering, the other day, why there hasn’t been a New Black for ages. Remember the New Blacks? In the old days, we got a new colour every six months. It was like your football team getting a new away strip: you’d go and buy it, and that was your fashion fandom signed and date-stamped for another season. But the New Blacks don’t really happen any more. Our fractured attention spans have made every season a kaleidoscope: it might be all about a pink coat, with a white shoe, and a metallic bag.
But what we do have – not always every season, but every two or three – is a New Neutral. The New Neutral is, in fact, the new New Black… even though the New Neutral isn’t actually black, if you see what I mean. (It may be next season, but it’s not now. Of which more later.) The New Neutral is not supposed to be the colour you wear all the time. It’s background music, in your wardrobe, against which the starry pieces you buy (the pink coat! The white shoe! The metallic bag!) get to pop.
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