Grey is the new Black
Fall 2014
writer: Agata Mayer
Surveys in Europe and America show that grey is associated with boredom, uncertainty, solitude, emptiness and old age. How positive!
During the Renaissance and the Baroque, grey started to play an important role in fashion and art. It became a highly fashionable color in the 18th century, both for women's dresses and for men's coats. In the 19th century fashion was dominated by the grey business suit – light grey in summer, dark grey in winter. By the second half of the 20th century, men's fashions in suits were determined as much by Hollywood as by London tailors. Grey suit was worn by movie stars, such as Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart, by President John F. Kennedy, or by President Lyndon Johnson who was the first U.S. president to be inaugurated wearing an Oxford grey business suit. Also in art grey played an important role and was frequently used for the drawing of oil paintings. It was a good background color for gold and for skin tones and became the most common background for the memorable paintings of Rembrandt Van Rijn, El Greco, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, James McNeill Whistler and Pablo Picasso.
Living in Stockholm you must be sure of two things: well-dressed people and indecisive weather. Following one of my favorite style phrases (the snowclone) – "grey is the new black", I decided to outwit this tricky weather by combining a few simple things together. All in my favorite achromatic grayscale shades that live in a perfect harmony with white or black and moreover start inviting new 'friends' as a contrast.
