Do all shades of black match? No, annoyingly, they do not. There are probably well over 50 shades of black
So why do we go on expecting all shades of black to match…
Jan has a story concerning a well-known Fleet Street Editor and badly matching shades of black. She was the guest speaker at a lunch for high net-worth and successful ladies. When she stood up to speak, it was painfully apparent that her jacket and her skirt (both black, of course) did not match; they were very different shades of black. And this was long before the days of internet shopping, so we can’t blame the mismatch on her not seeing the garment colours correctly before buying.
The first question to ask is why we expect all shades of black to match. After all, if we were buying a purple skirt and a purple jacket, we would not expect them to match. But that is because we know there are many different shades of purple (some called violet, some called plum or aubergine). But we all (and we certainly include Cyndy and Jan and the SoSensational Team) seem to be under the illusion that shades of black are all the same. But they are most definitely not…
If you know a bit about colour, you probably know that black is not, strictly speaking, a “colour” at all (nor is white); it is, technically speaking, an absence of colour. But to achieve any shade of black, the fabric manufacturers must decide on the specific combination of dyes they will use to create the shade of black they want. And this is where it gets complicated, because some fabric manufacturers will add a bit more yellow and some will add a bit more blue – hence lots of different shades of black that rarely match unless they come from precisely the same batch of cloth!
So, how do we avoid this blackclash? We have two solutions for you to consider, lovely SoSensational ladies: one involves mixing fabrics and another involves the judicious mixing of textures. And both involve not putting two plain or two flat black fabrics next to one another…
1 Mixing fabrics – You may consider mixing a plain black jacket with a skirt in, say, black-and-white dogtooth check or black-and-white tweed or with a print that contains at least some black. OR do it the other way around and mix a plain black skirt with a jacket in black-and-white check or tweed. Like this:
2 Mixing textures: You could consider mixing a plain black skirt with a heavily textured black sweater or with a chunky black cardigan OR with a leather or suede jacket. OR Mix a plain black jacket with a leather skirt or trousers, or black denim jeans/ jeggings, or with a lace skirt or a fil coupe or embellished skirt. Like this…
If you have had problems matching shades of black do tell us about them. Or if you have found a different solution to the perennial issue of unmatching shades of black, do share it, please…
[su_button url=”http://www.sosensational.co.uk/shop/” target=”blank” background=”#6c20b1″ size=”7″ center=”yes” radius=”0″ icon=”icon: arrow-right”]Start Shopping![/su_button]
Leave A Reply