Design: The Allure of Darth Vaderism

Get brighter brights, whiter whites, and have a nice day, O.K.? No other people in history have placed a greater premium on sheer, sunny perkiness than mid-20th century Americans. In the objects they buy and make, that post-Puritan inclination has been expressed by splurges of color. From the jazz age onward, pop culture has gone polychrome in a big way: color, brilliant and various, has been almost obligatory in all things, from clothing to kitchen appliances to automobiles to furniture. What was not cotton-candy pink was smile-button yellow; if not sunset orange, then avocado green. Black, however, remained stricken from the palette, used only when demanded by function or material (tires, outdoor grills, cast-iron skillets) and in a few ritual contexts (limousines and hearses, tuxedoes, evening gowns and the costumes of mourners and clerics). When people had a choice of colors, they did not choose black.

In the 1980s, however, black is hip. Not since the glossy lacquer fixtures of art deco and Ford's utilitarian Model T has the color of doom been so specifically fashionable or so ubiquitous. In big cities, there are upscale stores that sell virtually nothing but black hardware and electronics, black furniture, luggage and clothing. One such place in New York City is called Black Market, a punky East Village store just down the block from a still punkier black leather boutique called Fetisch (sic) or Die.

The vogue is not limited to the slavishly chic urban precincts of loft dwellers, San Pellegrino sippers and would-be Rimbauds. Black is now the color of choice for photographic and high-priced electronic equipment of every kind. Sony's new, "ultimate" Trinitron TV, called the XBR, is advertised as a black cube with a nearly black screen sitting on a black pedestal. Miniskirts and sofas in black leather are pandemic. Wristwatches are black, good china is black. Even telephones are once again fashionably black. Sterling cigarettes, a new brand, come in hard black packets.

During the past two years, even Sears has started selling black washers and dryers, and black refrigerators. "The sophisticated black look is a departure Mikasa crystal for Sears," admits Robert Hillman, an industrial engineer with the company. "We had to take the store buyers by the hand around to high-tech stores in Chicago." General Electric is sluicing black into the mainstream too. "We've greatly increased black items in the last year," says Walter Bennett, until recently an appliance marketer for GE. "This year we've made black available down into our very bottom lines."

Just a few years ago, black cars were rare. Today remarkable numbers of cars--expensive cars, serious cars--are black. Nearly one in five new Porsches sold in the U.S. is black, as is one in five GM Corvettes, a 100% increase over the past several years. Less than 7% of the new cars that Chrysler Corp. manufactures are black. All the more remarkable then that it is now the most popular color for the company's high-performance sports cars: among those sold this year, 32% of Laser XEs and Daytona Turbo Zs are black.