Design: The Allure of Darth Vaderism

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Black has two other, paradoxical sources of appeal in the current zeitgeist, one a celebration of convention and wealth, the other a manifesto of street-toughness and bohemian penury. In the age of Reagan, la-di-da formality has made big black limousines and black-tie soirees modish once again. Thus for the well-to-do, basic black is a means of ostentatious discretion. On the other hand, the angry black of the new wave--dark glasses, sour black T shirts and scruffy black jeans--is more the anarchist's traditional black. It is neo-beatnik, the color correlate of the adolescent angst satirized by Chekhov. Why do you always wear black? Masha's suitor asks her in the opening scene of The Seagull. "I am in mourning for my life," the girl declares.

Fashion ripples this way and that, of course. The convergence of several black lines does not necessarily add up to a great darkening. Besides, Braun calculators are terrific looking; black dinner jackets are preferable to sky blue dinner jackets; better a posturing young poet, surely, than a buttondown teenage arbitrager in chinos. But why all black and why now? The color is gunpowder and midnight; the message is menace and highly private pleasure. --By Kurt Andersen