Men in Black Cover; Imprint page; Contents; Acknowledgements; Introduction: Clothes, Colour and Meaning; 1. Whose Funeral?; 2. Black in History; 3. From Black in Spain to Black in Shakespeare; 4. From Black in Art to Dickens's Black; 5. England's Dark House; 6. Men in Black with Women in White; 7. Black in our Time; References; Photographic Acknowledgements; Index
Summary
Men's clothes went black in the nineteenth century: Dickens, Ruskin and Baudelaire all asked why it was, in this age of supreme wealth and power, that men wanted to dress as if going to a funeral. For an answer one must look at the history of black. Over the last 1000 years there have been successive expansions in the wearing of black - from the Church to the Court, from the Court to officials and the merchant class. Though the fashion was often smart and elegant, the growth and expansion of it were fed by several dark currents in Europe's history: politics; asceticism; and religious warfare. I
