Noir – boring or chic?

Is wearing black a safe dull choice or is there more to it than that? Helen Noir conducted an unscientific study of a statistically insignificant sample at Issue 3 & found that most people agree with her…

I was christened Helen Noir when I DJ’ed for someone who felt my real name (Smith) was too uninteresting to put on a flyer. ‘Noir’ she said. ‘Cos you promote a club night called ‘Film Noir’ and you’re always wearing black’. The moniker stuck & now I’m Noir forever.

I don’t wear the colour exclusively & I don’t feel I’ve got to live up to my name but it is true that most of my outfits are wholly or predominately black. So does this show a lack of imagination on my part or is there more to it than that?

I will admit to one thing – when I had no money (obviously now I work for Issue I’m loaded) I found it was easier to create a whole wardrobe out of a few black items from Oxfam - one old noir dress can be accessorised up or down in a way that one red dress can’t. If I’d only had one red dress it would have been all l ‘oh my god, she’s wearing that red dress again’.

Not everyone gets it – to some one black outfit is much the same as another, but most of these people are happy to be guided by Trinny & Susannah so I don’t feel they’ve really got a case I need to answer. I guess from the outside it all looks boringly similar much like all football matches look the same to me. To some, a poly-fibre Next suit is the same as a deconstructed Comme tunic dress, whereas to me…I wouldn’t be caught dead in one but would be quite happy to be buried in the other. And there’s not necessarily any more thought in paint by numbers nu rave neon or girly floral prints, though, just like dressing in black, there can be. In fashion context is everything. Part of the fun of it is how self-referential dressing up (or down) is and that to really get it you need to be literate in the code of clothes.

I spoke to Issue-goers to see what they thought & found that most felt that yes black was eminently practical (it doesn’t show the dirt) & is also slimming but is often chosen because it is sexy & chic. Some traced the evolution of dressing in black from goth to fashionista & stressed that all black is not equal. Almost all agreed that it totally depends on the look. As one interviewee noted “it’s unlimited – within a black wardrobe you can dress almost anyway you want from severe to sexy to directional to secretary.” Another said “black is like crack – totally addictive”.

And like me they love the designers who concentrate on black – Yohji Yamamoto, Riccardo Tisci & the Belgian superstars like Margiela & Demeulemeester all work with a palette that includes a lot of noir. The texture & feel of a particular fabric, the way it works under light, how different a vintage black taffeta is from a brand new organic black cotton, the way an accessory can completely transform a look – it all becomes about the details. Issue has spoken – we love noir.

Words: Helen Noir
Photo: Darrell Berry