A color you can find in all the stores, almost everyone loves it and it suits nobody. How do you replace black and learn to live without it and only wear your best colors?

There is probably no other color as worshipped and loved as black. It’s considered a neutral color that suits every occasion and goes well with any color. Several styles are basically dependent on it. We wear it to funerals, but also to the theatre, and “little black dress” is considered by many to be a wardrobe staple.

And yet, it is perhaps the least flattering color – along with bright orange, yellow and red, which, however, have many better shades. Black has only one. Too harsh, too bold. It occurs very little naturally on the human body – in the few individuals who have black hair and hairs; and it’s not exactly common in nature either (like green or brown). However, while orange, yellow and red can be avoided in life, many of us can’t imagine life without black.

So what do you do if you find that black isn’t your color?

1. How badly do you really need it?

Think about whether it’s really that important to you. Why do you want to wear it? Most of us are just taught that black is great and goes with everything, makes you look slimmer and all We don’t know how to mix and match other colors, plus it’s easy to find. But is convenience enough reason to wear it?

On the other hand, if you find that it belongs to your style (rock, gothic for example) and you don’t know how to wear it without it, it’s more for consideration. Maybe you can combine it with things in other colors so that it’s as far away from your face as possible. But maybe you don’t wear a style that suits you. It’s my personal, untested theory that a style that goes with our colors (or should go with our colors) should suit us. So brunettes may be better candidates for gothic than freckled brunettes. But maybe I’m wrong. Still, give it some thought.

2. How well does it match your other colors?

Look at your palette. Which colors in there do you really like? Can you imagine wearing them as much as you did black before? A fondness of brown usually pretty much cures one of needing to wear black. Because brown is similarly versatile. So is blue. And the other thing – do your colours go well with black? Now forget the saying that everything goes with it, that’s nonsense. Are your other colors bright and bold? If not, black doesn’t work harmoniously with them. Which you’ll find out once you…

3. Take a break from black

So far it may be unthinkable to exclude black from your wardrobe, but try to ignore it for a while. Dress only in your colors – maybe for a week. Try mixing and matching without black. The goal is to get used to not wearing it. After a week or two, when you find you can live without it, wear something black again. You’ll probably notice how unnatural and strange it suddenly looks, maybe you’ll see that you look older and more tired too. And sadder overall.

Wearing black is a habit. Once you break it and get used to it, you’ll see it’s not as good as you thought it was. Even my black-haired mom does not have black as her very best color. She comes alive most in fir green.

4. Replace it!

There are other neutral colors, you know, such as white, grey, brown, beige or blue. Almost every palette has some shade of these. So it’s quite easy to simply replace black with these colors. But it’s not really necessary to have a wardrobe based on classic neutrals. Even red can work well as a base, as can orange or green. It just depends on what you combine them with. And besides, you can also just wear combinations of bolder colors.

The only downside may be that it’s not easy to find pants or jackets other than black.

My black story 

As a kid I didn’t wear black at all, I loved pink, white and later brown and beige. I was drawn to warm colors. But then puberty came and I saw myself in gothic style. It didn’t sell much back then, and when it did, it was expensive, so I could only get black jeans, boots and t-shirts. And I wore that, pretty much all the time – just black.

I didn’t even care that it didn’t suit me and I wasn’t beautiful. I was bitter and jaded anyway, I felt different, people annoyed me, I just wanted to be away from everyone and not be seen. And the black made me feel like I wasn’t visible, or maybe it protected me, maybe it gave me strength. I guess that’s how a lot of delicate, vulnerable beings are, they wear black to “protect” themselves by looking tougher.

The good news for some may be that the right style can lessen the negative impact of black a little. I noticed that I still looked relatively good in this sweatshirt or black fairy dress, while a plain black sweater was a disaster.

As time went on, I started to think it was sad to wear only black, I didn’t feel like wearing it anymore, so I started experimenting with styles and colors. Then I settled on “summer type” or winter type colors, but black never completely disappeared from my wardrobe. Even when I started to lean towards fantasy and witch style. I just combined black, white, grey, purple, blue and burgundy.

Once winter came, I found myself trapped. I had black boots, stockings, skirt and coat. In fact, I could hardly dress myself except in all-black. That’s when I became very dissatisfied. I didn’t like the way I looked.

I wanted to fix it somehow, so I sewn myself a purple coat. That was an improvement, but the feeling that I had nothing to wear and everything was either sad or desperately boring (black and white combination) never left me. The real improvement only came recently with the color change, when I realized that sticking to summer palette is pointless because I look better in other colors.

Years later, I’m relieved to be able to wear my favourite browns and greens (in the right shades – not the icy summer ones) and I’m finally changing my wardrobe into one I’m more comfortable with. After all, a few of the right shades of the right colors are much better than twenty colors that don’t fit.

I basically don’t wear black anymore and when I do, it’s only for concerts or as a costume. I put most of my black stuff up for sale. Because now that I see how it looks on me compared to green, I don’t even feel like wearing it anymore. I just got used to not wearing it, replaced it with something better, and I don’t even miss it anymore. Maybe that’ll end up being the case for you, too.