Black clothing: All it's cracked up to be or a lot of work to get right?

It's standard fashion practice to see various colours declared “the new black”. I remember a period in the mid-1990s when it seemed that every season brought a new “black”. Highlights included a virulent, Linda-Blair-barfing-in-The-Exorcist lime-green for spring/summer 1995; a Heinz-tomato-soup orange for spring/summer 1996 (which invariably made the wearer resemble a bloated citrus fruit); and, most persistently, brown, in every shade and connotation.

The fashion double-speak – of another colour being declared “the new black” – originated with Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons. Her original declaration, however, was rather more oblique: “Red is black,” stated Kawakubo of her autumn/winter 1989 collection. But “the new black” had a rather more understandable, less philosophical ring to it.

What is it about black, then, that is thought to be so attractive? It's seen as flattering, slimming, goes with everything, will last a lifetime. Chanel invented a little dress, dubbed “fashion's Ford” by Vogue in 1926; Yves Saint Laurent caused a revolution by putting women in a tailored evening suit, with trousers, in 1966. Both were black, of course.

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As was a great swathe of the autumn/winter 2015 season. Right now, the new black is the old black, evidenced by collections by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel (loads of black), Marc Jacobs (mostly black), Vetements (black clothes shown in a blacked-out dungeon) and Thom Browne (nothing bar black). Those are but a few of legion examples.

I can't help but equate black clothing to black financial figures – not Black Monday, nor Tuesday, the doom-laden name ascribed to the days of the financial crashes of 1987 and 1929 respectively, but perhaps Black Friday, the American tradition of a discount-fuelled retail frenzy on the first Friday following Thanksgiving, which has spread worldwide. In 2014, $50.9bn was spent in the United States alone on that date.

Black on a clothing rail, at any point during the season, is perceived as similarly appealing. Black is the healthy colour of an account soaring into credit. It is generally acknowledged as an easy sell, which is why designers pump it out, and why the buyers for leading retailers buy into it. Print and poppy colour is challenging: black is not. It also translates easily from aesthetic to aesthetic. “McQueen, Saint Laurent, Dolce,” ticks off Laura Larbalestier, buying director of London boutique Browns, when it comes to the collections she has bought. Think gothy faded glamour for the first, a souped-up Sicilian mamacita for the latter, and a grungy groupie in the middle. No other colour is quite so multi-faceted. “Black is a versatile and long-lasting option,” says Larbalestier. Sarah Rutson, net-a-porter.com's vice-president of global buying, echoes that opinion: “It's versatile… it's seasonless… it's a 'forever' colour, regardless of catwalk trends.” She's bought versions by Marc Jacobs and Vetements.

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The latter is an important point: black may be a trend this season, but unlike the aforementioned puke-green and tangerine of the mid-1990s, it's unlikely you'll be torching the clothes and flagellating yourself for a foolish investment come end of season. Let's face it, a chartreuse coat is probably just that.

But is black really all it's cracked up to be? “I think it's a misconception that black sells better than other colours – generated probably by the idea that black goes with everything and is slimming,” says Natalie Kingham, the buying director of MatchesFashion.com. It was a conversation with Kingham – who asserted that black wasn't the bestseller it's frequently made out to be – that motivated this piece in the first place. And, although a few retailers have come out loud and proud in defence of the sell-through power of black, it's by no means a universal truth. “There is a pervasive idea that black is flattering, easier to wear and 'hides' imperfections,” agrees says Judd Crane, director of womenswear and accessories at Selfridges, which stocks Thom Browne. “I don't think this is always the case. Women might think black is a safe option – but it can actually be very exposing – both to the wearer and to the clothing. This is what makes it endlessly interesting to designers and to us as buyers.”

That's a compelling notion – that black isn't actually a “safe” option, but takes a lot of work and detail to get right. Especially today, in a marketplace dominated by ecommerce, where black is a challenge to represent without looking flat, faded or just plain boring. All of the retailers cited have ecommerce arms – net-a-porter.com is purely online, while MatchesFashion.com rebranded to emphasise its commitment to online. “It can be hard to see the detail of black online,” states Kingham, which is significant given that 80 per cent of her customers shop online.

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“Recently, in terms of sales, we've seen colour coming through really strongly – especially in accessories, where colour consistently outperforms black,” states Crane, whose ecommerce is also strong. “It's true that it's more of a challenge to represent black products online,” he continues, “but we find consumers tend to look for and select black in a different way – they are looking for a particular kind of black item, rather than browsing collections.”

Raise the notion of black bombing online with net-a-porter.com's Rutson, and she raises an eyebrow. “In the past, when we've examined the data around which colours our customers search for and click on to, black is always top of the list,” she states emphatically. “Black always sells.”

And there, it seems, is the simple reason for its enduring popularity.