http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/34203611

Men in black

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.

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