From the New York Times:
For Spring, Color Is the New Black
By GUY TREBAY
Well before a bum economy, terrorism and war had entered the picture, retailers were intoning a mantra suggesting that Americans already owned all the basic wardrobe elements anyone could ever require. After submitting the image struggles of chains like the Gap to endless dissection, their underlying problems turn out to be rooted in something surprisingly simple: khaki fatigue.
One could credit springtime, or swipe a term from the pollsters (try "apparel purchase intent"), but consumers appear to be making forays back into stores. The reason is that there are some new things to look at, and those things are pattern and color. For too long, there was too much of very little to look at, industry insiders say. The collective eye got bored.
The Gap diagnosed the problem and responded by filling its stores this season with surfer-style apparel in graphic floral prints. It is far from the only retailer to suddenly decide to "banish the black," if one may resuscitate an overquoted line from "Funny Face," and to bring back clothing that is patterned, colored, playful and exuberant. After years of bad gags about black being the new black, the streets are unexpectedly populated with people wearing trippy stripes, flowered graphics or clothes the colors of Bazooka or the walls of the playhouse where Pee-wee Herman held court.
Full text:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/22/fa...DRES.html?8nyh
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