Black and Tan Fantasy
Take a listen to Duke Ellington’s “Black and Tan Fantasy.” First the original, then Thelonious Monk’s stellar 1955 cover. The three-minute jazz tune is an exercise in bold sophistication. Ellington’s 1927 version is showy, verging on campy with the exaggerated trumpet wah-wahs, yet never loses the graceful orchestration that lends it classic nightclub elegance. Monk’s version is smoother and chic, evoking a languorous smoke-filled room, perhaps a Greenwich Village jazz club of yesteryear, where introspective artists and bohemians mingle and swing.
Such is the color combination of black and tan when worn together, an unexpected frisson that is the paragon of refinement. This pairing goes against traditional modes of dress, where wearing black and brown together is anathema. They clash, they contrast. Black is, at its worst, funereal and austere, meant for the mourning and the clergy.
Yet black is chic, sophisticated, arty, a minimalist antidote to choice and a signifier of rule-breaking. Think of luminaries and characters who wear or wore black. A group of iconoclasts, outlaws, rogues, visionaries, people who advance the creative pulse, people like Johnny Cash, Glenn O’Brien, Phoebe Philo. People who have more imagination in their left thumb than others have in their entire body.
The Belgian fashion designer and high priestess of darkness Ann Demuelemeester once mused, “Black is poetic. How do you imagine a poet? In a bright yellow jacket? Probably not.” Unless the poet in question is Kenneth Goldsmith, she has a point. Brooding creatives, even happy creatives, find that black is the complete flow, the dichotomy between absence and presence. Though not bright, it is still a color, still there, needing something to help it stand out instead of slink away into introspective solemnity.
Tan, shades of tobacco and camel especially, perform the duty. Neutral without being boring, one of the few colors that pairs well with anything. Though tan rarely pops against other hues, it brings out and is brought out by other colors. Paired with green, earthy and rustic. Paired with blue, preppy and proper. Paired with black, mysterious and urbane, the modern aesthete’s uniform. Layer a black turtleneck under a tobacco double-breasted coat, add some dusty tan pants and a black tassel loafer or Chelsea boot, and you’ll look like an esteemed curator or head of a fashion house.
I’ve seen, and tried, this pairing more this fall than any other time in recent memory. Some of the pieces are now beyond wear, black Alden tassel loafers which I could have treated better. In an ensemble with a tan shirt jacket, a black and white-striped long-sleeve sailor tee, and faded blue jeans, it looked vaguely French. Swap the tassel loafers for tan desert boots, and you have a uniform that’s reliable and trusty, letting black take a rare backdrop.
Not every garment works in black. Suits are best avoided, unless you can find or commission one in linen or seersucker. Black dress shirts are a fashion faux-pas, shiny, easily dirtied, often worn with long tails untucked. Sneakers are inadvisable, as are slacks and black overcoats. With too much shine and not enough texture, they just don’t look right.
The limitations end there. The black turtleneck is the international creative uniform, moody and affected without being pretentious. A black donegal sweater updates the classic tweedy archetype, giving it more mood and edge than dark browns and mossy greens. Svelte black tassel loafers, Alden’s in particular, complement tailored separates yet lend panache to casual outfits. Even Drake’s, the bastion of traditional yet whimsical colors and patterns, debuted a black work shirt for their A/W18 collection. In a hefty cotton twill with a long pointed collar, it’s artistic and debonair.
Pairing these garments with tan requires care. The turtleneck equation doesn’t work as well in reverse, though a tan number with black herringbone pants could be quite dashing. Trousers and overcoats lend themselves well to this task. If tan is the background player, a pair of dusty corduroys or pleated, high-waisted khakis lighten up black’s brooding presence. A tan, camel, or tobacco brown overcoat is chic, doubly so with the aforementioned trousers. Even a tan suit with a black pique polo, for the dead of summer, has a slight Neapolitan flair, something that might look good on your tailor, or a tailor you admire, so inspiring that you want to try it yourself.
The great hues and color combinations are immortalized by jazz. Mood Indigo. Blue in Green. Black and Tan Fantasy. Listen to them. Wear them. Listen to them while wearing them and maybe, just maybe, you’ll achieve the graceful, artistic elegance the Duke composed back in 1927.