This is no grey area – the monochrome trend is back in force. How can such a simple, subtle look make such a sartorial impact? Threads reads between the colour-blocked lines…

The Overview
What do you get when you mix fashion-stalwart black (that most reliable colour of LBD fame) with boundary-pushing white (that risqué hue that says ‘stains be damned’)?
An instant classic, that’s what. They are perfect opposites. Alone one is meek in its flattery, safe almost. The other loud and diva-ish. But, if Paul McCartney’s song Ebony & Ivory taught us one thing, it’s that these shades go together. In a big way.

At Threads we’re quite obsessed with the palette. For two reasons. One it’s so damn easy – pull-something-from-your-wardrobe-bleary-eyed-and-a-little-hungover easy. And two it looks good. Consistently. Of course the idea of black and white together isn’t new. It has bobbed and weaved through many fashion incarnations – providing the pared-back Mod antidote to the colourful psychedelic 60’s for example, or power-dressing with gargantuan shoulder pads in the 80s. The colour combination has always been efficient, empowering and achingly cool in its simplicity. Simple but never basic. Which is why we love it. This season print, design, texture, proportion and dramatic colour-blocking reinvigorate a magic mix.

How To Style It
With reduced colour palette comes increased versatility. Suddenly your wardrobe is working for you, pieces complementing each other! Oh the joy! Catwalks were awash with cool pearlescent tones and jet matte blacks in a startling array of guises. Cut a dash in Pucci’s trippy checkerboard-like design. An optical illusion of zany black and white prints sweeping over dresses and curling up thigh high boots. Or look to fun-loving J W Anderson for inspiration. Here, models were sent down the catwalk in bold, squiggly patterns. Like black marker scribbles on paper. Sleeves were poufy while trousers bore opposite and mirror-image
like motifs.