Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo, Ann Demeulemeester and Gareth Pugh are famously enamoured with the tone. As was Christian Dior who once said, “You can wear black at any time. You can wear it at any age. You may wear it for almost any occasion.”

Why? Well, a new survey may (at least in part) explain its enduring appeal. It asked a thousand people which colours they associate with different personality traits, and black far outperformed all other colours. 

“Black came first or second in most “good” traits (for example confidence, intelligence and sexiness) and barely figured in the “bad” traits (arrogance),” says the survey. If you’re wondering what colour to wear to an interview, apparently you should opt for black, with 56 per cent of respondents seeing it as a “colour of confidence”. This figure rose to 64 per cent among men.

Black is also the colour to wear on dates, with 66 per cent of female respondents saying they liked men to wear the colour. As for the less popular colours, brown (perhaps unsurprisingly) performed badly, with only one per cent of women and four per cent of men saying they would wear the colour on a first date.

So while black has fans within the fashion community, as well as within the goth subculture, it’s clear from this survey that it’s got mainstream appeal too. If you want people to think you’re confident, sexy and intelligent, the answer is clear: wear black.