La Voz de Galicia – August 8, 2025 →
At the beginning of summer I decided to empty my wardrobe a little. I rummaged through all those T-shirts, jackets, and trousers I hadn’t worn in a long time, and I made one pile with clothes to donate, another with clothes to throw away, and a final one with clothes to keep. The reasons that led each piece into each pile were practical: the donation pile was clothes that were still fine but that I no longer use, the discard pile was too worn out, and the keep pile was clothes I know I’ll continue wearing. And when I finished and sat down next to the piles, I realized that all the good clothes I had planned to donate were in vibrant colors, while the ones I had planned to keep were basically black. Then I remembered that article from The New York Times that said that “beige is the color of money,” and that unlike in the past, when “bold hues once were a tell for wealth (…) now a preference for quiet colors has evolved into a statement of luxury and power”. And I looked again at my piles and saw neither white nor beige, but so much black that I began to wonder when I had set colors aside… Perhaps when my professional life turned toward such a frenetic rhythm that unpacking a suitcase between tours stopped making sense. Or when I learned that Steve Jobs or Barack Obama always wore the same clothes so they wouldn’t have to make the daily decision of what to wear. Because making decisions, even small and unnecessary ones, takes time and energy…I don’t know when I chose black, but it’s hard to go back from it. And although sometimes I brighten my day with a colorful garment, I must admit that for traveling, for sitting on the ground, for getting dirty without anyone noticing, or for going unnoticed, there’s nothing like that complex color that is black…
