The color jet-black, the darkest of black, is derived from jet, which is a gemstone made of pure wood compressed and heated under extreme pressure, and fossilized over millions of years. The wood was of a conifer with banded spiky trunk, lower branches sweeping the ground, and cones the size of human head. Today this family of conifer, called Araucaria, lives mainly in the Southern Hemisphere. The nearest relative to jet’s ancestral conifer is the monkey-puzzle, an evergreen native to Chile and Argentina which grows thick, fossil-like “reptilian” branches.
The name jet is derived from the ancient town of Gagae in Lycia, a region in modern-day Turkey. In Natural History, Pliny the Elder described the gagates lapis, or the stone of Gagae, a light-weight, bituminized stone, to be polished to a deep, black luster. When burnt it gave off a smell like that of sulphur, and its fumes could drive off snakes, relieve suffocation of the uterus, and reveal deception. The Magi were said to make use of it in fortunetelling as it would not burn away completely if a wish were destined to come true.
In the early middle ages, Saint Bede noted that Britain “has much excellent jet which is black and sparkling, glittering at the fire and when heated drives away serpents; being warmed with rubbing it holds fast whatever is applied to it, like amber.” As early as 4500 years ago in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Scotland, jet beads were scattered on funeral pyres after the flame died away. This jet deposit was formed 181 million years ago, when the Araucaria thrived in this area of the continent of Pangea. As sudden as the death of the dinosaurs, the trees came to die by the grove-full. As they fell to the ground, massive logjams built up. The rotting logs were then covered with glutinous mud, which allowed them to fossilize anaerobically, or without air, and shrink to a layer of jet just an inch thick. Deposits of ammonites and pyrite, or fool’s gold, surrounding the jet make it sparkle. Jet was traded in Roman times, when Britain was occupied by the Empire. The Romans associated it with the deity Cybele, who loved jet most of all. She’s often portrayed to be grieving the death of Attis, who was her lover in some stories, or her son in others, and who symbolizes death and resurrection.
The tradition of associating jet with death continued in medieval times, when black color textile was in demand for funeral services. To obtain a black color, textile had to be dyed with a mixture of blue, red, and yellow in several vats, which was expensive. In the 17th century, the solution was logwood, or campeachy wood, collected by pirates from the Caribbean. Logwood trees thrived in mangrove swamps between present-day Mexico and Belize. In 1675, the English explorer William Dampier described the process to obtain logwood dye: “The sap is white and the heart red. The heart is used much for dyeing; therefore we chip off all the white sap till we come to the heart…After it has been chip’d a little while, it turns black, and if it lyes in the water it dyes it like ink.”
By the 18th century, black had become a popular attire color for the wealthy merchant class in England. They were forbidden to wear colors reserved for old money, such as scarlet, but they could wear black. Estate inventories show that 33% of nobles’ and 44% of officers’ clothing was black, and 29% of domestics’ wardrobes were also black. Thanks to Queen Victoria, jet surged in popularity in the 19th century. When her consort, Prince Albert, died in 1861, mourning became a national pastime, and after the Queen adopted Whitby jet as her mourning adornment, it became the height of fashion. During the 1860’s and 1870’s, jet was made into brooches, crucifixes, necklaces, cameos, some with carving of fruits and flowers.
By the 1880’s, Queen Victoria was wearing pearls and diamonds, viewed today by the Royal Family as appropriate at any stage of mourning. Jet’s popularity thus diminished, but jet-black remains as popular a color as ever. Not only is the color still appropriate for funeral services, it can now be flaunted anywhere, be it on a business attire or on a gown out on the town. Created by Coco Chanel in 1926, the little black dress was dubbed the “Ford of Fashion” by American Vogue for its transformative qualities, “a sort of uniform for all women of taste.” As Coco herself proclaimed, “I imposed black; it’s still going strong today, for black wipes out everything else around.”
hardlyplaying.blog 