Document: Portrait of a Man Seated in an Armchair (Amsterdam) Dutch Painter, 1640–50 Dutch ca. 1640–50

This portrait shows a man wearing a very expensive black suit.  Black silk and wool cloth was extremely expensive to produce, but had the advantage of wearing very well, and lasting a long time.   This man is also wearing the fashionable large beaver hat that made the trade in beaver skins so critical to the New Netherlands trade economy.

Perhaps the NYC fashion world's continued interest in black as the ultimately fashionable color in any age dates back to the Dutch Colonial period!