It's summer. But look at the number of women wearing black instead of the traditional summer white.

Now Comme des Garcons (French for 'like the boys') the 40-year-old Japanese fashion label headed by Rei Kawakubo, has decided that black is officially the colour of summer.

Yep, little black summer dresses are the mood of a summer overshadowed by a global recession.

In fact, the international designer of cutting-edge style has responded to economic 'negativity' by producing a new label called BLACK.

Rei's husband Adrian Joffe, also Comme des Garcons CEO, explains: "Things are difficult out there. We're down five per cent in Japan. We had a hole to fill, and Rei came up with the idea of doing a whole line in black."

Rei and her design label have flagship stores in Tokyo, Paris and New York, with 200 franchises worldwide, and her fragrances are available in House of Fraser in Dundrum town centre. For her clothes see www.commedesgarcons. tresbienshop.net.

The designer has had her dark fashion moods before. Back in the early 80s, she used black as a cry of rebellion and, in her native Tokyo, women who wore her clothes were described with some hostility as "the crows".

Back then, the middle-class fashion establishment was still dominated by a "jolie madame" who wore chintzy fabrics in rainbow hues -- the more ostentatious the better.

So today's ladies in black have a lot to thank Kawakubo for. Without her, the alternative could be the red flowery dresses so beloved of previous generations.

Code

Kawakubo gave us an entirely new dress code for women -- trousers, with sweater cuffs at the ankles, teamed with tunics that turned into shawls; oversized coats buttoned from left to right -- 'comme des garcons' -- and boiled, seemingly shapeless knits peppered with holes.

Even at the beginning a lot of her clothes came in black.

It was a young Yves Saint Laurent who was famously the first designer to employ black models on the haute couture catwalk in Paris. Yet when his 1960 Beat collection, featuring an androgynous uniform of black leather jackets and turtleneck sweaters debuted, the fashion world was scandalised.

Later both punk and new wave embraced black as, of course, did the Goths in their funereal and spidery garb.

By the end of the 80s, black -- championed by Kawakubo -- had become ubiquitous. The era of Thatcher and Reagan, of big, black limousines and black cocktail-wear to match meant that it was the most aspirational shade to see and be seen in.

Department stores were quick to respond, designing everything in black, from toasters to refrigerators -- never mind boardroom tables.

Then there were Alaia viscose-knit dresses, Donna Karan bodies, Filofax diaries and Wolford tights. It's small wonder, with this in mind, that by this point Kawakubo herself had stopped using it, announcing in a haughty manner that "red is black".

Black, she said by way of explanation, had lost its power. You could find it, after all, anywhere and everywhere, "even in a corner at Gap". Kawakubo has since returned to black again and again however, and the classic pieces most immediately associated with Comme des Garcons today -- kilts, dhoti pants, narrow jackets with Peter Pan collars and slogan T-shirts -- are for the most part designed in black.

BLACK, the new collection, meanwhile, according to Rei's husband Joffe, "is made up of all her favourite things reworked in different fabrics and, over the years, most of her favourite things have been black".

The 80s revival currently sweeping everything from designer level down decrees that there is more black in evidence than at any time since Madonna became a household name in Desperately Seeking Susan -- particularly black of the body-conscious stretch variety.

LBD

And a quick browse through the forthcoming autumn/ winter collections confirms that black, despite years of the industry claiming otherwise, is here to stay. Black features heavily in the forthcoming collections of Yves Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Lanvin, and Givenchy.

So prepare for lots of little black dresses over the coming months. The first little black dress is most often attributed to Chanel and appeared as a simple illustration in the May 1926 issue of American Vogue.

The dress in question, designed to be worn during the day, was intentionally plain, given the frills that characterised fashion in the times that preceded it. The idea was that women would accessorise it, thereby giving it the stamp of individuality.

It was at the time a radical concept and one that encouraged comparisons to Ford's standarised motor car: "Both were sleek and represented a concept available to the masses," wrote Amy Holman Edelman in her 1997 book The Little Black Dress.

- Anna Coogan