First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.

This may seem like an extremely artificial thing to be talking about right now, what with all the noise and haste in the world, but actually it’s quite relevant.

Now, there may be some out there who choose not to see fashion as an important point of discourse or see themselves as above it. To those people I say: You, my dear are not above fashion. You are cut from the same cloth as every single human being on this planet and you wake up daily and actively choose what to put on your body. Like it or not, you are a participant in the industry. Just like I am, and I have absolutely zero shame about admitting that, because every item that touches my body is carefully selected before being purchased and then worn.

I will say this, however: when it comes to dressing up, I do suffer greatly from decision fatigue – that is, I don’t want to spend hours and hours thinking about what I should wear and how I should pair things so I stick to the basics and I always have.

And my basics, for the most part, are black. Black jackets, jerseys, sweats and, most of all, black T-shirts. Even if there’s a spill of colour somewhere, there’s always black. Black is dependable, it can be paired with almost anything, it’s minimalist and, most of all, when you go black, you don’t go back. Simple, classic items of black clothing are the easiest way to opt out of the consumerist madness and the seasonal trends that last for 10 seconds and cost a lot of money. Later you look back at those trends and feel like a complete idiot.

A black T-shirt will never do that to you. The decision to wear it is untiring, seamless and automatically gives you more time, physically and mentally, to do other, more important things, and it’s sustainable. But here’s the caveat: it used to be that they were easily replaceable. This was the beauty of the black T-shirt. And now they are not. Not for women, at least.

Why? Well, remember when I spoke about consumerism sucking us into trends and fashions that are unsustainable and ultimately damaging to both our pockets, the hands that sew them and the environment?

That ugly mechanism is sucking the air out of my fashion lifeline one lousy crop-top at a time. Seriously, is the women’s fashion industry running out of fabric? And, if so, can we not just borrow some from the men’s end?

Do you know how long it takes to find the perfect black T-shirt these days? I’ll tell you this much: it takes longer than it does to throw together a T-shirt that’s made for a small child but is on sale for women at double the price of just a plain ol regular black T-shirt.

In fact, in recent times, for me personally, it’s become so time-consuming and irritating that I’ve just resorted to going straight to the men’s section, getting a size that’s as close to a good fit and cut as possible and then, if necessary, making an additional trip to the tailor for some fine-tuning – hey, I said I like the simplicity of a black T-shirt; I didn’t say I don’t care if I wear an oversized garbage-bag invisibility cloak.

If I am doing all this work to find and wear the most basic thing ever, I might as well become one of the sheeple who are infected by the virus of style – it takes just as much work and effort.

But black T-shirts are not supposed to be hard work.

They are anti-unique, anti-viral and anti-feature. They bear no hue; they are supposed to be cheap and their lack of investment is, or at least used to be, unmatched, both in time, resources and mental energy. In a plain black tee, you can be an intellectual or an absolute crackpot. Or neither. Or both. And not care about either.

They are unanimity and anonymity all at once. They are nondescript while still being able to reflect an aesthetic and project invisibility. This you cannot do in a crop-top, not even if said crop-top is black. DM168

Haji Mohamed Dawjee is an author and journalist.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for free to Pick n Pay Smart Shoppers at these Pick n Pay stores.