# Monochrome fashion — style recipe

## The idea

- Stark black and white, like a lookbook: an oversized high-contrast serif cropped at the edges, wide margins, hairline rules and a single red.

## Use it when

- Clothing labels, collections and seasonal lookbooks
- Studios, galleries and shops that sell a few considered things
- Launch pages where one bold statement matters more than detail

## Avoid it when

- The page carries long reading text, tables or many options
- The brand should feel warm, cosy or playful
- The audience needs bright colour to find its way

## Principles

- Black and white do almost all the work; one red is the only colour
- A huge high-contrast serif, cropped by the edge of the page, is the picture
- Wide margins and very few words per screen
- Hairline rules in black divide the page, never boxes or shadows
- Full-width black panels carry light type, the way a lookbook turns to a dark page
- Small spaced capitals in a plain sans label every look

## Colour

- Paper white (background): #f6f5f2
- Black panel (light type on it) (surface): #111111
- Ink black (text): #111111
- Graphite (muted): #595959
- Signal red (accent): #b00d24
- Hairline (border): #111111
- Text on background contrast: 17.32:1

## Type

- Headings: Cormorant Garamond, weights 500 — Set very large at weight 500, with the italic 500 for a single accent word; let it crop at the edge
- Body: Inter, weights 400, 500 — Short body copy at 400; labels at 500 in spaced capitals, never under 12 px
- Scale: 12px, 15px, 18px, 28px, 56px, 112px, 176px
- A dramatic jump from tiny spaced labels to enormous serif headlines, with almost nothing in between.

## Spacing and shape

- Base unit: 8px
- Spacing steps: 8px, 16px, 32px, 64px, 128px, 192px
- Wide outer margins and long pauses between looks; the empty paper is part of the design.
- Corner radii: 0px
- Borders: 1 px hairlines in ink black
- Shadows: None; the page is flat paper and flat black

## Imagery and motion

- Imagery: Strong flat shapes rather than busy pictures: garment silhouettes, solid cloth swatches or black-and-white photography with hard light.
- Motion: Almost none: a slow fade as a look comes into view, and nothing at all for reduced motion.

## Do

- Let one oversized word run off the edge of the page
- Put light type on the black panels, never dark text or red
- Use red for one thing only: a link, a rule or the price
- Number the looks and label them in small spaced capitals

## Don't

- No second colour beside the red
- No rounded corners, cards or drop shadows
- No long paragraphs; say it in a line
- No red text on the black panels, where it is too dim to read