Can interior doors come off as elegantly formal? Absolutely.
Should your interior doors look elegantly formal? That would largely depend on the overall appearance of your interior design. Or would it?
The color black only recently came into its own as a symbol of elegance – by historical standards, anyway. Singularly enough, neither the ancient Egyptians, nor Greeks, nor Romans, nor medieval aristocracy (most of it, anyway) thought of it in this manner. One would think that one of the reasons for this may have been the fact that colorful dyes and paints were more difficult to produce in large quantities – and one would be wrong.
In fact, genuine black was astoundingly expensive to produce. “Imported oak apples” were used in the early Sixteenth Century, when it represented wealth among Spanish aristocrats and Dutch merchants. Curiously, in the early Eighteenth Century, black represented romance and artistry in Europe and the Colonies.
Be that as it may, the color became popular during the interval separating the American and French revolutions, when it began to be associated with formal attire for men. This had a great deal to do with the changes in military methodology. The improved artillery and firearms rendered the sword obsolete except as a decorative part of the officer’s attire. Full-length trousers replaced stockings, the doublet yielded to the tails jacket, and suddenly young men, including those in the military, began to refer to the sword as “the hanger” that only had to be worn at gatherings with lots of “old timers” present.
Some habits sit too deep, and high-ranking officers continued to carry swords – decorative or otherwise – for quite some time afterwards. George Washington, to pick a name at random, always wore one.
That said, from the early Nineteenth Century on a gentleman was expected to wear a black suit, not just to formal events, but to pretty much any large gathering. The top hat, the jacket, the trousers, and the boots were black. Some interior doors were, too.
You don’t need to take my word for it. Just go ahead and examine closely Edouard Manet’s celebrated painting titled Masked Ball at the Opera, which today hangs at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
(By the way. The place depicted in the painting, the interior doors and all, is not the Palais Garnier, a.k.a. “Paris Opera,” as one would expect. That storied structure was still under construction in the year 1873 – two years away from completion, in fact. No, no, this was a different opera house, the one on the Rue La Pelitier, a few blocks away from today’s Metro stop, that burned down shortly afterwards. Don’t you fret: the tradition of throwing balls at the opera continued once Charles Garnier’s project was finally finished – inspired and blessed by both Eugene Hausmann and Napoleon III. And, yes, the men attending those soirees were still obliged to wear black – as they are today. Didn’t you know? Today’s Palais Garnier does have a dress code! And, yes, men are still asked politely to wear a three-piece black suit or go sit at the Café de la Paix across the street, believe it or not).
Time continued seriously to pass. In the year 1926 Coco Chanel published a picture of a calf-length, straight, simple black dress in Vogue. It was calf-length, straight and decorated only by a few diagonal lines. It has been known as “the little black dress” ever since, and a staple at cocktail parties. Hollywood’s films only helped its vast popularity.
Elegantly formal interior doors can be a great addition to your decor because they go with anything. Whatever your preferences – slick and ultra-modern, traditional, or Baroque – black interior doors will blend in easily into, augment, or improve your interior design.
