There is another reason to wear black over the holidays: for those of us who look upon the approach of the festive season with the same level of doom-laden reserve that we would normally muster for a root canal, black seems entirely appropriate.
For the rest of us, Topshop presents a knotty dilemma: the rewards can be great (a leather biker jacket I bought seven years ago is still regularly mistaken for Balenciaga) but the sacrifices are akin to a root canal (confusing layouts, too much clothing and herds of teenagers roaming with hyena-like intensity).