# The Black Silk

> The Black Silk is the black stocking of Seamiotics, the proper, expected garment the Bluestocking was defined against.

**Canon.** This entry is written from inside the CharliVerse, so its people and companies are fictional. Behind the scenes says what is real.

**The Black Silk** is the black of [Seamiotics](https://charli.info/charlipedia/seamiotics/), every seam means something, and the other half of its founding story. The black silk is the garment the blue was defined against: the proper thing, the expected thing, already in the room before the rebellion walked in.

A black leg with a black seam, or Plain: black, unseamed, nothing to explain. Both welts. It is not a filler colour and it does not belong to a woman. It belongs to the story that gave the imprint its name, which is why it sits with [The Bluestocking](https://charli.info/charlipedia/the-bluestocking/) and [The Bride](https://charli.info/charlipedia/the-bride/) rather than with [the Signatures](https://charli.info/charlipedia/the-signatures/).

That is also why Mary Wollstonecraft is not the black. "She is black that has been thought about. The Black Silk is black that has not needed to be."

The Black Silk leg is the ground of the first [Red Pen](https://charli.info/charlipedia/red-pen/) Run, Aphra Behn.

## Behind the scenes

The Black Silk is described in the Seamiotics Bible, version 1.4.