Continuing the tour that began yesterday, we now delve into the nocturnal emissions in the city’s spring wardrobe.

This is New York City, and I’ll be damned if our freaking uniform hasn’t always been black on black by default. Nothing is as cool as black, and here it’s so cool it’s cold. It isn’t goth, it isn’t Sprockets; it’s just New York.

Okay, maybe it’s a little bit Sprockets.

Even though it kind of went away for a while, the wearing of black never been totally absent; every day we always still see people wearing the hard noir who don’t necessarily worship Joy Division or have sixteen facial piercings and rotten teeth. Artists, intellectuals, publishers, musicians, communists, criminals, electricians, interns, doctors, lawyers, engineers, baristas, doesn’t matter; if they really get New York, they’ll know from whence I speak.

It’s a fashionable way to be anti-fashion, I suppose. It’s anti-color. Or maybe it’s just a lot of pretentious bullshit. Whatever the case, it’s the reason that there was an old black in the first place, and there are plenty of designers coming out with black and off-black for the rites of spring.

Proof coming up after the jump.

Armani (above) can always be depended upon for designing truly beautiful clothes that only the slim of build and fat of wallet can pull off. However, it’s worth noting that the styles they put on display today will find a budget-driven version for the common man. So what can we discern from these ensembles?

A. I was right—pleated pants are coming back, even if slung a bit low by the window dresser. That, or Armani’s found a way to make the pleats lie flat when the pants are cut to be worn at the hips.

B. Vests are here again, for dressy evenings out. Note that these are cut short and high, and if one’s belly is anything other than concave, he shall look terrible.

C. Big collars and lapels on outerwear, the likes of which unseen since the early-mid ’70s. I’m definitely a fan, as finding this precise style had me going to a vintagewear source in freaking Canada to find the same in my spring jacket

D. Scarves this spring? Check. Pocket squares fancifully spilling out of breast pockets? Check. Thrusting your crotch out from display windows as if to say “I’m skinny and rich—suck it, you phonies?” Check.

Speaking of Canadian imports, Club Monaco (above) is known for making the impossibly stylish surprisingly affordable to the average Joe. The downside—their construction often suffers, and you’ll frequently discover seams coming apart and loose threads appearing far before normal wear and tear would suggest. An industrious shopper will pick up their gear, like the Full Zip Track Jacket (left) and reinforce the stitching where needed. Of course, that’s more involvement than most male shoppers want to put forth in their gear.

One thing I’m a little surprised by here, as in dozens of other shops I visited: the shirts are still untucked this season. I’d heard reports to the contrary and believed them to be true, that this deliberately sloppy in casual dress thing was over, but apparently not. I do admit that it still pretty much works, inasmuch as it gives even these skinny mannequins girl hips.

More reinforcement that my earlier assessment that “the paramilitary look is out” was hogwash: British house Reiss (left) unveils a smart jacket reminiscent of WWII’s RAF officers, complete with epaulets and button-down pockets. They pair it with a thin black tie, slim legged black trousers, and those pointy-toed shoes that debuted in Milan three years ago. I’m glad they’re still around, I really need to get some before chunky shoes make their inevitable comeback.

SoHo’s French Corner is a shop on West Broadway, and not a design house, but they do have very cutting-edge tastes, and tend to stock elitewear that’s hard to find elsewhere. I don’t know who made this shirt (right), but I like it. I doubt I’d wear it with the collar up like that, but with this garment doing so hardly rings preppy; it’s affected, but because of the weird print patches and the dark (but not dismal) tone, it rings a bit more ominous, if effete. Once again we find that scarves are happening this spring; here, a thinner sort, tucked into the shirt instead of hanging free. Affected, but hey, it works on the dummy with the pursed lips.

You can always depend upon the gear from Le Chateau to be contemporary, just this side of edgy and certainly stylish. Ghahh, yet another punch to my ‘paramilitary is over’ theory with that jacket, with its many snap-tite pockets and barely-there collar (definitely not a ’70s look, this is all action). The send-up on the left, since the picture sucks, features more of those great pointed loafers, and at $109, I think I might have to go snatch ‘em up.

Now dig that pic on the right. Black tie on black shirt with black belt, black pants and black shoes (out of frame, just trust me). It’s a totalitarian look that keeps coming back with very little variation; it’s so sharp, it doesn’t ever need much refinement.

No web presence here, but Ari, at 471 West Broadway, between Prince and Houston, has some of the slickest gear on the tour. The two pieces of window dressing were distinct attention-grabbers. On the left, a very smartly tailored pinstripe suit; I love it when the lapels get pointy like this and extend beyond the thrust of the collar itself. It’s stolen straight out of 1977, but with a crisper line and a slimmer finish to the trunk, as well as being single-breasted, unlike the double-breasted standard of that age. They put a shirt I love about under that sucker: as Joel’s silly for seersucker, I’m French cuff-happy, and this one finishes with extra buttons on top, the room needed giving the collar extra height. The effect it gives the wearer is extra height himself, a longer neck, and a sharper jaw line and chin. Great with a low-slung tie but better without one at all, as evidenced here.

To the right, a break from the black, but I had to include it anyway. Wrinkled calfskin mahogany red leather jacket with that freaking great collar and lapels. It’s a 3/4 length cut, and it rides very comfortably over a soft button-up that probably costs around $700. Ouch, but the overall effect is proof in hand that Tyler Durden is alive and well this spring.