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Black is perfect. At least in the fashion world, it often doesn't get much better. There's the little black dress of course, and the perfect black suit, and always the killer black gown. Those and so many other exquisite little black somethings hit the runway during Tuesday's Toronto Fashion Week schedule.

And leave it to the established hands to deliver the most covetable collections. For Izzy Camilleri, black was a gothic-meets-Star Trek fantasy. At Joeffer Caoc, the fashionable non-colour was a touch Wuthering Heights, that is if Natalie Portman was dressing for her Heathcliff. And at Comrags, Judy Cornish and Joyce Gunhouse offered up a stellar lineup that played on black's iconic fashion history, but with a little British spirit.

Camilleri is a technical wizard and her artistry showed in a corseted black leather minidress worn atop a high-necked and full-sleeved purple blouse. And when she reimagined a little girl's smocked dress in deep, dark, finely perforated leather it was sexy and not the least bit Lolita. One of her finale pieces, an ankle-skimming black lace gown worn beneath a cropped black fur tunic-like jacket that was sheared to look almost striped, was so much more than a little black dress.

Joeffer Caoc has long been devoted to black, and although he did venture out with a beautiful smoky slate blue velvet, a bordeau-hued jersey, and a glossy oyster-coloured glazed cotton, they were accents to a primarily black fall 2006/7 collection. His wide, draping black trousers were dynamite as were his many little black jackets that featured lovely soft volumes at the neckline or hemline thanks to delicate folds and fabric manipulations.

Among the most covetable pieces of Comrags' masculine-meets-feminine show were lovely variations on the little black sheath — many with full and softly pleated skirts, the black tuxedo trouser, and black toppers beautifully detailed with buttons or ribbons or cut in richly textured cloths.

So although we know you've heard it before, it is once again true: Black is very, very back.