We’re more than a little obsessed with “El Cuervo,� the Fall/ Winter 07 collection from Jose Castro – our current favorite Spanish designer. And you know how we feel about black.

The collection, with its saturated blacks and ash-dipped grays brings to mind haunted houses complete with ghostly creaks and shudders and eerie spider webs. It’s starting to look more than ever that Irina was really onto something with her high-school era “Morticia� look.

But if you don’t want to look like one of the ill-fated children from The Gashlycrumb Tinies, we suggest taking a cue from Castro who describes the use of denim in his fall collection as “a way of bringing it from the darkness into the light, from the ghostly into the real world.�

Our feelings about jeans are more sartorial than spiritual, but we think Castro is right about adding a dash of denim to lighten the mood of tonal blacks and grays.

Also a relief – another season of use out of last year’s ubiquitous gray jeans!

—ALISON COOL