Black is a relaxing, elegant and sexy, it is in everything from frames to photographs. I prefer to use basic black furniture and build around it with color pops...like the basic black dress anything goes with it.
Using black in your larger and most costly items then allows you to go crazy with accent pieces and color schemes, which you can change as often as you like.
Look at design magazines, furniture catalogues and showroom displays today, and you're likely to see more than just a touch of black. Kelly Wearstler uses basic black to enhance most of her designs like the pictures above.