If you want to stand out at your next metal gig, don't settle for a spot of color in a sea of black - go ultrablack instead.

Engineers at Cornell University have created the blackest fabric on record, finding it absorbs 99.87 percent of all light that dares to illuminate its surface.

To make something ultrablack, you can't just dip it in a dye and call it a day. It requires manipulating the structure of a material on the nanoscopic scale so that it captures as much light as possible.

Related: A Tourist Fell Into This Ultra-Black Artwork That Looks Like a Cartoon Hole

In this case, the Cornell researchers dyed a white merino wool knit fabric with a synthetic melanin polymer called polydopamine. Then, they placed the material in a plasma chamber, and etched structures called nanofibrils - essentially, tiny fibers that trap light.

"The light basically bounces back and forth between the fibrils, instead of reflecting back out - that's what creates the ultrablack effect," says Hansadi Jayamaha, fiber scientist and designer at Cornell.

The structure was inspired by the magnificent riflebird (Ptiloris magnificus). Hailing from New Guinea and northern Australia, male riflebirds are known for their iridescent blue-green chests contrasted with ultrablack feathers elsewhere on their bodies.

The Cornell material actually outperforms the bird's natural ultrablackness in some ways. The bird is blackest when viewed straight on, but becomes reflective from an angle. The material, on the other hand, retains its light absorption powers when viewed from up to 60 degrees either side.

This impressive fabric isn't limited to the lab, either: Cornell fashion design major Zoe Alvarez created a dress of gradually darkening material, culminating in the ultrablack fabric surrounding a central pop of blue-green that honors the riflebird.

While the fabric isn't the blackest material humans have ever created, it comes close. The startling Vantablack is said to absorb up to 99.96 percent of all light that hits it, while an MIT material made of carbon nanotubes later surpassed Vantablack with a claim of 99.995 percent of light absorption.

But those materials can be expensive and difficult to make. The new fabric, according to its creators, is relatively easy and cheap to manufacture at scale.

A study describing the material and the process behind it was published in the journal Nature Communications.