Pink is a girl’s colour right? History says that’s wrong.
The colour of flamingos, rosé and half of the marshmallow packet, pink is a pretty cool colour – but why do girls wear it more than boys?
According to the Smithsonian museum, pink was first reserved for boys. A publication back in the 1900s said pink, derived from a strong red colour, was for boys – leaving dainty blue for girls. Which is a bit confusing seeing how many pink clothes on offer are for the girls now.
A Time magazine survey in the 1920s even proves department stores were all over the show when it came to offering gender-specific colors. It found some stores preferred pink for boys, while others did the opposite. Nurseries were typically donned out in both pink and blue as they were relatively gender-neutral colours then.
Most fashion historians say pink came into providence after the Second World War, when women whipped off their blue factory suits to become homemakers again. In an ironic twist of events, author and historian Jo B. Paoletti has suggested mothers growing up in an age of ‘pink is for boys’ wanted their daughters to now revel in pink. There was also the fact that parents could now find out the gender of their child before birth, and marketers jumped on the trend of gender-specific colours.
There may also be a first lady to thank for our panache for pink and that’s Mamie Eisenhower, wife of American President Dwight Eisenhower. Mamie wanted the world to know she loved pink – she just really liked the color. When she moved into The White House she decorated it with so much pink the press started calling it The Pink Palace. She famously wore a 2000 gem-encrusted pink ball gown to one particular high-profile event and even had a shade of pink (Mamie pink) named after her.
It seems Mamie’s legacy, and 50s gender norms, have lived on in fashion’s fabric.
