Pink is a colour for Girls? Think Again

Pink was a colour for Men. In fact, not so long ago this colour was considered a sign of masculinity. Since it was seen as a diminutive of the colour red. The colour Red already had its strong association in wartime. So the pastel shade of Red evoked youthfulness and was universally accepted as a masculine colour.

So, then what attributed to the present-day assumption that pink is a feminine colour. Let’s find out.

The director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute Technology, author of several books and fashion scholar Valerie Steele, once said “In the 18th-century, it was perfectly masculine for a man to wear a Pink silk suit with floral embroidery,”.

Men wore pink, dressed in Pink silk suits which were embroidered with flowers back in the 18th-century. Those men were very powerful and highly respected.

In the early 1900s, young men would confidently sport Pink dress shirts (the first of which was made by Brooks Brothers) as part of their Ivy League wardrobe. So then what caused such a dramatic shift in perception?

Clothing companies in the 1960’s introduced baby clothes that were gender-specific. Their intent was to force parents to buy new clothes for their second child if it was a boy and the first child was a girl. They assigned blue for males and pink for females. Soon after, the colour Pink is for girls became a trend.

People’s perception saw a drastic change over a few years. This change in the perception in the minds of people brought the change. So, today the colour that once stood to depict masculinity suddenly changed to become and feminine hue.

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Story by: Jeremy Cabral

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