The Spectrum: Beyond the Pink
As a designer in the making, I have come to understand that the psychology of color is a fundamental tool for the composition of a well-curated display. This allows us to tell stories that align with people’s existing cultural beliefs and even helps them develop new biases. It is important to understand this as colors have the power to convey emotions and messages in a more intense fashion. Colors are used to create balance as well as manipulate the perception of objects to convey the designer’s message to the consumers. However, for this reason, it is important to understand the history of color before its application.
Now let us talk about something that has sparked debate around for quite some time now. Do colors really have a gender? Is pink really a feminine color and blue a masculine? Is pink not meant for men?
Let us understand, there are many social conventions globally around certain colors but at the same time, there are also many subjective aspects in the psychology of color that can cause the same hue to evoke different emotions and interpretations during different historical periods or in cultural communities. There are certain colors that are used differently today as compared to several years in the past, such is the saga of the pink.
A brief history of Pink
Pink has always been a spectacular contradiction. It is a color with varied interpretations globally; from being associated with a wistful symbol of a slain samurai in Japan to a foreign color in China and a sign of trustworthiness in Korea, it has been extremely versatile. More interestingly, the color has shifted from one extreme to the other in the West in the last three centuries itself. From Renaissance portraits with men donning pink to the gender-neutral millennial debate- the color has a rich history, in art and beyond.
Though related to the primary mother color red, pink is not a part of the electromagnetic spectrum. When we see pink, we are not really seeing actual wavelengths of pink light. It rarely appears in nature which may be a reason to consider how it entered the English language towards the end of the 17th century. But in other languages such as Japanese and Chinese, it still remains difficult to pin down. In Japan, pink is considered a masculine and mournful color as it represents young warriors slain in battle whereas it is looked at as a soft and peaceful color in Germany.
It wasn’t until the Renaissance, around the 1700s that artists began to explicitly include pink in their color palettes. It was then that pink was praised by both men and women; embroidered silk coats were sported by men of Louis XVI’s court and it was even recommended as a bedroom color for business-minded gentlemen for a restorative home base. Over the next century, owing to the raucousness of the Rocco movement, the color pink rose to fame in Western art.
The Politics of the color
However, today when you think of the color pink, you instantly associate it with little barbie dolls or the Disney princess Aurora in a pretty gown. The color is overwhelmingly associated with femininity and elegance. That, however, is a recent development. This was not always the case. The use of pink for girls and blue for boys is a relatively newer concept for, traditionally blue was always associated with the feminine symbolizing the water and the sea whereas red was assigned to the masculine as it was looked upon as a derivative of the fiery red. (Joseluisledsma, 2020) On this note, let’s take a little walk down memory lane.
It may seem very weird to us today but prior to the 1940s, more so starting in the 18th century, the color pink was thought to be extremely masculine and one could even see men wearing pink silk suits with floral embroidery as said by a fashion scholar and director of The Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Another eye-catching example is, in the June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ department, there was a statement that said that the generally accepted rule would be that pink would be for the boys and blue for the girls. The reason for this was simple as pink was a stronger color while blue was perceived moreover as a dainty and delicate one suited for girls. This was not the only article that states so. Another article in the Time magazine in 1927 had a printed chart showing sex-appropriate colors for girls and boys according to leading U.S. stores (Filene’s, Best & Co., Halle’s, and even Marshall Field) in which again it was preferred to dress boys in pink and girls in blue clothing. (Mark Wilson, 2013) On the contrary, store giants like Macy’s in Manhattan and Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia identify pink as a color for little girls. There was hardly any unanimity. This is the reason that by the early 1900s, people were starting to think as pink as the color for girls. Similarly, an American millionaire also purchased two 18th century paintings featuring “the blue boy” and “pinkie- a girl dressed in a pink attire” which was heavily publicized by the American press. This could possibly be the reason why people began to think that for years innumerable; pink had been for girls and blue for the boys.
Today’s color dictate was not established until after the 1940s which was largely due to the influence of the manufacturers and retailers of the West. Pretty much what still goes on, doesn’t it? The West paves the way for us and we all blindly follow along.
The people of the early centuries were not so keen on distinguishing men from women as they were from distinguishing the young from the old. The pastel pink was favored by the youth and hence was accepted by young boys as well as girls. The distinction and the gender politics were a very well-played mind game, started not by the very people but the manufacturing firms.
The Millennial Trend
So now it is definitely safe to say that pink is a gender-neutral color. However, we are yet to reach a point where pink is just a color. There was once a time where black was strongly associated as a color of death and mourning, but now people wear black all the time and nobody asks them ‘who died?’. Pink will eventually reach this stage but for that men need to stop justifying or defending wearing it, because personally Ralph Lauren’s pink polo shirts or Shawn Mendes wearing a pink suit only raises the temperature in a room.
In the end, there’s just one thing to hope that consumerism does not consume pink. The color pink definitely helps us showcase the softer, more vulnerable side of our being. However, the millennial cycle of an endless assortment of pink products is distancing it away from our daily life. The pink today is not sublime, worn-out, or dirty that fits into our lifestyle, instead, it is a war cry. We do not know where exactly we head on from here but we do hope that the usage of pink will transcend the fleeting moments of trends and embrace its infinite place in time and space.
Reference Links
Wilson M. (2013, June 6). How Pink and Blue Became Gender-Specific. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/1672751/how-pink-and-blue-became-gender-specific
Joseluisledesma (2020, November 24). The Psychology of Colour: the masculine and feminine. Jose Luis Fernandez Ledesma. http://www.joseluisledesma.com/the-psychology-of-colour-the-masculine-and-feminine/
