![]() ![]() Pink morphed into something delicate, cutesy and unthreatening after World War Two, when men went back to work, and women were retreating into the home. I had a very complicated relationship with it." So for a long time, I completely avoided pink. "But for me, growing up as a child of the 80s and 90s, of course, pink was very much a feminine colour, and I had it shoved down my throat. "My father was born in 1925, he's a military man and yet pink is his favourite colour and he doesn't see anything peculiar about that," St Clair tells BBC Culture. An 1893 article on baby clothes in The New York Times stated that you should "always give pink to a boy and blue to a girl." Pink was seen as the stronger colour – a relative of the passionate, aggressive red, while blue was the signature hue of the Virgin Mary. As Kassia St Clair, a cultural historian and author of The Secret Lives of Colour, notes, the girl-pink/boy-blue divide didn't set in until the mid-20th Century. The club – co-owned by David Beckham – launched its striking new kit in February and is still only one of a small handful of professional male teams to play in pink – a colour that, despite featuring heavily in recent menswear collections, is still strongly associated with women. So ubiquitous is the build-up to Barbie's release that you could be forgiven for thinking Lionel Messi was on the Mattel payroll when he officially signed for Inter Miami at the weekend, revealing his pink number 10 jersey. Why adults should read children's books The movie's all-conquering marketing campaign has left a sea of pink wherever it goes, from billboards, buses and the cast's (pink) carpet outfits to a real-life Barbie Dreamhouse on Airbnb, more than 100 brand tie-ins and a Google takeover. The new live-action film about the iconic doll, starring Margot Robbie and directed by Greta Gerwig, has leant right into Barbie's association with the colour, its set designers working with a palette of 100 different shades, and apparently contributing to a global shortage of pink paint. If summer 2023 has a colour, then it is undoubtedly pink, and it's all down (mostly) to one woman: Barbie. Does it feel like you're looking at the world through rose-tinted spectacles right now? You're not alone. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |