Our Fashion Choices Today Would Have Been Extremely Questionable in History

28. How Pink Became a Girlie Color

Historically speaking, pink as a feminine color is a relatively recent fashion development. In 1918, for example, a popular American catalog recommended that little girls wear blue, because it was dainty and delicate. In 1927, Time magazine conducted a survey of major department stores to find out which colors were commonly associated with girls in their clothing lines. The results were mixed, and pink did not stand out as a fashion choice for girls. Well into the 1920s, pink was worn by men and women alike. It was not until after World War II that pink developed the symbolic association with girls that we have today. The biggest driver behind that fashion development was First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. At the 1953 inauguration, the new First Lady came out in an enormous rhinestone-studded pink ball gown that won great admiration.

Mamie Eisenhower loved the color pink, and the country loved Mamie. She wore pink so often that a casual search of Mrs. Eisenhower’s newspaper coverage frequently finds references to pink either in the headline or the article. And it was not just pink, but “Mamie Pink”. It did not take long before the notion spread that pink is what ladylike women wore. In the 1957 musical romantic comedy Funny Face, for example, the lady editor of a fashion magazine breaks into song about how women in America today have to “think pink!” By the time Mamie had left the White House, pink was a popular color not just for female clothes, but also around the house as a favored women’s décor choice.