Norman Parkinson, Anne Gunning II, Outside the City Palace, Jaipur, 1956, Color Photo British Vogue, November 1956
Peak Pink
By Philip Auslander
In 1956, American Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, upon seeing Norman Parkinson’s photograph of Anne Gunning modeling a pale pink mohair coat in a scene replete with other shades of pink shot in Jaipur, India, reportedly exclaimed, “How clever of you, Mr. Parkinson, also to know that pink is the navy blue of India.” Vreeland uttered her comment––which underlines the way the social meaning of a color changes according to its context––at a moment when pink seemed poised to usurp the cultural dominance of more mundane tones. Whether or not pink truly was the navy blue of India, historically, pink had not been an everyday color in the west, largely because the dyes necessary to produce pink fabrics derived from materials that had to be imported from South America or South Asia and were therefore very expensive. For this reason, pink was associated with the aristocratic classes, as seen in works by English and French painters of the 18th century such as Antoine Watteau, William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds, and Francois Boucher. It was associated with the French court, particularly with Mme. de Pompadour, King Louis XVI’s mistress, after whom the Sèvres porcelain company named a shade of pink, Rose Pompadour. Over the next century, the transition from natural to artificial dyes meant that pink could be produced more cheaply, dismantling its association with aristocracy and making it accessible to people of all social classes.
This democratization of pink was in full swing in the United States and Europe at the time Vreeland made her observation, at all levels of fashion, from haute couture to outfits for teenagers. Clothing designers reacted to the end of World War II and the austerity and deprivations it had entailed by embracing vibrant colors and dramatic lines. In 1953, Mamie Eisenhower wore a pink peau de soie gown emblazoned with 2,000 pink rhinestones to the inaugural ball celebrating Dwight D. Eisenhower’s election to the US presidency. She was frequently depicted wearing pink, including in her official portrait painted by Thomas Edgar Stevens in 1959, and “Mamie Pink” became a cultural phenomenon that extended to fashion and home décor, including bathroom fixtures. The First Lady redid so much of the White House’s private quarters in pink that it became known as “The Pink Palace.” A few years earlier, fashion designers Christian Dior and Cristóbal Balenciaga had created striking pink cocktail and evening wear for women. They and other couturiers began to work with Shocking Pink, the intense tone created in the 1930s by the Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli by mixing magenta with a little bit of white.
Jean-Antoine Watteau, The Scale of Love (La Gamme d’Amour), c.1717-8, Oil on canvas, 50.8 × 59.7 cm, Bequeathed by Sir Julius Wernher, Bt, 1912,
The National Gallery, London, UK
Among young American women, pink prom dresses and poodle skirts were hugely popular. The poodle skirt, a one-piece felt garment invented by Juli Lynne Charlot in 1947 because she needed a holiday skirt and lacked sewing skills, was largely a do-it-yourself phenomenon that could be made in any color, and many makers chose hues of pink. Popular songs of the time, such as Marty Robbins’ “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation” (1957), hinted at pink as an accessorizing color for young men. Singing of her boyfriend, Dooley, a character given to bold fashion choices, Dodie Stevens identifies part of his signature look as “Pink Shoelaces” (1959). A LIFE magazine article identified 1955 as “The Peak Year for Pink” in menswear, declaring that “Sole responsibility lies with New York’s Brooks Brothers, whose pink shirt, introduced in 1900 but long unnoticed, was publicized for college girls in 1949 and caught on for men too.” The article notes, “Now more of a staple than a luxury, the color is even acceptable to teen-age boys.”
The mid-century preeminence of pink was celebrated in the musical number “Think Pink!” from the film Funny Face (1957), in which Kay Thompson, playing Maggie Prescott, a character based on Vreeland, admonishes a group of women dressed in conventional colors to “Banish the black, burn the blue, and bury the beige! From now on, girls, think pink!” After this pronouncement, she unfurls a bolt of pink fabric in the direction of the camera. Thereafter, the staging of the musical number presents several well-known fashion models of the time showing off glamorous pink outfits in a variety of circumstances. The song also alludes to domestic uses of the color through references to pink shampoo and toothpaste, and a cadre of male painters transforming off-white walls into pink ones.
Arguably, however, pink did not completely lose its association with luxury and success, thanks to that iconic American automotive status symbol, the pink Cadillac. In a famous photograph by George Karger published in LIFE in 1950, the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, then the 29-year-old welterweight champion in the midst of a streak of 91 victories, is seen dressed in a pink suit and hat, leaning casually on a long pink Cadillac convertible in front of his nightclub, Sugar Ray’s. The marquee of the storefront next to the restaurant identifies it as Ray Robinson Enterprises, the boxer’s real estate company. At the height of his success, Robinson owned almost all the businesses on this Harlem block, which also included a barbershop, an insurance agency, a lingerie shop, and a laundromat. The LIFE photo celebrates the boxer not so much for his athletic prowess as for his entrepreneurship and larger-than-life presence, which reflected the vitality of Harlem in the 1940s and 1950s. In the photograph, the pink hue with which Robinson surrounds himself makes him stand out against the neutral masonry of the buildings behind him.
George Karger, Sugar Ray Robinson with his Pink Cadillac, Harlem, New York City c.1950, color photo
Elvis Presley is said to have been influenced by Robinson’s sartorial choices. In his 1955 version of Arthur Gunter’s song “Baby Let’s Play House,” Presley interpolates lyrics that equate owning a pink Cadillac with possessing a college education. The car in question was Elvis’s own, which he had purchased to use as his band’s touring vehicle. He had it painted pink to match his black-and-pink stage outfits, designed for him by Bernard Lansky of the Memphis men’s store Lansky Brothers, which started a teen-aged fashion trend. The famous pink Cadillacs the Mary Kay cosmetics company has bestowed upon its most successful sales reps since 1969 are in a custom color called “Mary Kay Pink Pearl.” They are called “Career Cars” and serve as visible symbols of monetary achievement. Whereas in the 18th century, the connection between elevated social status and the color pink derived from the fact that pink dyes and fabrics were costly, the continued association of the color with economic success illustrated by the pink Cadillac has more to do with the way pink is still a bold choice that makes its bearer stand out from the crowd.
In 1989, when Sugar Ray Robinson died, a New York Times reader wrote a finger-wagging letter to the paper’s sports editor taking issue with the description of his car as pink, saying, “The car was fuchsia. . . . Ray would no more have driven a pink Cadillac than Gen. George Patton would have toted pearl-handled revolvers; when that fact was incorrectly attributed to him, Patton pointed out that his weapons were ivory-handled.” Clearly for this writer, pink and pearl were too feminine for the likes of Robinson and Patton (though why fuchsia, which is generally understood to be a type of pink, should be seen as masculine is an open question). However, the association of pink with femininity, now taken for granted, is of relatively recent origin. In the 18th century, pink was seen as a kind of red, and red was perceived as a strong, aggressive color suitable for men, an association that persisted into the 20th century. Aristocratic men and women both dressed proudly in pink.
JeongMee Yoon, The Blue Project I – Jake and His Blue Things, New York, USA, 2006,
Light jet Print ©JeongMee Yoon
JeongMee Yoon, The Pink Project - SeoWoo and Her Pink Things, A, 2006, Light jet Print ©JeongMee Yoon
Even the Barbie doll was not associated with feminine pink as she is now when introduced in 1959. There was no pink in her first line of clothes, and her first officially pink outfit, the “Busy Gal” set of 1960, is arguably more red than pink. When Barbie’s Dream House first appeared in 1962, it was a cardboard studio apartment whose interior was primarily yellow rather than the luxurious multi-story pink confection immortalized in the Barbie movie of 2023. Barbie was originally conceived as a fashionista doll for adolescent girls; it was only when her manufacturer, Mattel, decided to rebrand her for younger girls in the 1970s that her world became pink. Mattel introduced a new color, Barbie Pink (Pantone 219C), described as “somewhere between pink and magenta, bordering on fuchsia.” Barbie’s introductory garment in 1959 was a black-and-white striped swimsuit; Superstar Barbie, who appeared in 1976, was the first to be swathed in pink. The all-pink Dream House debuted ten years later, in 1986, and Barbie became increasingly associated with pink over the next decade.
The question of whether pink is for girls and blue is for boys was litigated culturally during the World War I era. A 1918 article in the Infant’s Department, an industry publication, stated, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty is prettier for the girl.” As fashion historian Valerie Steele points out, this does not mean that these associations were definitive at the time. Rather, it suggests that the gender associations of pink were undecided. She points out that they varied from store to store. Summarizing a 1927 article in Time magazine Steele reports that “Stores that believed pink was for boys and blue for girls included Best & Co. (Manhattan), Marshall Fields (Chicago), Filene’s (Boston), Maison Blanche (New Orleans) and the White House (San Francisco). Stores that believed blue was for boys and pink for girls included Macy’s (Manhattan), Franklin Simon (Manhattan), Bullock’s (Los Angeles) and Wanamaker’s (Philadelphia).”
Thomas Gainsborough, Blue Boy, c.1770, Oil on canvas, 70 5/8 x 48 3/4 inches, Courtesy of theThe Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California
Thomas Lawrence, Sarah Goodin Barrett Moulton: Pinkie c.1779,
Oil on canvas, 58 1/4 × 40 1/4 inches, Courtesy of theThe Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California
The association of blue with boys and pink with girls was encouraged by the popularity of two 18th century English paintings, Thomas Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy (1770) and Thomas Lawrence’s Pinkie (1779). Both were acquired by Arabella and Henry Huntington in the 1920s and hung opposite one another in the gallery of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. "Blue Boy" and "Pinkie" mania took hold in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s, as inexpensive reproductions of the two paintings were ubiquitous in American households (including that of June Cleaver on the Leave It to Beaver television series) alongside a seemingly endless array of kitschy home decorations that included porcelain figurines and plates, ceramic wall plaques, and needlepoint samplers. Although the two artworks were painted by different artists in different decades, and their respective subjects had no connection to one another, the two were always presented as a pair in popular culture and were often understood to constitute historic “evidence” that justified the notion that blue is a masculine color and pink a feminine one.
Although pink clearly had its mid-century moment, it never did become our navy blue. In a discussion of Barbie Pink, Giovanni Blandino observes that “Many people have described it as a pink that cannot be ignored.” Perhaps this is true for all shades of pink: it is a color that stands out, that is never taken for granted and must be accounted for. Think of the way specific hues of pink have been associated with high-profile individuals: Pompadour Pink, Mamie Pink, Barbie Pink, and Mary Kay Pink Pearl. Pink is distinctive--it constitutes a bold, individual identity. It is a color that draws attention and invites controversy. In 2016, Anish Kapoor became the only artist permitted to use Vantablack, known as the world’s “blackest black,” a color originally developed for the military. Kapoor’s exclusive claim on a color understandably enraged many artists. One, British artist Stuart Semple, responded by developing his own intense version of a color and making it available to everyone except Kapoor. The name of his color: simply Pink, of course. The world’s pinkest pink.
Philip Auslander writes frequently on performance, music, and art. His most recent books are In Concert: Performing Musical Persona, published in 2021, the third edition of Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, and Women Rock! Portraits in Popular Music, both 2023. Dr. Auslander is a Professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech, and the Editor of The Art Section.
Phil Auslander
Photo: Marie Thomas