pink stinks

From BBC News, a discussion about wearing the colour pink.

Men in the pink

By Finlo Rohrer BBC News Magazine

A pressure group wants parents to resist buying pink toys for girls this Christmas. But the colour isn't just controversial for girls - men are only just getting over their fuchsia phobia and for boys pink really does stink.

If you're a typical little boy, pink is viewed as girly, effeminate, unmasculine, and, in short, to be avoided.

And yet, a strange thing seems to happen to the modern British boy when they reach adulthood. Pink no longer seems to be so rigidly associated with female dress.

In many areas of British life, like the City, pink shirts are seen as normal workwear. Pink ties are normal. Even pink socks make an appearance.

There are men who are comfortable in pink who would not dress their sons in pink

And it's not just in finance. Pink is a classic colour for polo shirts. On everyone from mods in Fred Perry, to those who model their dress on football "casuals", pink is not seen as fundamentally feminine.

The colour is currently popular in both high fashion and the High Street, says Robert Johnston, associate editor of GQ magazine.

"We have all grown up a bit. Pink is a flattering colour. This season there are a lot of pastels for men - a lot of those will be pink. Women like men in pink."

To take one example, 5% of shirts sold by the English shirtmaker Turnbull & Asser, based in London's Jermyn Street, are pink. "It is one of the default choices," says buyer Charles O 'Reilly.

Pink hasn't always been acceptable for men.

"We have come a long way even compared with 20 years ago," says Johnston. "Pink was the last taboo colour-wise."

PINKSTINKS CAMPAIGN Running for 18 months Currently targeting Early Learning Centre Activists argue that while a wide variety of boys' toys are available, those for girls are often predominantly pink 'PinkStinks' campaign urges shop boycott

"If you look at places like Jermyn Street and Savile Row you will see pink," says Bronwyn Cosgrave, author of Costume & Fashion: A Complete History. " It is historic."

So the story of pink clothing acceptance isn't as simple as a recent innovation.

"Men, for centuries up to the dawn of the 20th Century, were far more elaborately dressed than women," says Ms Cosgrave. In the era of the dandy - the late 18th Century - pink wasn't that unorthodox for a man.

"There was a great sobering effect with the dawn of the Wall Street and City culture - men have gone to work in the last 100 years in pinstripes and white shirts."

There were exceptions. "Douglas Fairbanks and Cary Grant - immensely important in popularising modes of male dress - wore pink shirts and sweaters," says Ms Cosgrave.

In the 1960s and 1970s the influence of the counterculture on dress also began to loosen things up, she argues.

Pastel tones are apparently 'in' right now

Colour consultant Angela Wright concurs. "Until about 40 or 50 years ago, men did not show their feminine side at all. They were required to be strong and ultra masculine the whole time, so pink was out.

"There was little doubt in anyone's mind that a man wearing pink was definitely suspect. When the pace of evolving attitudes increased, around the same time as homosexuality between consenting adults was legalised, the strong demarcation lines between the sexes began to blur."

Even the idea that pink is a colour particularly associated with homosexuality doesn't bear out.

"Gay men don't actually appear to feel the need to stress that side of themselves in their dress," says Ms Wright, of consultancy firm Colour Affects. "It is more a case that society does that for them, by, for example, naming their purchasing habits 'The Pink Pound'."

Certain tailors, like Richard James and Ozwald Boateng, are associated with the use of flamboyant colours. And traditionalists have also beat a path.

Dress became less conservative in the 1960s and 1970s

"Thomas Pink really did legitimise men flaunting pastel shades such as pink and lavender," says Ms Cosgrave.

After the austerity of the middle years of the 20th Century, fashion has come back to the point where wearing pink would be seen as nothing more than flamboyant, or having certain "preppy" or upper class connotations.

"It has got that Ivy League, slightly public school [connotation], you think of posh boys, sweaters round their shoulders," says Johnston.

"The gender separating of colours of clothing is more or less over."

Perhaps the strangest thing is that the bar against pink for boys persists. The very same men who are happy to wear a pink polo shirt might think twice about dressing a 10-year-old boy the same way.

"I remember when I was a kid little boys would throw away pink felt tips [from a set]."

Pink no longer undermines a man

It has been noted, not least by the sceptic Ben Goldacre while attacking research on the subject, that the pink/blue split was not always as it is today.

He cited the Ladies' Home Journal from 1918 saying: "There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but 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 colour is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."

So the mystery of why people will not dress boys in pink persists.

Really, pink is a dreadful colour. It has nothing to do with it being a 'girly' colour. It is more to do with pink being a ghastly shade of red.

I would never give anything pink as a gift for a just born a baby girl as it is a ghastly colour. Soft yellow or even blue, perhaps green would be more suitable.