These are days when colours like pink are embraced even in “testosterone-heavy formal wear” as Kamakshi Kaul, Head, Women & Kids wear Design, at Max Fashion India, puts it.
To be sure, she is referring to men’s wear. She says, “Nobody who is fashion savvy will call a guy in pink a sissy any more.”
While one can now see powder pink hues in menswear and blues like cobalts and indigos trending for ladies, it’s true that most customers still follow the established rule of ‘Blue for Boys, Pink for Girls’. After all, it has been almost a century of conditioning, so it will take a while for the lines to be blurred.
To begin with, it’s the marketers who started the stereotype that they are now trying hard to break. Sandeep Khapra, Head Men’s wear Design at Max Fashion India, points out that in the early part of the 20th century, the stereotype of ‘Blue for Boys, Pink for Girls’ was first promoted by infant clothing manufacturers.
This was primarily to discourage the handing down of infant clothing between babies of the two genders. By making this distinction, marketers were aiming to increase consumption.
“The colour references to a gender do not hold good only in the apparel segment, but seem like a forced classification, from the day that babies are brought home and wrapped in their pink or blue wraps. These inferences have been made about gender and colour since birth,” agrees Anjana Reddy, CEO, Universal Sportsbiz.
The stereotyping got established in full swing only in the 1980s and 1990s with prenatal testing gaining ground, says Khapra.
Earlier, mothers were apt to buy gender-neutral clothing for their baby-to-be, so that it would work whether they had a boy or a girl.
Now they were confident in investing in gender-specific clothing and accessories. In current times, with gender equality and women empowerment getting a lot of attention, the age-old stereotypes could come crumbling down.
Gender-neutral upbringing Pink was chosen for women as it’s a delicate colour, often associated with love, beauty, charm, politeness, sensitivity, tenderness, sweetness, childhood, femininity, and the romantic.
By pushing pink for women stereotypes, marketers risk portraying women as delicate beings who need to be taken care of. Khapra points out that in the 1960s and 1970s, pink went out of style altogether in the western countries, as a result of counter-cultural and feminist movements.
“Liberated mothers attempted to give their girls a gender-neutral upbringing,” he says. In fact, during 1976-78, pink clothing for toddlers was entirely absent from the Sears catalogue.