Poppy Playtime Pink
Valentino’s FW 2022 show debuted his trademarked “PP Pink”
Pink. Millennial Pink. Pierpaolo Piccioli Pink. When the Summer 2023 issue of Vogue hit my doorstep, featuring Margot Robbie in a pink Versace dress with matching pink backdrop, I decided it was finally time to explore further this politically charged hue.
Let’s start with so-called “Millenial Pink.” According to a 2017 article in The Guardian, pink represents “an ironic prettiness” or “post-prettiness.” Millenial Pink, according to this and other sources, specifically refers to Pantone’s shade 13-1404 aka “Pale Dogwood,” a “quiet and peaceful pink shade that engenders an aura of innocence and purity.” Why did pink, and this shade in particular, rise in popularity in the 2010’s? Partly as the symbolic color of the #MeToo movement. Other cultural references include the 2014 Wes Anderson movie “Grand Budapest Hotel,” in which the shade is used liberally, and the release in 2015 of the rose gold iPhone.
Five years later, for his 2022/2023 Fall-Winter collection at Valentino, Pierpaolo Piccioli staged a monochromatic show featuring only two colors: pink and black. Not just any shade of pink…Piccioli collaborated with the Pantone Color Institute to design a very specific shade, hereafter known as “P.P. Pink.” Piccioli’s reasoning for this unique, monochromatic strategy was, in his own words, “to eliminate the shock of color.” The audience’s attention, the reasoning goes, would then be drawn towards the cut, drape, and style of each garment, as well as the model’s own personality. But why pink? Piccioli describes pink as a “manifestation of the unconscious and a liberation from the need for realism.”
But of course, pink predates the 21st century – so where did it come from, and how has its cultural meaning changed over time? Pink is first referenced as a concept in Homer’s “The Odyssey” in 800 B.C. and was officially named in the 17th century by a Greek botanist. According to The Guardian, in the mid-18th century pink was fashionable among men and women as a signifier of aristocracy. An article I found on artandobject.com further elaborates that the mistress of Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour, commissioned the Sevres porcelain company to issue a specific shade of pink, which was named after her. Even through the early 20th century, both men and women wore the color; in fact, some argued that blue, as a “gentle” shade, was more feminine, while pink, being a variation of red, was the more masculine. That changed after WWII when pink was feminized to drive women out of the workforce and back into the home. There is also evidence that Nazis used pink triangles to demarcate what they considered “sexual deviants,” including homosexuals, which later led to the color being re-appropriated by the LGBTQ community in the 70’s as a symbol of Gay Pride.
Pink and blue were further gendered in the 1980’s when technology allowed expecting parents to learn their child’s gender before birth, leading retailers to market baby gear in either blue or pink, and thus gender reveal parties were “born.”
So, as we see, the color pink at various points in history has been associated with aristocracy and opulence, purity and innocence, and also sexuality. In 2017 Judy Bazis designed and popularized the “Pussy Hat” in a shade of hot pink…. both the hat and the shade came to represent the International Women’s Day of protest against the election of then-President Trump. By re-appropriating this controversial color in various shades, communities have flipped the script. Who knew that pink could hold such power? Plus, it just looks pretty.
*Poppy Playtime is a horror game created by Mob Entertainment in which a cursed stretchy toy named “Mommy Longlegs” (clearly a reference to the Fred Astaire-Audrey Hepburn movie, “Daddy Longlegs”) is not only deceptively named but also deceptively colored in a shade of hot pink. Her color and her name are clearly intended to denote maternity, nurturing, and safety…but clearly in the spirit of irony.
