A Personal History of Pink

Photos: Angela Petrovska

When it comes to dressing for the winter season, my whole mantra is "Wear color to brighten up your day" and even though I too sometimes want to just blend into the crowd and disappear with the gray, most of the time I'll be the girl with a bright yellow hat on, or, in this case, in a full-on pink outfit.  

So, in honor of pink, let's go through a brief overview of my history with this color because we go waaay back. I think every single girl to ever exist on the planet has been adorned with everything pink since coming out of the womb. Pink baby clothes, pink toys, pink room, pink everything. Although I think (or, should I say, hope) people are over pairing specific genders with specific colors, as in pink is for girls and blue is for boys, at this point, it's pretty clear that it's mostly associated with being a girl. And I feel like that's why every girl has gone through a phase where she "hates pink", and honestly, I can't blame us. Pink is associated with femininity and fragility, and there are only so many stereotypical comments one can take before fully refusing to wear this cliché-ridden color. 

I went through a similar phase, after wearing ONLY pink for the majority of first through fourth grade. I even have a class photo where I'm wearing all pink, including pink tights, pink shoes, and pink barrette clips. I even remember having this pink dress that was arguably too small for me, but I loved it so much that I continued wearing it for "special occasions". And then the cultural shift of falling into either a "Gossip Girl girl" or a "Paramore Emo girl" category came into play. I think I was a Gossip Girl girl because I wore a lot of blazers and smart shirts, but pink was totally out even for Gossip Girl. They wore short skirts and preppy blazers, but rarely pink. Because that would be a cliché. 

  

I remember when the whole pink and red trend happened in 2019, and every fashionista on my feed was wearing a variation of this. As with every trend, I suspected this would be only a short-lived thing that we would look back on and laugh about (rip chokers and leopard print midi skirts), but somehow, in February 2021, I still find this color combo to be as cute as I remember. Maybe it's already dead & I'm just blind, but outfits like this make me smile and feel extra cute, especially in winter. Or maybe I'm just projecting my inner-child onto a more socially acceptable variation of wearing pink, but for grown-ups. And I actually find this quite interesting, because up until last year, I haven't felt a strong urge to like, or buy pink clothing. Ask my one bubble gum pink sweatshirt, it can attest. We could try and explain my mental state in connection to this color association, but I think I've blabbered on for far too long, and I'll maybe leave that open for a future journal entry.  

Where was I going with this? Ah yes, I wanted to leave you off with a sentiment...I think. 

Sometimes, colors are just colors. Shocking, I know. But, you'd be surprised how much importance we give to colors and how much they impact our lives. It's no new news that certain colors mean something, either to us personally or to society, but it's up to you to determine how you want to interpret those colors, without social constraints, and what you want them to mean. For me, wearing pink and red might be a childhood dream come true, or (intensively) bringing back this color into my life and making up for the lost time. But, at the end of the day, it's also something I like to wear when my surroundings are gray and boring, and I want to brighten up my day (quite literally), and the day of those who catch a glimpse of my outfit. No metaphors, no hidden meanings, just color. Try thinking about it this way and you'd be surprised how fun dressing up could be.