Millennial Pink: The pink that made a comeback

Pink has become a colour that has a lot of stigma towards gender identity. Recently the colour is mostly seen on trendy clothing lines, stationary, shoe lines and more. Millennial Pink, sometimes known as Tumbler Pink, is a washed out soft pink colour that is comparable to pastel pink. It is often compared to Rose Quartz in tone since it first came to popularity around the early 2010s. Now it’s cool to wear pink. How did that happen?

Pink is a very divisive colour with people thinking that it’s a colour for very feminine girls only. This was a part if a culture shift that I previously wrote about about light blue vs. pink. The culture change happened during the American Dream era with the First Lady of the United States wearing pink at the first inauguration of President Ike Eisenhower. The dress that she wore is still on display and the shade of pink is named after her, Mamie Eisenhower. The colour pink has been in the public eye has the most ideal colour for little girls in the European countries and the Americas since the 1950s. Most countries have different interpretations of the colour pink in design, fashion, at home and in society has a neutral colour for both sexes or just for men or just for women, it really depends on where. But since the 1950s a few things have happened since then. This is almost an update post about a previous log but it’s actually about another colour. The other colour is called Millennial Pink. It’s similar to Mamie Pink but lighter.

After a decade with digital media growth, social awareness is on the rise. Our ability to express ourselves with other people and ideas have changed. Our interpretation of gender and cliches through the colour pink have been changing. Recently, bright pink is used for social change like how Mauve-Tyrian purple was used in the turn of the century and now.

Young people born between 1980 to 2000 are called Millennials. People in this age bracket presumably have adapted to learn how to use the internet, basic computer skills and social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter. A lot of people become socially aware through social media and other sources like print, television, radio and podcasts. People became more socially aware of the problems and the other people that exist around them by stories being shared and being more socially aware.

As a brief explanation, this was also the decade that saw the most social change for the LGBTQ communities with countries legalizing gay marriages and the growth of women’s rights. Within the past 10 to 20 years, there has been more acceptance of people identifying themselves with different gender identities and sexual orientations.

But most importantly, the retro wave of the 1980s and 1990’s fashion came back. The bright neon lights, Day-Glow colours and pastels were everywhere in the 1980s and the 1990s. There was a point in time that pastels were everywhere too, it was the 80’s and early 90’s.

More people became more comfortable wearing pink not has a colour for femininity but as a neutral colour for men and women. It is also a colour that is used for a lot of social media advertisements. Millennial Pink gets a lot of responses back since the colour had a refreshing return to popularity and looks good as a backdrop for product placement and people, especially for the beauty and cosmetics focused similar to how Bastard Amber but looks better online since it’s mostly beige and the blue light makes the colour pop. It’s a colour that is best known in influencer marketing and social media. Millennial Pink is usually marketed for the 20s and 30s somethings in the marketplace. It’s in a lot of products for both men and women like shoes, bags, smartphone cases and outerwear. Numerous packaging designs and products that have this light beige-pink are a dime a dozen.

It turned into a gender-neutral colour “overnight”. It’s is a colour that is accepted by all genders and sexual orientations. Pretty much like how the colour pink was viewed as before the 1940s; for both genders especially for babies since both genders wore pink and dresses [before the turn of the century] to make changing the baby easier. It is not a particularly a bright colour like Barbie Pink but it’s a neutral colour like beige but a drop of red, like a blushy beige. It can relatively go with anything. A little pink can spruce up a wardrobe or a design.

It was the variations of the colour pink throughout the whole film in the 2014 crime drama The Grand Budapest Hotel that brought more people to notice the colour. The art direction and colour choices in this film used pink which made the film pop and kitschy for the average cinema goer. Millennial Pink is only on the top of the hotel.

The only other colour that is somewhat just as popular as Millennial Pink would be Rose Gold. This colour is a pinkish copper-gold. This was not a colour that was just invented for the fade but was a colour that was around since 19th century Russia. The jewelry designer for the czars of Russia and the inventor of the Fabergé Egg, Carl Fabergé, was one of the first people to use the metal alloy for his Fabergé egg. It was once called Russian Gold until the name was eventually changed worldwide to Rose Gold. The colour was used in places where Millennial Pink would be difficult to render like on smartphone metal castings to pink or most hair colour techniques. Between 2016 to 2018 (fairly recent times), dying your hair this combination of copper, blonde and pink was a recent trendy hair fade in the realm of rainbow hair and ombre hair (a gradient ramp for hair.)

It’s been ten years of pink in social media, movies, television, marketing and on products. I don’t think there is something called hitting the pink ceiling of over usage. Just a few years ago, succulents, Marvel comic book influenced products, neon lights, palm leaves, holographic and iridescent products were everywhere. Nowadays people are trying to predict the next big fade that would surpass Millennial Pink like Safety Orange and Gen-Z Yellow, which is a mustard yellow, without remembering the significance of the digital colour.

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Resources:

Sotheby’s – A History Lesson on Rose Gold