Pink has become a very fashionable colour and the Museum at FIT is currently celebrating this shade with the exhibition "Pink: The History of a Punk, Pretty, Powerful Color" (until 5th January 2019).
Curated by Valerie Steele, the museum director, the event looks at how the meaning and significance of the pink colour changed in the last three centuries going from sweet and feminine to punk, powerful and rebellious. "Pink" is therefore a sort of journey from 18th century Pompadour pink to "Millennial pink", passing through Schiaparelli’s Shocking pink.
One of the most famous references to pink appears in Stanley Donen's 1957 film Funny Face starring Audrey Hepburn, that featured the joyous number "Think Pink!" an ode to the colour.
Three years later, the shade was still going strong: Italian magazine Annabella dedicated in October 1960 a central spread featuring the latest partywear in different shades of pink - from peony to bright camellia and rhododendron, from watermelon to pink grapefruit. The magazine also stated that pink-lilac had replaced white for the dresses of Christmas debutantes.
The styles were different and so were their materials, going from long evening gowns to short cocktail dresses in bicoloured taffeta, raspberry pink brocade or in a deep and sensual velvet. Judging from the elegant or cute styles, pink was still feminine and romantic at the time and there wasn't anything rebellious about it (though the bi-coloured taffeta dress with its puffy skirt was an attempt at presenting a fresh and unconventional look...).
The magazine didn't add the name of the designers to the gowns, but it usually featured mainly French and Italian houses, so you can try and guess who designed what. While you're busy in this fashion quiz, remember, "Think pink! Think pink! if you want that quel-que chose," as Kay Thompson in the role of fashion magazine editor Maggie Prescott sang in Funny Face.
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