Hue: Pink

silk taffeta gown, its multiple tiers
bordered in an effusion of ruffles.
Pink, as Ms. Steele writes, was
perceived in those days as a pretty
color expressive of delicacy.
The cultish color was taken up
by American club crawlers, the
emblem of cybergoths and ravers.
More recently, it was appropriated
by hip-hop culture. Turned out in
pink mink and diamonds at New
York Fashion Week in 2003, the
hip-hop artist Cam’ron lent the
sugary hue some clout.
“People showed me so much love,”
he later recalled. “I had to go out
to Pantone and create my own
color, which is called Killa Pink.”
With the years and shifting
emphasis, pink turned political,
the infamous pink triangle of the
Nazi era repurposed by gay
rights activists as a symbol of
protest. Pink was taken up by a
new generation of feminists as an
assertion of proud womanhood, a
trend that reached a crescendo
at the 2017 inauguration when
women descended on Washington
en masse, flaunting quaintly
homespun-looking pussy hats.
Pink took on a more knowing
shading, as marketers and scores
of young consumers made a run
on the beiged, grayed and dusty
variations known in aggregate
as millennial pink, a color that
spruced up a range of goods,
including Scandinavian furniture
and the Fenty label. Fenty’s
creator, Rihanna, improbably
melded a boudoir mood with the
aggressiveness of the playing field
in a spring 2017 collection. “I figured
pink would be over by the time this
show was up,” Ms. Steele said. But
there are indications — Tom Ford’s
pointy pink glitter shoes and the
feathery pink ball gown Lady Gaga
wore to the premiere of “A Star
Is Born,” among them — that pink
has yet to run its course. “In terms
of its meaning new things, pink
has acquired the charisma and
complexity of black,” -Ms. Steele
“Once it’s been
interpreted as
androgynous
& political color
that speaks to
young men &
women of all
races, there is
no going back.”
Photograph by Jackie Molloy
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