Blush. Coral. Rose Gold. Bubble gum. Fuchsia. No matter the iteration, nothing gives us more pleasure than La Vie en Rose.

Don’t think she’s just a pretty face though—pink is a hue loaded with history. In Pink: The Exposed Color in Contemporary Art and Culture, Barbara Nemitz’ reveals that pink is regarded with drastic variation by different cultures. Contemporary Japanese culture perceives pink as a masculine and mournful color that represents “young warriors who fall in battle while in the full bloom of life.” In Germany, pink is “rosa”—a hue that’s “bright, soft, peaceful, sweet, and harmless.”

In Western culture, pink has evolved from one extreme to the next. The European bourgeoisie popularized the shade with their love of pastels in the 18^th century; the Pop Art movement gave pink a fuchsia facelift in the 1960’s; the 1990’s introduced pink to the world of neon; and today our beloved shade has settled into a hushed, gender-neutral version of herself known as “millennial pink.”

Pink has also lived many lives in fashion. While it was perfectly masculine for a man to wear a pink suit in the 18^th century, pink developed a “childish” reputation in the 1960’s, before it was revived as “girls-only” hue in the 1980’s.    

Politically, pink has come full circle. Once the color of “harmlessness, cuteness, sweetness, innocence, and the oppressed,” pink now boldly represents causes like Breast Cancer Awareness and LGBTQ demonstrations. Her power was never more palpable than it was at recent women’s marches throughout the U.S.

We suspect pink’s evolution is still underway.