There's also a small section on the pink-versus-blue gender coding in children's wear, a binary that was still in flux in the late 1920s, when opinion was divided as to whether pink was for boys or for girls. The final decision seems to have been influenced by publicity surrounding a millionaire's purchase of the paintings Blue Boy and Pinkie. Reproductions of these are featured along with that of another 18th-century painting, Pink Boy.
The exhibition also traces declensions of pink; for example, how around 1900, pale pinks implied delicate, aristocratic femininity, while by 1912, a vibrant cherry pink was thought exotic. And while the 1920s is often referenced by Gabrielle Chanel's Little Black Dress, pink in all iterations rose to popularity, crowned by Schiaparelli in the 1930s.
A second gallery expands audience perspectives on pink and illustrates how designers are challenging traditional thought about the color – such as Rei Kawakubo, the radical creative force behind Comme des Gar?ons, who has been influential with avant-garde collections such as Biker/Ballerina and 18th-Century Punk. The house of Valentino even recently produced T-shirts proclaiming that "Pink is Punk". Never has pink seemed so Panavision after this show in New York, which runs until January 2019.
