Colour trends can start in the most surprising ways. Last month, the world's longest-serving monarch, the popular King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, came out of hospital sporting a pink blazer and T-shirt. Royal astrologists told him it would be an auspicious colour since he was born in the Year of the Rabbit. Pink shirts quickly became Thailand's must-have fashion item. The Phufa fashion chain sold 40,000 to loyal subjects who lined up around the block for hours.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, when ex-heavyweight champion Mike Tyson checked into Maricopa County Jail for driving under the influence, he donned a different kind of uniform; his black-and-white striped prison skivvies came with pink accessories. Prisoners in this, one of the toughest prisons in the States, are obliged to wear pink socks and underpants - or should I say panties. Even the handcuffs are a deep pink. The colour is meant to humiliate the miscreants. No one in Maricopa County will be lining up to buy pink undies. In fact, pink has reduced the pilfering and selling of prison-issue underwear, once an underground fashion item. Across America, prisons also paint a bubble-gum shade called Baker-Miller pink on the walls of cells to calm down the most aggressive inmates.
In the fickle world of colour, pink was not always a girlie colour. For decades in Europe, it was considered a colour for little boys because pink was the baby brother of red, the masculine colour of strength, power and passion. Baby blue was for girls because it was delicate, pure and innocent. In Germany, between the two world wars, these two colours did a gender reversal. So the Nazis would force homosexuals and sex offenders to wear a pink triangle.
Now, in America, pink has a split personality: It is the colour of humiliation in penal institutions, but it is also the epitome male conservatism, as in the pink of a Brooks Brothers Oxford cloth shirt. In Britain, at Moss Bros, a high-end retailer of men's clothing on Oxford Street, London, pink is the fastest-growing colour in shirt sales.
Pinks are calming. You will do more bench presses looking at a red wall than a pink one. The University of Iowa painted the locker room for the visiting sports teams pink to gain an advantage. In my experience, most men find it very pleasant to live with and don't mind if their "wife chooses pink." Even teenaged boys like it if it is a strong magenta pink used as an accent. A palette of pastel pink with whites and creams evokes femininity, but with charcoals and browns it acquires a cross-gender appeal.
Meanwhile back in Thailand, King Bhumibol celebrated his 80th birthday on Dec. 5 and 20,000 more shirts were produced. They're selling like hot cakes. A pink crest was specially designed to mark the occasion. Royal guards wore spectacular pink busbies and military outfits giving a new spin to the notion that there's nothing like a man in a uniform - even if it's pink.
Janice Lindsay is a colour and design consultant, 416-961-6281. http://www.pinkcolouranddesign.com
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