Ask pretty much anyone today and they'll tell you that blue is for boys and pink is for girls, with many becoming horrified at the mere mention that pink should be worn by boys, yet that hasn't always been the case as history shows us, nor has it for many items of clothing that are now exclusive to the female sex, but before we can get to the discussion value a brief history lesson is in order.
Depicted below is Louis XIV of France.
Notice those high heels he's wearing? Yes that was actually a thing and was a common item of clothing for men during the 1600's, but ask any woman and they'll tell you just how painful and unpractical high heels are, with many denouncing the dreaded cobbled street, or any surface that isn't flat and even, and well that's because the high heel wasn't designed and isn't meant to be walked in, they were actually first used by Persian cavalry hence they're meant to be used whilst horse riding.
Now getting back to the issue of colour, things were once not so set in stone. Here below is "Pink boy" by artist Gainsborough.
From my research I've discovered that for a long time blue had a heavy association with the Virgin Mary as she was very often depicted in art as wearing the colour throughout history, but I guess as we've become more secular this notion has faded away but I think we can establish that blue definitely used to be a girl's colour at some point in time. As to whether pink was a boy's colour that is much harder to prove; you often get sites citing old articles which when read turn out to be untrue, but the colour red was a common favourite among men and boys but because of inferior dying technology the colours in these garments used to run or fade, resulting in red clothing turning pink, so considering this I don't think it would have been unusual to see boys and men wearing pink, and it was probably accepted, but whether it was specifically a colour for them is uncertain, but then again I doubt you'd find the same frothing at the mouth hatred towards boy's wearing it as you do today.
As to how pink became a girl's colour I believe it happened for a number of reasons, perhaps because homosexuals were shamed with the colour during WWII and the implications that resulted, or more importantly because of how girls toys, especially Barbie dolls, were marketed after WWII, which like how Coca Cola has cemented red as the colour for Christmas, seems to have cemented the colour pink in our minds for girls.
Moving on though more certain however is whether or not boys wore long stockings which they certainly did. Seen depicted below are three American children from the 1920s.
For those not in the know long stockings are effectively really long socks hence the name, depending on the length they can go up to near your thigh, or if longer all the way up to the bottom of your underwear, with them usually being held up by a bodice or garter waist, and were pretty much the precursor to tights. In fact they were seen as a favourite by mothers because of their practicality, with them being popular throughout all of Europe, and even in America and the UK up until the late 1920's, and after long stockings came tights.
Seen above is two Russian children from 1988, yes it's pretty much still acceptable for boys to wear tights in Russia as it is in many Eastern European countries such as Poland too, in fact young boys wear them in Germany as well although they're referred to as kinderstrumphosen instead, which to my UK mind seems a bit baffling because if that were to happen here it would really garner looks and turn heads.
Now if you're still with me I saved the biggest shocker for last.
That is not a girl it's actually a boy as amazing as that is. Prinz = prince - V = of - Bayern = Bavaria hence Prince Luitpold of Bavaria who was born in 1901 and died in 1914, so I reckon the picture is dated between 1903-1905. As to why he's wearing a dress well up until the very early 1900's it was common for boys to wear dresses, the reason being that it's easier to change a child's nappy/diaper if they're in a dress, with boys not having to worry about awkward buttons or claps to deal with once they were potty trained, and going further back the practice was pretty much expected up to a certain age in Victorian times, with boy's usually switching to breeches around the age of four or five, hence the practice was called breeching.
And if dressing little boys in dresses wasn't enough, they were often given very feminine haircuts too.
Seen above is Prince Leopold of Belgium (Luitpold/Leopold was a popular name among royalty then), with his younger brother Charles, and yes I think that is probably one of the most feminine outfits/haircuts I've even seen on a boy, his hair has obviously been put in curlers! Yet this was seen as perfectly acceptable and normal then.
So with the history lesson out of the way, here is the discussion value.
1. Did the information above shock you? And if it did/didn't how and why?
2. Have your views on gender and fashion changed? Either way how and why?
3. Why do you think we have such polar opposite views towards male fashion today compared to how it was historically? So basically how, why and when did the change occur?
4.Do you think removing gender exclusivity from clothing would result in more gender equality? And if so would you like that change to happen? Either way I'd be interested to know.
Edit - The post isn't concerned with proving fashion changes, (I guess I felt that was obvious and didn't include it), but why the fashions have changed and how you feel about it.
