Think Pink

The colour of summer 2017 seemed to be bubblegum pink. It was in all the high street shops, on the runway and seen all over Instagram. Our first project was surrounding a colour and thankfully I was allocated pink. The first part of the project was looking at the contrasting ideas of the colour. We were told we would have to make two mood boards, one titled ‘LOVE IT’ and the other ‘OVER IT’.

We spent a morning in a seminar researching and generating images that could link to these mood boards and as this is a degree level mood board it turned out to be a lot harder than anticipated. The ‘OVER IT’ mood board was relatively simple as I began looking at stereotypical, cliche uses of the colour pink. I researched into why pink is seen as a girly, feminine colour and I was surprised to find out that in 1920 it was a ‘generally accepted rule that pink is for boys as pink is seen as a decided and stronger colour which is suitable for boys’, and it wasn’t until 1940 when pink was established as a female gender signifier. My OVER IT board quickly became a tacky, barbie shrine.

For the LOVE IT board I wanted to look into defying expectations of the colour, so I began researching feminism. Something that cropped up was the women’s march in Washington and the ‘Pussy hats’ that everyone was wearing. I then came across Sheila Levrant de Bretteville ‘Pink poster’ her art work explored notions of gender associated with pink. I found this mood board exciting to make as everything I researched was so interesting and it sparked more finds that challenged the colour.

Next we will be executing a photoshoot in small groups exploring our colours so it will be interesting to see what images we produce.

Hollie Rose x