I believe in pink

Pink is a pale red color, which takes its name from the flower of the same name.According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink, especially when combined with white or pale blue, is the color most commonly associated with femininity, sensitivity, tenderness, childhood, and the romantic. However, when combined with violet or black, it is associated with eroticism and seduction.

The 20th century

In the 20th century, pinks became bolder, brighter and more assertive, in part because of the invention of chemical dyes which did not fade. The pioneer in the creation of the new wave of pinks was the Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli, (1890-1973) who was aligned with the artists of the surrealist movement, including Jean Cocteau. In 1931 she created a new variety of the color, called Shocking pink, made by mixing magenta with a small amount of white. She also created a scandal by launching a perfume of the same name, sold in a bottle in the shape of a woman's bust. Her fashions, co-designed with artists such as Cocteau, featured the new pinks.

In Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, inmates of concentration camps who were accused of homosexuality were forced to wear apink triangle. Because of this, the pink triangle has become a symbol of the modern gay rights movement.

In 1973, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville created "Pink," a broadside meant to explore the notions of gender as associated with the color pink, for an American Institute of Graphic Arts exhibition about color. This was the only entry about the color pink. Various women including many in the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman's Building submitted entries exploring their association with the color. De Bretteville arranged the squares of paper to form a "quilt" from which posters were printed and disseminated throughout Los Angeles. She was often called "Pinky" as a result.

In 1993, artist Gioia Fonda created a conceptual piece in the form of a week long holiday called pink week. The intention of pink week is to liberate the color pink from all dogma and simply celebrate the color pink as a color.

Bubblegum Pink is an installation by the artist duo Bigert & Bergstrom which "confronted [the viewer] with three different mental climates" involving large amounts of pink. This mirrors the use of the color in American prisons to calm aggressive prisoners. It features a pink cell and a carpet worn by repetitive pacing.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Surrounded Islands wrapped wooded islands in Miami's Biscayne Bay with 6,500,000 sq ft (600,000 m²) of bright pink fabric. Thomas von Taschitzki has said that "the monochrome pink wrappings"..."form a counterpoint to the small green wooded islands."

Many of Franz West's aluminium sculptures were often painted a bright pink, for example Sexualitatssymbol (Symbol of Sexuality).West has said that the pink was intended as an "outcry to nature".

Popularity

Although pink is one of the rare colors with no negative associations, it also is one of the least popular colors. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink was the favorite color of only two percent of respondents, compared with forty-five percent who chose blue. It was the least-favorite color of seventeen percent of respondents; the only color more disliked was brown, with twenty percent. There was a notable difference between men and women; three percent of women chose pink as their favorite color, compared with less than one percent of men. Many of the men surveyed were unable to even identify pink correctly, confusing it with mauve. Pink was also more popular with older people than younger; twenty-five percent of women under twenty-five called pink their least favorite color, compared with only eight percent of women over fifty. Twenty-nine percent of men under the age of twenty-five said pink was their least favorite color, compared with eight percent of men over fifty.

Pink in other languages

In most European languages, the color pink as the name of the rose flower; rose in French and Dutch; rosa in German, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian; rozoviy in Russian; and rozowy in Polish. In Finnish it is called pinkki.

In the Japanese language, the traditional word for pink, Momo-iro , takes its name from the peach blossom. There is a separate word for the color of the cherry blossom: sakura-iro. In recent times a word based on the American version, Pinku , has begun to be used.

Idioms and expressions

In the pink. To be in top form, in good health, in good condition. In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio says; "I am the very pink of courtesy." Romeo: Pink for flower? Mercutio: Right. Romeo: Then my pump is well flowered."
To see pink elephants means to hallucinate from alcoholism. The expression was used by American novelist Jack London in his book John Barleycorn in 1913.
Pink slip. To be given a pink slip means to be fired or dismissed from a job. It was first recorded in 1915 in the United States.
The phrase "pink-collar worker" refers to persons working in jobs conventionally regarded as "women's work".
Pink Money, the pink pound or pink dollar is an economic term which refers to the spending power of the LGBT community Advertising agencies sometimes call the gay market the pink economy.
Tickled pink means extremely pleased.

Gender

In Europe and the United States, pink is often associated with girls, while blue is associated with boys. These colors were first used as gender signifiers just prior to World War I (for either girls or boys), and pink was first established as a female gender signifier in the 1940s. In the 20th century, the practice in Europe varied from country to country, with some assigning colors based on the baby's complexion, and others assigning pink sometimes to boys and sometimes to girls.

Quotes by Audrie Hepburn :