The pink, since it exists, is always a very disputed color. Securities many wonder if men should still wear it…even if they have been for decades, even centuries. In fact, in a widely circulated trade journal published in 1918, pink was the de facto color for boys everywhere.
“If you go back to the 18th century, little boys and girls in the upper classes both wore pink and blue and other colors uniformly,” said Valerie Steele, museum director of FIT, the Fashion Institute of Technology. CNN. Later, however, manufacturers pushed to codify color codes. “In America in the 1890s and early 20th century, manufacturers attempted to sell more children’s and infant clothing by color-coding it.”
Consensus was still divided, however, on which corresponded to which gender pole. Popular tradition attributes the final verdict to the high-profile acquisition of two 18th-century works of art, Steele tells CNN, a painting of a boy in blue called boy in blue and a painting of a young girl in a pink dress called Auricular.
Since then, pink has held its own through subversion: “Real men wear pink” and “Who cares? Wear what you like,” represent two widely held sentiments about the hue. Popular in prep circles and streetwear, pink thrives as an end: a hot pink polo shirt with navy pants, or hot pink accents on an otherwise all-black or all-white sneaker. Nike, however, is testing our tolerance for pink sneakers with its upcoming release schedule.
Although one of them has already been released, the Stüssy x Nike Air Max 2013, Nike is preparing three more pink sneakers for the end of the year: the expressive Nike Air Pesto “Triple Pink” and Nike Air Max 270 “Triple Pink as well as the tame Nike Air Force 1 ‘Low Desert Berry’ (seen above). There are also two other sneakers with pink accents, a new Air Max 95 with pink laces and pink foam, as well as an Air Pegasus with pink laces (a bit random). Are they for everyone? Well, no, but there’s definitely something about Nike’s new bent.