Image: FIT Museum – “Pink: The History of Punk, Pretty, Powerful Color” Exhibition. November 2018. Taken by Author.
Walking into this exhibition without prior knowledge, I was in awe at the splendor of the color pink in a multitude of clothing with different fabrics and different silhouettes. To my amazement, I didn’t realize how political and triumphant the color pink was and could be and it turns out to be a fantastic exhibition, exhibiting just what women need to hear about this color and what this color truly represents in the different eras in the United States and around the globe. They had outfits from the Renaissance to modern era of Nicki Minaj’s plastic pink outfit and so forth. This exhibition not only showcases the different elements that pink has in different standpoints on different occasions, but it also describes pink as an important color of women embodiment in many different fashion movements which is the key point I’d like to highlight when browsing through this fantastic exhibition. In the article, Taking us into 2000s: Vogue’s struggle with time in the 1990s, the author states, “In the business of selling clothing, this translates to a hypersensitivity to economically advantageous representations of the past, present and future.” (Laura Snelgrove, 175) Though Snelgrove explains this not as a fashion movement standpoint, it can also relate to the social conversation of color and gender. The exhibition highlights that pink, though is a shade of red and therefore is significant to the women embodiment of fashion among other things, can also be a color to represent unity such as the color grey for black and white, and is also part of the punk movement for standing up for the women of punk. In several fashion movements, pink was never a bold color until today, where women celebrate the color pink. Victoria Secrets now has a whole line called PINK because of its femininity and boldness. This does not exclude men wearing pink but the whole idea of making pink a bold color is to convey the women power and women rights that has never been included before. I am truly astonished at how bold the curator was to exhibit such as provocative woman show that has never been done before. I am in awe at the splendor and truly wish for the color pink to continue on as a representation of girl power.
