Pink for boys!

Boys, Month of Color

Image via the marvelous  La Petite Magazine.

There is something so lovely about pink.  You just can’t help but look at it and not smile.

So, it is no wonder that it is making a little bit of a comeback in boys clothing. I say comeback because at the turn of the century, boys wore pink and girls wear blue.  I like the preppy pale pink which makes me think of Bermuda and looks so good with a bit of a tan. I also adore the fun neon pink of throwback eighties wonder–particularly as skinny jeans.  You can’t go wrong with a bit of pink in a boy’s wardrobe.  Here are a few of my favorite bits of pink!

Pink shirts are particularly a great addition for a boy’s summer wardrobe. Like this one from Mini Boden

and this from  J. Crew.

But even just a touch of pink can perk up a boy’s wardrobe. How hip is this little guy in his hot pink tie??

I also love little bits of pink, like this watch band:

or bring it out for fun on a special occasion with this sweet little bow tie:

I was originally going to highlight some great blue pieces for girls, but I quickly found that there were dozens of pretty blue outfits for girls. And of course tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of pink.  I recently went into the children’s section of a department store and for probably every twenty items there was perhaps one piece that wasn’t pink.  And those were still rather delicate in color.  So, instead of a round up of prettyblue dressies  I thought I would leave you with this wonderful LEGOS ad. More of a commentary about all of the pink toys for girls, but still it can’t help buy make you smile that this little lady in her blue outfit—head to toe blue actually!

Man, I love that little girl. The complete pride of creating something awesome.

But, I must ask–would you dress your boy in pink?  Have you? What was the response?

And of course some girls only wear pink. And a lot of mothers hate that.  Seriously! Are you a fan of that or not?  I don’t know.  The Peach’s favorite color is orange, but I’d be fine if she wanted to wear pink. Let me tell you, it is a lot easier to find pink dresses than orange ones…  But I’ve had friends that have insisted on no pink for their little girls—especially at baby showers.

Who would have thought such a pretty pretty color would come with so much baggage?

19 thoughts on “Pink for boys!”

  1. I like pink for boys, I bought Brendan a pink tie once and he is squeamish to wear it but women always compliment him on it 🙂 And I have a hand me down pair of pink Converse that Otis is totally gonna rock when his feets are big enough.

    As for girls, I hate head to toe pink and specifically asked my family to NOT buy pink stuff (and nothing with the words diva or princess) but once Ingrid got a voice she always always picks pink. I’ve learned it’s not the color itself, it’s the idea of the fragile little girl that can’t play rough and tumble because she’ll ruin her clothes. And Ingrid is neither fragile nor does she care about ruining her clothes, whatever color they may be!!

    1. Aw pink Converse! Cool! Yeah, I agree….I’m no opposed to the color either. In fact, I quite like a nice hot pink….I get more frustrated when parents get their little girls EVERY SINGLE THING in pink. I mean, Wolfie’s favorite color used to be green. And if he had a choice to pick something out, he would usually pick the green one. But it wasn’t like I suddenly said, “OK, EVERYTHING in your room is going to be GREEN! Green bed spread! Green walls! Green jacket! Green clothes! Green toy bin!” haha. It sounds like you and Ingrid have a good system—and she seems like such a cool lil girlie!

  2. Can I just say how much I love that lego ad? I just pinned it on my Vintage board on Pinterest. I put my pinterest link as my web link if you want to take a peek. I wish there were more ads like this today. I can’t think of a single one off the top of my head that doesn’t have the little girls dressed in pink and with “traditional” girl toys. Incidentally my girly girl loves her legos and blocks. She makes castles with them and tells me about the princesses living in them but takes so much pride in building them. 🙂

    2. That ad is amazing, isn’t it? I want a poster of it as well! It is so hard to find toys that aren’t pink for kids. Remember that popcorn popper Fisher Price made–with the primary colored balls in it and the yellow handle? Well, the Peach was given a new version of it–and it is pink and the balls are pink, pearl and purple. I think the Peach would have enjoyed it whatever color it was–I mean, she was 10 months old at the time…

  4. i love a hint of pink for the boys but honestly, the hubs is not a fan. all Ev wears is black though so basically i am in charge of buying anything with color.

    i love all colors but i would have to say, pink is my personal fave but i like pink FLORALS the best or anything with a lot of tulle…betsey johnson is my favorite designer. tova rocks a LOT of blue, especially blue gingham. my favorite dresses as a girl were a blue gingham polly flinders that i called my “dorothy dress” and perhaps also a flinders dress that was sort of a blue maxi victorian number with a fake plastic cameo at the neck. so 70s.

    1. Wolfie is NOT a fan. There is this cool hoodie at Target right now with a skull on the front (and I promise I have been avoiding skullz and electric guitars on boy clothing lately….it’s like they are the new truck and dinosaur). The hoodie is this pale red color that reeeeeally looks like sandy pink. And I held it up and he was horrified. “Mama…that’s PINK. I don’t like pink!!”

      haha

    2. Totally, Lish! I must admit that after I wrote this article, I am now officially craving a pink floral dress so badly!!!!

      And what a good point about Dorothy’s dress from the Wizard of Oz!

  5. I think pink on boys can be really cool when done right! I love a bright flash of hot pink and one easter, wolfie wore jeans, a light pink oxford with a gingham tie and a little navy blazer and looked AWESOME! but alas now that he is a cooler big kiddo, he refuses the pink!

  7. i can’t tell you how glad i am that you’ve posted this. and with excellent timing. a couple of days ago, i wrote a post about my internal struggles with pink. my five year old, oliver, has lately been gravitating toward pink and i’m trying to reassure myself that the reason i ask if he would like another color (in clothing, at least) is because i’m not particularly nuts about it and it would clash with his wardrobe. but then i worry he’ll think i’m reenforcing girl colors.

    and my husband, who was quite flamboyant when we met, has been saying we should say no to pink or it might give kids a reason to pick on him (in addition to being very tiny and mostly a vegan). living in dallas certainly doesn’t help. plenty of people with unfounded ideas about how people should be and look. ugh.

    yesterday, i found a nice middle ground and for his bday, ordered him one violet and one flamingo pink tshirt from biome5 (who appears to be ending their tshirt line and has the remaining stock at half off, btw).

    believe it or not, when i think of a boy wearing pink, it’s wolfie who pops into my head. i’m not sure if i’ve ever actually seen a photo of him wearing pink, but i know he can pull off anything.

    anyhow, THANK YOU for posting some positive reenforcement. it’s ridiculous that so many people actually believe there are boy colors and girl colors and make a child feel bad for liking something that they think doesn’t align with their gender.

    1. Oh bethie, how awesome you are! yeah, it’s tough to find a middle ground. i mean, on the one hand….why the hell not, right?? on the other hand, I COMPLETELY hear you on the “Shoot, we don’t want people to pick on him” thing either. I mean, it’s one thing for a parent to have really strong views about making everything gender neutral, but then there is the reality of life on the playground and your child having to deal with stuff. I think the key is to try and instill confidence in your child about their choices….encouraging them to “think different” but also allowing them to just be a kid and wallow in all the stuff that their friends like. I always try and remind myself that I can’t impose my vintage loving ways on my now-2nd grader. (When they’re toddlers I don’t think they care as much and are happy to just go along with whatever mama decides!) If they like Bakugan or Pokemon or other characters, let them enjoy them. Here’s an example of something we had to deal with: Wolfie was pretty early on in the colored skinny jean trend. Last year, he was the first boy in his class to rock some purple skinnies. I can’t lie, we live in an urban area where the majority of the kids are wearing baggie jeans and oversized tees and I was a little nervous someone would say something. To balance out the purple jeans, I had him wear an Angry Birds tee (or maybe it was Pokemon….something more his peers were in to). Sure enough he came home and said, “Morris asked me if these were girl jeans.” I asked him (casually….though I was dying inside) “So, what did you say?” and he looked at me and said, “Um, DUH….I’m a boy. Of course they are boy jeans!” And he said that was the end of that. I asked if he still wanted to wear his jean and he said “Yep!” I was SO PROUD of him. (And def took the route of, “I am not going to even make a big deal about this….”) Fast forward to 2nd grade… numerous boys in the class (including his pal Morris!) are wearing skinnies. One kid (who is a little bit of the class bad ass) admitted, “Yeah, I had to get these blue skinny jeans from the girls department. I couldn’t find them for boys. Isn’t that dumb??” And the boys in his class were all, “Yeah, totally…wow….they should have them for boys AND girls.” haha. I Love it. I mean, we were lucky. I could see the situation going the other way. But Wolfie in his quirky way is quietly confident about what he wears and what he likes (and rather opinionated, I might add!).
      By the way violet/purple is an awesome alternative! keep me posted!! xoxo

      1. thanks for the great reply!

        my heart is still broken for him for the day last year when the “naughty” girl on the playground told him the dora bandaid he was wearing was for girls and he refused to wear one again for ages (and i think he still hasn’t worn one to school, though he does love the rainbow unicorn bandaids now). that was our first run in with that nonsense. i talked and talked his head off to try and make sure he understood it’s okay for him to like whatever he wants to like, no matter what anyone says.

        that is fantastic about the boys with the skinny jeans. how hilarious. you’ve done a great job raising that little boy. he’s lucky to have such fun parents.

        oliver is still at that age where he totally loves whatever just happens to be in front of him, though i think i see some signs of that starting to change. he tore me a new one this week for using a vintage drawing of rainbow-colored monsters for the base of his birthday party invitation. he disliked them for looking scary and not for being rainbow-colored.

        the tshirts have arrived and are pretty awesome. i’m almost disappointed the violet isn’t a little more violet and a little less grey.

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