Do Clothes Make The Baby?

By Mary-Ellen Catalano

Parents of infants often tire of being asked if the child is a boy or a girl, and they have invented a neat little way to cue people in.  The "baby color code" has changed over the years, but it's implementation has saved frustration of the parents and embarrassment for the baby's admirers.

It's simple.  Pink is for girls, and blue is for boys.  With that careful observation, one can ask with confidence "What is his (or her) name?" Whew! 

But in the past few years, some rebellious parents have broken the code.  They seem to choose clothing colors not by common sense, but by capricious whim!  They seem to enjoy correcting those unfortunate souls who, acting on the "old" system, mistake a child's gender.

Before that, baby boys sported pink because it was a shade of red, which was considered a masculine color back then.  Baby girl clothing was blue, but the reason why eluded the fashion historian I consulted with.  We concluded that blue must have been considered feminine.

Back then, fashions were completely different, too.  The snap had not been invented.  Same with stretchy fabrics and velcro.  Little boys and girls both wore dressing gowns or bed gowns, which today would be considered dresses.  They were worn until the child was potty trained.  The gowns made it easier to change their diapers.

So who decided to shake things up? My guess is it was a Madison Avenue marketing firm hired by the garment workers union.  With the new prosperity and baby boom after World War Two, they wanted a way to sell more clothes!  For generations families had been handing down their old blue and pink gowns for every new member of the family.  Now that new arrivals were starting to outnumber the supply of available baby-duds. 

They had a brilliant idea. They could probably double or triple the amount of baby clothes sold, simply by mounting a ”pink is for girls“ campaign.  This quickly became the standard, as no red-blooded American man wanted HIS son mistaken for a girl!

The campaign was ingenious.  Families across America gave up their hard-earned cash to make sure that their kids were dressed the proper color clothing!  The results were so impressive that pink has been the theme of several feminine fashion trends since then.  Pink is also the least seen color in men’s clothing stores.

The world of gender identification is changing, but mostly for adults.  Women are becoming more masculine (witness the pant-suit evolution) and men are finding their emotions (witness casual Fridays?) But in the midst of it all, most adults remain adamant that when it comes to babies, blue is for boys and pink is for girls!