Friends, I don't assign gender to colors. Do you?
I know I'm not wearing pink in the photo up top but rather lavender, but let's face it, many people consider these colors less than fully masculine, even today. Be that as it may, I love them. Plus I'm a summer.
I've spent much of today working on my pink linen shirt. So far, so good.
This will be a short sleeve shirt very similar to the border print shirt I made for Michael two weeks ago. I decided to shape the bottom more like a dress shirt so I can tuck it in more easily if I want to.
I made epaulets but decided against attaching them; I was afraid they'd be a headache to iron. I do plan to add front pockets however, just to keep things interesting!
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| Can I interest you in a pair of pink epaulets? |
Like most of my shirts these days, this one has flat-felled seams on the shoulders, and French seams along the sleeve and torso.
The more experienced I get with French seams the narrower I try to make them. These are about 1/4" which is fine for a spongy fabric like linen (I trim the first seam allowance down to about 1/8").
I think I'm done for today; I'm tired and it's so much better to sew when you're fresh, if you have that luxury. I also have to hem my toile de Jouy pants as I'm wearing them out tonight. Maybe I'll take photos!
I hope you're having a productive sewing day -- or whatever it is you do during daylight hours.
In closing, are there colors you avoid because you, or others, consider them to be masculine or feminine? Did you dress your boys in blue and your girls in pink?
From the mouths of babes...
Happy Wednesday, everybody!
Posts
I don't really like pastel baby colors for babies... if I should have a baby girl at any point in my life, she will probably be wearing boy clothes because I love blue and green and dogs. and the dogs always seem to be on baby boy's clothes.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think your lavender shorts are bomb! you rock them Peter!!
My girls wear pink occasionally and most of the pink clothing that they have are inherited from their cousin that is two years older than my oldest, who is four. My MIL and I make the majority of the girls' clothing and rarely is pink fabric chosen. My four-year-old is getting to that age where she knows that little girls like pink and she will tell you that pink is her favorite color, but when she chooses what to wear, she will more often than not pick something that isn't pink.
ReplyDeleteWe have a male friend who is crazy for everything pink , he is a bow hunter by trade and also does construction . Def not the type you would expect to have a bright pink smart phone ! If a color makes you happy , then it's yours :) I personally think men get the bulk of the clothing color bias from society .
ReplyDeletemy very girly 4 1/2 yr old has always favored blue (she wishes the entire world were blue) and my husband has a light pink shirt that looks quite nice on him. i say wear the colors that suit you!
ReplyDeleteIn the Olden Days I lived in the deep South where there was a kind of frat-boy preppie look that could include just about any color you can think of. Very cute on the right guy. Check out LaFont pinkie eyeglasses --perfectly suitable for a Southern gentleman to wear with his baby blue seersucker suit. I did dress my son in blue when he was a baby so people would know which pronoun to use. When he was older and could chose for himself he mostly wore Barney attire--and Barney is sort of fuchsia.
ReplyDeleteI have a niece who is five. Her mom used to dress her mostly in blues because of her electric blue eyes. However, last year she decided pink was the bomb and now insists that at least one thing she's wearing at all times be pink. She'd actually dress in pink head to toe if she could. She explains this by saying that she's a princess and princesses ALWAYS wear pink.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, little boy's RTW clothes (to me) are sort of sad in how restricted is the color palette: blue, brown, green with perhaps a bit of red or white. Little boys like bright colors, too, but even two and three-year-olds' clothing is held to some sort of masculine standard of dark, subdued colors.
I can't exactly remember what era it was but I remember learning that men wore pink and women wore blue. Pink was bright, bold, and had the "look at me" persona while blue was subdued and mellow.
ReplyDeleteFor me it is less on gender roles and more on the person (physically and personality). I've seen men wearing pink and making it look really good. I also know some men where pink or purple would not look good on them. Sometimes it is just the shade.
I don't wear pink too often but I don't feel extra girlie when I do. That depends on the article of clothing (dress, skirt, details).
The switch came about between the wars last century, I believe. Back when pink was seen as a light red. Funny how blue is always blue, but red is different colours at different tones and shades.
DeleteI like a man in colour lol.
ReplyDeleteI love pink, so does my daughter (and Pinkalicious, the book/musical show character just added to the love). One of my boys likes green as his favorite, the other likes black/blue equally. Even though pink is her "favorite" color, my daughter will wear all sorts of colors which isn't that unusual in girls; given the choice though, she definitely gravitates toward pink/purple as first choice.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most recent times we went shirt shopping, my older son fell in love with a pink shirt/pink tie combo. He doesn't seem to worried about his shirts being "girl colors", he also has a lavender one he likes a lot. My younger son also has at least one pink shirt and one or two purple, but since I picked them out, I can't say whether he's worried about wearing girl colors. He's too young to be worrying about such things. Part of it depends on the style though. I doubt I could get my older son to wear a pink t-shirt or shorts, even though he likes the pink dress shirt. I do agree with Janet though. For babies, it is nice to have a cue of pink vs. blue for the gender pronoun thing.
Indeed as KrisF pointed out, boys were dressed in pink in Victorian times. Pink was considered a stronger and more dominant colour. Not sure when it reverted but I love Mr Ooobop in a pink shirt. He has just bought a custom made pink bass guitar so I guess it's his favourite colour too!!
ReplyDeleteI blame the Simpson's episode, "Stark Raving Dad". :)
ReplyDeleteI grew up among New England preppies--the pink shirt is a macho-lacrosse-bro look!
ReplyDeleteI let my kids wear what colors they wanted too. My son at age 3 went off to day camp & needed a bathing suit - the catalog Hannah Andersen had a little boys' suit in pink or blue (she sells Swedish items, they don't as much at the blue/pink bit over there). My son picked out the hot pink one - bought it over his father's objections and he won cutest bathing suit at the day camp.
ReplyDeleteGotta say that pink linen looks so crisp and sensuous. Don't know why but some fabrics affect me that way, and crisp linen is one of them. I always think of crunchy iceberg lettuce for some reason. You are going to look so great in this.
ReplyDeleteThe four-year-old's favorite color is pink, so a good many of the clothes I make her lately tend towards pink and purple (because purple is her second favorite color). On the other hand, baby sister gets pretty much every color of the rainbow, especially blues, because she looks fantastic in blue. Surprisingly, nobody calls her a little boy, when they did with her older sister.
ReplyDeleteLove your pink shirt, and purple shorts!!!!!! My hubster loves colours, and often wears pinks and violets. He feel comfortable that way. My 2 sons always had colour variety (bright), and I find the boys' clothes usually very drab. I am a rummage shopper, and did find a pile of new madras type Ralph Lauren shirts for 25 cents for them, back in the day. Some kid at school said about Alex - here comes that rich kid (?????). What this really meant is make your own rules. I think his grade 7 grad picture is in a pink dress shirt. As for me, I love pink, but not that Barbie pink, pinks with bite and kick, moving into oyher colours, like Fushia....
ReplyDeleteI'm female and I have a strong aversion to pink (number of pink items in wardrobe = zero), but I think that some guys look great in it. It all depends on your colouring.
ReplyDeleteI don't know when this extreme gender-separation-by-colour thing happened either. My grandma dressed her sons in frilly white gowns and bonnets in their baby portraits, and a typical outfit for me as a little kid would have been a striped shirt with corduroy overalls. Branding must have something to do with it- the "Disney Princess" brand didn't exist yet but now it is a multibillion dollar industry.
I must have gotten wayyy conservative. I love pastels for shirts. For pants and shorts-not so much. You do wear them well however and your craftsmanship is beautiful!
ReplyDeleteGo Peter! Love your individualism!
ReplyDeleteHere is info from the Smithsonian regarding the "pink for girls history"
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-Wearing-Pink.html
It's time we got away from that!
I agree with this saying of my husband's: do "real men" wear pink (or peach or purple, etc)/ Oh, yeah, real men wear whatever the he!! they want! Likewise for quiche - while real men eat whatever they want, he's also been known to wear that, too!
ReplyDeleteRemember the 80s when men were suddenly sporting pink or lemon linen blazers with the sleeves pushed up like Don Johnson in Miami Vice? Pastels look great on men and I agree with you about not assigning gender to colour. Your pink shirt is lovely and I'm glad you left off the epaulettes. They may have taken it too far into safari suit land. I love marysews husband's saying 'real men wear whatever the hell they want'. I'm going to use that!
ReplyDeleteAre you walking a Lundehund in that photo? You own a Lundehund?? If I'm seeing that right, that's AWESOME!
ReplyDeleteLove love the shorts! A total winner!
ReplyDeletePink shirts have always been a fave. You're on a roll.
The linen, the color, and your fine sewing skills, all add up to a winning garment.
ReplyDeleteThe shirttail hem is brilliant, whether tucked or untucked.
As always, beyond impressed with what you create.
For me, pink on a man is the color that says, "I could not possibly in the least care what you think, if indeed you do think, which I very much doubt."
ReplyDeleteI love a pink pinpoint Oxford cloth shirt, particularly in a very conservative environment. You can see the Neanderthal-minded blowing little fuses in their heads.
P.S., Peter:
ReplyDeleteIf you do not wear this new shirt with your toile de Jouy pants, I will be very disappointed!
I love all colors, and love pink. It just looks so crisp on men or women. I know in Asia the men wear pink. Our son who we adopted from China was wearing pink in his photograph. It is a color that is favored by different cultures.
ReplyDeleteJosette
I'm American but live just outside of Milan, Italy. I am apalled at the bias here (not as strong IN Milan as surrounding cities). I wanted to get some sneakers for our 5 yr old and counted 30 pairs at the store which were pink (or a combo with pink), and there was pretty much no other choice. So great to shop for kid clothes in the US whenever I go back! It's mostly on kids' clothes.
ReplyDeleteI only like primary colors so pink and lavender are pretty much out of the picture. However, there was a local trend five or six years ago : baby pink, very tight tees were all the rage among sporty young men, usually worn with white sneakers, a huge amount of hairgel and a whole lot of attitude (mmmh, yeah, we're far away from your tasteful linen shirt).
ReplyDeleteI think that little boys' clothes are drab because some fathers don't want their sons to be caught in even remotely "girly" clothes.
Hey it looks nice...
ReplyDeleteI think I will try your French seams for the sleeve and body on my next shirt. I'm kinda sorry the epaulettes didn't make the cut, but I've been out on the safari limb for months now. As always, it's looking great!
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think the "pink for girls, blue for boys" is silly. That said, neither the DH or DS will wear pink, lavender or any other pastel color with the exceptions of blue, tan, and gray. Will not even consider it. There are certain colors I don't wear, but that's because I look ill or worse in them.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to say - another wonderful job on the shirt and short.
ReplyDeleteGlad you have control over shoulder sleeves...those always seem to be my weakest (ugliest)areas due to the many layers of fabric involved.
ReplyDeleteWhen my son was born 5 weeks early we had hardly any clothes ready for him. My partner's aunt had been "sure" he would be a girl and had bought us some very sweet girl's outfits, so he wore these a lot in hospital. I thought the soft pink jersey top and pants were gorgeous on him, and I knew that in the old days pink had been a "manly" colour (and a friend told me pink was the boys colour in Korea) - but the nursing staff got very confused :-). These days both my now 7 yo son and 5 yo daughter like all colours, but my son won't wear colours his friends would tease him about (pink or purple), and my daughter feels some pressure from her childcare friends to wear a lot of pink and purple. Peer group pressure is significant!
ReplyDeleteI agree on the peer pressure comment. As sweet as he would look in it, my 7 year-old son would rather DIE than wear, or even TOUCH anything pink. I think that's a shame, but those boys can really be tough on each other, for ANYTHING they consider feminine! Among my 10 year old daughter's peers, they have NO requirement to be feminine - not with hair, clothing, colors, interests... anything. I hope that just comes with maturity, and my son's group will get there, too.
ReplyDeleteThere is a very funny series of books by Alexander McCall Smith where a little boy (Bertie) is forced to wear pink pants and has a pink room because his mother doesn't want to steriotype him. He hates pink and is embarassed to have other boys over. All he wants to do is fit in with the other boys. I think all colors are fine, but pink does seem to be a color boys are teased about.
ReplyDeleteboocat: When I was a girl, everything they got me was pink. I detested pink. I would sneer "stinky pink" each time a new dress was produced. I wanted RED!
ReplyDeleteYou are still inspiring me! Keep those updates coming! Your lavender shorts turned out so great! The length is perfect! Love the care and time you put into your clothing. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteYou are still inspiring me! Keep those updates coming! Your lavender shorts turned out so great! The length is perfect! Love the care and time you put into your clothing. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteI love that video. I have never assigned colours, jobs, feelings, subjects or anything to gender. I never remember, when I was young thinking "girls don't do this or that because they are girls" and visa versa for boys. That's why my excitement was doubled when I discovered sewing blogs and then the double joy that boys/men sew too! Funny or maybe not, but my father (father to 5 girls) always said "girls don't do that!" maybe that's why!
ReplyDeleteActually, pink shirts were very much in fashion (at least over here, in the Netherlands) a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course (didn't any of the other commenters mention this??) the 'pink is for girls' rule isn't as old as we often tend to think. Centuries ago, blue was for women, red for men. The theory was that red was powerful and active, while blue was quiet and passive. If these colours were used mixed with white (which was sometimes done for children), the usual gender division would still apply. Than, as now, rules weren't set in stone and inviduals might deviate but in general, pink was for boys (there's even a story about the Belgian monarchy in the 19th century: the king and queen were expecting a much-anticipated first child and had the baby's room hopefully decorated in pink, only to be disappointed when the child turned out to be a girl...)
'Pink for girls' only became a 'rule' after the Second World War, and especially in the 1950's
One of the things I love about my husband is that he will wear a pink or lavender shirt. They're great colors on him.
ReplyDeleteOne of my nephews liked pink and his father really quashed it - and it made me sad that he wasn't allowed to like a color that he truly liked.
I grew up with the whole 'pink for girls, blue for boys' thing. When I was young, my mom foisted pink on me, which I hated. I was decidely a tom boy and hated all things girly when I was young. I have only been wearing pink, myself, for a couple of years now (I'm 48).
ReplyDeleteI have only seen two men in my life sport pink. One was a guy I was dating in my early 20s, who was pretty macho. He showed up to a date in a pink button down and it really impressed me, how comfortable he was with himself. Very appealing!
Color symbolism:
ReplyDeleteLuesher color test (supposed to be a German name with an umlaut) old stuff I saw in a mildewed paperback and now online. http://www.colorquiz.com
Dewey Sadka's (Atlanta) http://www.deweycolorsystem.com and he has books out as well.
I hated pink when I was a little girl, because I felt it was being shoved down my throat. Now that I'm grown, I'm more comfortable with it.
Most people look great in some shade of pink or peach. The trick is figuring out which shade flatters your complexion.
One of my male coworkers was complaining. He has a baby girl on the way, and he says every darn thing his wife bought for the baby is pink. He's SICK of it. I predict the baby girl will be sick of it as well.