I recently came across a Smithsonian Magazine piece on the history of gender-specific clothes. Once upon a time, they say, it was considered manly (boyly?) to don both pink and dresses.
It was quite customary, indeed proper, for boys age seven or younger in the late 19th century and early 20th century to go all metrosexual. (Are we still using that term, you rightly ask? Apparently, yes. See the military’s eyebrow shaping “craze.”)
I get the baby dresses. (What is a baby, after all, but a really expensive, much more fun and enraging dress-up doll? A baby doll, if you will). Still, the pink thing is surprising. It wasn’t until around World War I that color meant anything for genders, and it was pink for the boys. Why? According to Smithsonian,
A June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”
Then it wasn’t until after World War II that we settled into our present pink-blue paradigm and, quite honestly, things got boring. So with that in mind, here are pictures of five famous men (as babies) from when men were men (in dresses) and they wore them with pride.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Ernest Hemingway
Ronald Reagan (right)
Albert Einstein
Clark Gable
[Images: Smithsonian, Fark, Reagan Library, University of Frankfurt, Hollywood Legends]