ALI STANCHEVA™

One of my favorite things to do as a kid was go to the zoo. This was for one reason only: the flamingos. And why did I love flamingos? Of course, because they were pink. I was mesmerized by these animals. There was nothing else like them in the world. They were majestic and sophisticated. They were small yet they commanded attention. They were the most beautiful beings in the universe as far as I was concerned. I was a little ballerina in training at the time that I was first enamoured by these beings. Flamingos reminded me of the dancers that I watched on stage, their feathers subtle yet striking like the tutu of a ballerina. They were unique and playful yet graceful in their every movement. And like ballerinas, they balanced so effortlessly on one leg. They were perfect and pink; everything I wanted to be.

Flamingos were one of my many obsessions as a kid and what all of my obsessions had in common was a pink theme. Princesses, dolls, fashion, makeup… the list goes on and on. Pink, pink, pink ruled my life as it most often does the lives of little girls. Then one day, when I was maybe in fourth grade, it stopped. Suddenly, I hated pink.

A color that I had once attributed to the things that brought me the most joy became ugly and humiliating. I didn’t understand why at the time, but I hated pink because of its association to femininity and girlhood. I was at an age where girls and boys didn’t get along. The boys teased me and pulled my hair. There was a gender war between the boys and the girls and it was an unspoken truth that the boys were winning. They were stronger than the girls and sure in themselves. I thought myself to be weak and girly. Pink was weak and girly. I would not be able to win if I were weak, so I obviously also couldn't like pink.

How can a color hold so much unspoken meaning? Pink is the only color that has such a strict societal implication. Most simply, it symbolizes femininity. It is not attributed to power, firmness, or adventure. Society has so rigidly gendered pink in a way that it hasn’t any other color. Blue may be for boys but blue is also so much more that has no relation to masculinity. Pink, on the other hand, is automatically associated with the female. Maybe I shouldn’t be asking why pink has been gendered but rather why the female has such skewed and negative connotations. My whole life I have been taught that I must embody femininity while simultaneously battling the fact that femininity is not valued in society that celebrates masculinity. So I forced myself to reject my femininity because I wanted to be valued. I rejected pink.

It has taken me so long to reclaim this color. To reclaim the part of myself that stopped me from believing that I was a strong woman. The ideas of fragility and shallowness that pink used embody for me have slowly but surely melted away. Pink is a multifaceted and fearless color. Pink is the color of the brain that allows me to have complex thoughts and of the tongue that enables me to form them into words. It is the bubble gum that plays between my lips as I blow bubbles big enough to lift me into the air and take me on an adventure. Pink is my mother’s embrace, comforting and certain. Pink is the princess that saves herself. It was the color that told me to be timid. It is now the color that tells me to speak up. It is the color that I wear when I go marching for the many strong women around the world. It is the color that tells me I can do it, I can be brave, I can achieve anything I want. It is the color that assures me that leadership is mine to take. I can be strong and feminine at the same time because femininity is power in itself. So you know what? Fuck you, society. Fuck you for convincing me that pink was weak. You knew pink’s true power and you were scared. Now I know it too and so do the other grown up little girls. We are pink.

The image above is what inspired me to write about pink. Here is why: I have long been frustrated by the lack of women’s sizes in Nike Air Jordans. The targeted customers of these shoes have never been women so Nike has also never taken the time to create an ad to cater to the female customers of Air Jordans. So, I decided to make an ad for women’s Jordans -- with my own twist of course. I made the ad a collaboration between Pantone and Nike because of my personal infatuation with color and Pantone as a brand. Instead of using the color swatch card as it was, I replaced the color with my own image of flowers. I then centered the shoe on top of the flowers and finally made everything pink. While the color of the ad is the most obvious representation of femininity, the duality of femininity is shown through the use of delicate flowers and the contrasting yet equally feminine sport sneaker. The ad is for powerful women. Pink women.