The rose-gold iPhone, “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” Glossier packaging, Thinx print ads, the cover of Stephanie Danler’s pop-novel “Sweetbitter,” the shag pouf in the showroom you wish your living room could pull off. The common denominator? The aesthetic trend the world can’t seem to get enough of: millennial pink.
More than a seasonal fad, the color is here to stay, at least for a while, and it’s everywhere. The shade itself is not exactly well-defined — at any given time, “millennial pink,” or even “Tumblr pink,” refers to shades of blush, rose, grapefruit, salmon, adult bubblegum, or somewhere in between. It’s like the untouched pink shelves of a girly childhood bedroom, covered in a thick film of dust. Pantone coined it “Rose Quartz” and named it Color of the Year in 2016, but the shade has been gaining momentum for years. Fashion house Acne Studios rolled out their signature pink shopping bags all the way back in 2007.
Despite the color’s apparent rampancy, not everyone knows it by its adopted name, and for many its prevalence hasn’t even registered. Mention “millennial pink” to the eponymous generation and you’ll get a mixed bag of reactions that range from “OMG I bleed millennial pink” to “literally what are you even talking about.” (The latter usually offers a slow, knowing nod after a quick image search.) Love it or hate it, few would deny the reign of Millennial Pink.
For non-aesthetes, it’s hard to wrap our heads around a cheeky hue reminiscent of our once-treasured Crayola boxes having any cultural significance. By why wouldn’t it? Designers would balk at such a primitive understanding of color, a la Meryl Streep’s iconic takedown of Anne Hathaway’s cerulean blue (Pantone’s 2000 Color of the Year) sweater in “The Devil Wears Prada.” Others who would explain the shade’s prevalence by noting that it’s “pleasing to the eye” are similarly missing something. Clearly there’s some meaning behind the staying power.
Historically speaking, this isn’t the first time a color scheme has defined a generation or a decade. Think of the psychedelic, swirling brights of ’60s hippies, and the way the pendulum swung in the opposite direction in the ’70s, toward a vomit schematic of browns, olives, mustards and rusts that signaled a departure from the flower-child aesthetic and archetype.