October 1, 2018 – Hyperallergic – Pink is perhaps the most divisive of colors. Among the likes of Madame de Pompadour and Nicki Minaj, it inspires something close to obsession. In others, like Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak, who implored participants in last year’s Women’s March to “back away from the pink,” it seems to inspire something more like revulsion. Lovers and haters alike, however, can probably agree that pink has power.

If you didn’t believe in the power of pink before, you might after seeing Pink: The History of a Punk, Pretty, Powerful Color, now on view at the Fashion Institute of Technology. It’s a visual feast of 80 ensembles, from a Louis XV-era gown to a pussy hat from the 2017 Women’s March. The exhibition tells the compelling, polarizing history of the color pink in fashion and demonstrates the power of our clothes to shape, and be shaped by, society. As exemplified by one of the exhibition’s themes, “The Power of Pink,” the color tantalizes with its wild incongruity: while it’s often considered cutesy and delicate, pink can also be “fierce and feminist, punk and powerful.” Read more at Hyperallergic.