Pink is Back

Turquoise is so last year. With Pantone announcing Honeysuckle (described as a reddish pink) as the official color of 2011 you are sure to see enough pink over the next few months to make you reach for the Pepto-Bismol.

The Times has an interesting article on the perhaps non-coincidental comeback of the pink bathroom.

Pink bathrooms were common in homes built in midcentury America. But by the 1970s they were considered as saccharine as a package of Sweet’N Low. The color scheme in bathrooms then shifted from carnation and Pepto-Bismol pink — not to mention robin’s egg blue and avocado green, also midcentury favorites — to more muted tones like almond and ecru until, more recently, plain old white predominated.

But within the last five years, pink has come back into vogue, with more people like Ms. Burns embracing their vintage pink bathrooms rather than taking a sledgehammer to them. Moreover, interior designers now advocate flattering rosy hues for new or renovated bathrooms. And manufacturers of bathroom tiles and fixtures have been introducing more pink options. Noticing the trend, the color authority Pantone this month decreed that hot pink will be the “it” color of 2011.

While pink bathrooms started appearing as early as the 1930s, many credit Mamie Eisenhower with popularizing them in the 1950s. She decorated the White House with so much pink when her husband took office in 1953 that the staff began referring to it as the “Pink Palace.”

Pastel pink or “Mamie pink” soon became the era’s iconic bathroom color. While it is difficult to find colorful plumbing fixtures today, back then manufacturers like American Standard, Crane and Kohler all carried pink toilets, tubs and sinks (albeit in slightly different hues).

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Photo: LAUFEN