Blue for a boy? Think again.

In Western cultures, baby boys are typically dressed in blue and little girls in pink. It’s tradition.

Or is it?

In fact, for centuries, both boys and girls wore white dresses until about the age of six. People started to use pink and blue as colours for babies in the 19th century, but in a way you might not expect.

For decades, boys wore pink, thought to be a ‘strong’ colour, while girls were dressed in ‘feminine’ blue. That changed in the 1940s thanks to companies in the United States who promoted pink and blue as the gender-specific colours that we know today.

So if you’re painting a child’s room, perhaps it’s time to think again about traditional colour schemes