Cute crochet and knitting colour combinations for baby
10 minute read.
Exploring Baby Colour Palettes: Tradition vs. Modern Trends
When planning colour combinations for baby for a crochet or knitting project, do you instinctively reach for pink for girls and blue for boys? Or are you on the hunt for gender-neutral alternatives? Many people assume pink and blue have always been the standard, but surprisingly, their association with gender is relatively recent.
In this blog post, we’ll take a quick look at the history of baby and children’s clothing, explore when pink and blue became gendered, and highlight beautiful crochet and knitting colour palettes and yarn colour combinations that might inspire your next project.
A Very Brief History of Children’s Clothing
Children’s clothing, as we know it today, is a fairly recent concept. The first historian to document what children wore was a Frenchman named Philippe Ariès. But before diving into his findings, let’s quickly consider how words change meaning.
When you hear “children’s clothes,” what age group do you imagine? A 6-month-old baby? A 2-year-old toddler? A 5-year-old child? Historically, from birth to around 7 years old, children were called “infants.” “Children” referred to those between approximately 5 or 6 upwards. For much of history, “children’s clothes” didn’t exist in the way we think of them today. Instead, infants had their own style of dress, while older children from about age 6 onwards) wore miniature versions of adult clothing.
The Birth of Children’s Fashion: The Sailor Suit
One of the first true “children’s outfits” was the sailor suit. Queen Victoria commissioned a child-sized version of a Royal Navy uniform for her son, Prince Albert, to wear on a ship. His father loved it so much that he had a portrait painted of the young prince in his adorable outfit. That image went on public display, and soon, the sailor suit became a trend, launching the concept of dedicated children’s fashion—an idea that still influences styles today.
Dresses for Boys? A Common Historical Practice
For centuries, infants and young children—both boys and girls—wore dresses.
Why? Before modern fast fashion, low-cost clothing, washing machines, and disposable nappies, practicality was key. Fabric was expensive, and dresses could be adjusted with growth pleats, allowing children to wear them for several years. Once outgrown, the pleats could be re-sewn so another child could use the dress.
Additionally, in an era before elastic waistbands, zippers, and other modern fastenings, trousers (breeches) were complex garments with fiddly buttons and laces. It was far easier for young children to manage in dresses.
Only around the age of 5 to 7 did boys transition into trousers—an event called “breeching,” which was a significant milestone. This means that for most of history, baby boy outfits and baby girl outfits didn’t exist as we think of them today. The gendering of children’s clothing was a 20th-century invention. All babies wore dresses.
When Pink Was for Boys and Blue Was for Girls.
Traditionally, baby clothes were white. White dresses, baby blankets, and layette items were the norm because they could be boil-washed and bleached without fading, making them practical. With the advent of electricity and the labour-saving home revolution in the Edwardian era, coloured baby clothes started to emerge. Pastels—mint green, lemon yellow, soft pink, and pale blue—became popular.
But interestingly, at first, pink and blue had no fixed gender association.
By the 1920s, people began assigning preferences for one colour over the other, but it was inconsistent. Many saw blue as more fitting for girls, associating it with the Virgin Mary, while pink was considered stronger and more suitable for boys, as it was a softer version of red, the colour of military uniforms.
It wasn’t until the 1950s that a general consensus was reached: pink for girls, blue for boys. This gendering of colours intensified in the 1990s.
How the 1990s Changed Everything.
From the 1950s to the 1990s, pink and blue were firmly established as gendered colours in children’s clothing. But until the 1990s, baby wardrobes were still more diverse.
Parents preparing for a new arrival didn’t know the baby’s biological sex in advance. As a result, they created gender-neutral baby colour palettes, choosing soft yarn colour combinations in white, green, yellow, cream, purple, and orange.
At this time, most parents would not have known if baby would be a biologically male or female until after the birth. After the baby was born, a few special pink or blue gendered outfits would be bought or made, but not that many. They were special wear. When families were a little bigger on average, baby clothes often went on elaborate journeys through extended families and communities. Passed on from baby to baby, the focus when buying or making the core layette was generally neutral items using neutral colours and styles.
So what happened then?
In short, we had the technology in widespread use to know, before baby was born, what biological sex they would likely be.
I was born in 1972, one of 7 children. My mother had no idea before any of us were born whether we would be girls or boys. As the oldest girl, I was expected to knit little cardigans and rompers for the siblings younger than me. The yarn I was handed was usually mint, lemon or white.
My son was born in 1992. I knew he was a boy before he was born. I had asked not to be told, so I never was officially, but the nurses insisted on using male pronouns for him from the day of the scan onwards. Many I knew having babies at the same time as me did not find out, as it wasn’t yet routine to have a few scans. There were small complications with my pregnancy.
But then things changed!
My niece was born in 2018. Oh the drama! My sister chose not to tell whether the baby would be a girl or boy before birth. My mother phoned me daily, asking me to intercede. ‘How can I knit for my grandbaby if I don’t know if its pink or blue I should be using’. There was crying. There was wailing. There were temper tantrums.
But I refused to intercede, and stood by my sisters right to withhold the information. ‘You didn’t know for any of the 7 of us’ I reminded my mother, ‘and happily knitted in mint, lemon and white’. I may as well have been speaking an alien language. My mother was utterly unable to process what I was saying, and so acted as if I hadn’t spoken, continuing her tirade against my sister and how it meant she couldn’t knit.
And this is the big difference.
A new generation has grown up with an experience of pink and blue that is unlike anything any previous generation experienced.
This generation, anyone born after the about 1990 or 1995, have an experience of ‘pink and blue’ that is not the same. They have only known highly gendered clothes, toys, opportunities and interactions. And a large number of them are telling us it is hurting them.
The night before my son left to attend university I had one of those heart to hearts with him, the kind parents have right before their child leaves home. I asked him if there was any one thing he wished I’d done differently. I’m not sure what I expected him to say, but it wasn’t his answer. He told me he wished, more than anything, that I hadn’t given him a boy’s name. You could have knocked me down with a feather!
‘Yes, but its a boys name’ he explained.
‘Do you want me to call you by a different name? Or different pronouns?’ (I was grasping at straws here, I wasn’t sure what to say)
‘No’ he replied. He likes the name, he’s happy with being ‘him’. He just stressed that ‘It should have been up to me to decide’.
I thought about this a lot over the next few days.
And many times more in the 10 years that followed while I taught university. Where students unions and students themselves started to demand the right to choose their pronouns.
Should we listen?
It’s hard to listen when someone tells you something that is totally outside your frame of reference. When telling my mother she can knit in lemon yellow or mint green she acts like I didn’t speak, rather than respond to something outside of her world view. And I get that. It can be hard.
But here we are. The first generation of compulsory pink and blue kids have hit their 30’s. They have been telling us as their parents, their teachers and their community that it hurts. And now they are having kids of their own, they are increasingly refusing to reveal baby’s biological sex before birth, and asking us (the knitters and crocheters who love them) to use gender neutral colours.
And maybe, just maybe, these young parents aren’t wrong!
Options for Gender Neutral colour pallets for baby
So that brings us to the main point of the post. What makes a good gender neutral colour palette for baby?
Looking back, we have seen that for hundreds of years, babies of any gender wore white dresses for practicality. Those white dresses were decorated and embroidered in lace, floral motifs and with ribbons, and these decorative elements did not take on a feminine association until around the same time as blue and pink rose to prominence, about the 1950s. Until then, it was considered as appropriate to make boys clothes as pretty as possible, as well as girls clothes.
A white/grey colour pallet can be seen as the ‘most traditional’ with hundreds of years of history. It’s not surprising therefore that today, it is again one of the most popular.
But then again, as soon as people could start dressing their babies in a wider colour pallet, they started doing so. Baby colours don’t have to be monochrome when with have the advantages of contemporary washing machines! The next most traditional baby colours are pastels.
Pastel Rainbow
Nothing says ‘cute baby’ like pale pastels. Lemon, mint, peach, lavender. Even pink and blue can have a gender neutral look when used together in stripes. This free dress pattern uses pastels, but could work in any of the colour combos
But for the same reason these colours can look very ‘traditional’, they can to some also look quite ‘old fashioned’. Some may wish a more contemporary look, and ‘boho rainbow’ is very trendy now in the mid 2020’s.
Boho Rainbow
The contemporary ‘Boho Rainbow’ trend is quite distinctive from a 1970’s earth tones look. It is based on paler, more muted shares of cream and very light brown, without the emphasis on the greens and oranges of the 70’s trends. This colour combination for baby is all about softness, with a natural organic look.
On the other hand, to some, this look is nothing more than a predominance of ‘sad beige’, and there are those who would like to see a little more colour return to out baby colour pallets.
Rainbow Brights
Very traditional for children’s toys, there are few who would argue with the joy of seeing all the colours of the rainbow in a big box of lego bricks.
Yet we can be surprisingly shy about dressing little ones in bright and vibrant tones. Small kids are often very drawn to bright colours, so don’t be shy when casting on your next knitting project, or chaining a crochet blanket for baby. If these are the colours you like, and the baby parent likes, why not give the little one a bright welcome to the world?
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