Princesses Prefer Pink
"Make it blue!"—Merryweather, Sleeping Beauty
Describe Princesses Prefer Pink here.
In fiction, odds are that royal princess will have a pink dress or outfit she wears most of the time. It could be anything from a simple frock to a Pimped-Out Dress.
If the pink is barely noticeable, it doesn't count. A significant part of it has to be pink. It could be the skirt or the bodice is almost all pink, or there is a lot of pink trimming in almost every part.
Pink hair and makeup alone don't count (they can be included though). Jewelry does, as long as it's obvious it's pink without requiring a closeup.
Again, it has to be an actual princess to fit this trope, by birth, marriage, adoption, etc. Yet this can include fantasies of being a princess (as long as we see the fantasy) or someone playing one in a show, play, or something else.
The probability for wearing pink does get higher for a Princess Classic, and lower for a Lady of War or an evil princess. Also a Winter Royal Lady wouldn't wear pink as a princess, since that's obviously not a winter color.
As a little point of interest, it should be noted that actual princesses were more likely to wear blue. This was because pink was considered a masculine colour due to it being a shade of red.
A Sub-Trope of Pink Means Feminine.
Compare Graceful Ladies Like Purple, Woman in White, Color-Coded Patrician, True-Blue Femininity.
Anime & Manga
- Lacus Clyne is nicknamed "Pink Princess" in Gundam Seed for her clothing habits... That is, before she gets dubbed "White Queen", "Evil Queen of ZAFT" and "Darth Lacus".
- Relena from Gundam Wing wears pink somewhat often, but the crowd that doesn't like her tends to treat this like a bad thing.
- Also applies to some of the mechas in Gundam SEED: Cagalli's Strike Rouge is the Strike Gundam colored pink, and Meer's pink ZAKU, called "Zaku Warrior Live Concert Version", though it was only used as a stage prop for one of her concerts, and never pilots it herself.
- The standard female outfit of the Earth Federation in the original Mobile Suit Gundam is pink. One of the girls wearing said outfit, Sayla Mass, happens to be a princess(Sorta, considering the Zabi family userping Zeon and everything.
- Princess Allura/Fala from Voltron/GoLion, whether it's her grand dress, jumpsuit, swim suit, or pilot uniform. She wears blue in the sequels, however, to match her Lion.
- Amue wears a pink Mini-Dress of Power in the climactic battle.
- Princess Amelia's most often-worn dress for diplomatic duties is a frilly pink one, and she's seen wearing it in several episodes of the anime and in supplementary materials. Her regular traveling outfit also has pink touches on it.
- Rare Eastern-stylized example: Konoka from Mahou Sensei Negima during her princess moments often wears a pink kimono.
- Lucia, the main character of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch.
- Fine, one of the two titular princesses of Fushigiboshi no Futagohime.
- Chibi-Usa in Sailor Moon wears a pink sailor senshi costume and has pink hair. As the daughter of the future queen, she's by definition a princess. Her princess dress in the anime is white and identical to her mother's, but the manga has her break away from her mother and fall into this trope, with a pink cherry-blossom-evoking dress instead.
- It's generally assumed that while Usagi's image is associated with silver and white, all of her powers result in huge pink blasts of light (if they aren't moon-shaped or rainbows), including her transformation sequences up until Eternal—she's pink on the inside.
- Nia Teppelin from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann starts wearing a pink, princess-y dress with golden shoulder armor, then goes on to have a pink hoodie, and a pink, one piece dress after the timeskip.
- May Chang from the manga Fullmetal Alchemist is a a Xingese princess and wear a mainly pink outfit.
- Kyou Kara Maou: Wolfram, 'nuff said. That pink, frilly nightgown seems to be a major favorite of his.
- In Digimon Adventure, Mimi wears a pink dress when she is posing as a princess for a Gekomon kingdom.
- And so does Palmon!
- Cornelia and Euphemia in Code Geass both tend to wear pink.
- It helps that they both have hair in different shades of pink.
- Don't forget Nunnally, who also has a (very) pink dress.
- Even though she doesn't live as one, C-ko is an alien princess who wears pink often.
- The princess of the low budget Korean Mazinger Z knock-off Protectors Of Universe (sic).
- Princess Millhiore F. Biscotti of Dog Days, so much she should provide the page picture. Her hair is pink. Her eyes are pink. Her ears and tail are pink. Naturally, her dress is pink. She's more pink than color pink itself.
Board Games
- Aside from the Disney-branded versions, most versions of Pretty Pretty Princess show a princess wearing pink. And yes, the Sleeping Beauty version shows the pink dress.
Films -- Animation
- Sleeping Beauty: Aurora's dress ends up in some color war in the movie, but in The Merch for the Disney Princesses, it's usually pink. It's likely to distinguish her from Cinderella, another blonde with a blue iconic dress. (Cinderella's dress in the movie is white and silver, but blue worked better for the colour-coding). Many of the older fans prefer the blue it is for the majority of the movie. Occasionally it is colored purple in The Merch, but that's unlikely to happen anymore with the newest purple-wearing blonde Disney Princess, Rapunzel.
- One of Ariel's dresses is pink. At the parks, though, Ariel wears a turquoise dress.
- So is one of Belle's from Beauty and the Beast. This is less of a straight example than the others, however, since she wears three different dresses in the course of the film and only one is pink; her usual outfit is blue.
- Even Giselle's dress in the Mucha-esque opening sequence of Enchanted is pink, and in the "real world," she does craft herself a pink dress.
- Charlotte, the princess-wannabe of The Princess and the Frog wears pink because of this trope.
- Rapunzel from Tangled primarily wears a lavender dress as her main outfit, but at the end of the film, she wears a rose-pink dress.
- Princess Irene, in the animated The Princess and the Goblin, wears a dark pink dress.
- Maid Marian, in the animated Robin Hood, wears pink. She's not technically identified as a princess, but in this version she is stated to be the King's niece, so it's more or less implied.
- Eilonwy from The Black Cauldron.
Films -- Live Action
- After Buttercup becomes The Princess Bride, she is seen wearing five different dresses, one of which is full-on pink; another is a sort of peachy-pink.
Literature
- Subverted in the Vorkosigan Saga where the eight-foot-tall Cute Monster Girl, Sergeant Taura had been told that pink would make her look less intimidating. Because of this, most of her civilian wardrobe is a nearly fluorescent pink that does NOT work on her. One of the running gags in Winterfair Gifts is the efforts of the rest of the cast to correct her of this fallacy.
Live Action TV
- In Disney's Princess Protection Program, the Princess requests a pink silk nightgown, and a pink gown she wears at one point is actually a plot-point.
- Ahim de Famille in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger takes this a step further; she's a former princess who serves as this season's Pink Ranger.
- She wouldn't be the first Pink Ranger Princess, though. Mei from Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger is the princess of the Risha tribe.
Toys
- Barbie is largely an aversion to this. Despite all the pink associated with her normally, when there is a princess doll, even if it's labeled as some kind of princess, her clothes are rarely pink.
- One of the times she does is Anneliese, of "The Princess and the Pauper".
- And in Barbie and the Diamond Castle, her character Liana has a fuchsia dress after her princess upgrade.
- Many princess-related toys will likely be pink.
- While not officially a Princess (though she might as well be; she rules her country by birthright and.. um... hair right... and doesn't seem to have parents), Lady Lovely Locks is just about the most frilly pink girls' toy there was in the 80s. It was, in fact, her signature color, with her two handmaidens generally being characterized with blue and yellow, and the antagonist of her various stories, Duchess Ravenwaves, with purple.
Video Games
- Peach from Super Mario Bros. 2 onward.
- And the official art for the first game.
- Zelda wears a pink dress in the second game, something which is made more clear in the instruction booklet than the game itself. Judging by some of the promo art from the original, her dress there may have also been pink, although its in-game color is whatever color Link is wearing. In Ocarina of Time her dress was mostly pink, and subsequent games in the series usually have her wear a gown with pink accents.
- Zelda wears blue in the original release of A Link to The Past, as shown in the manual and promo art; the actual in-game sprite appears dressed in more of an off-white. However, her updated pink dress in the GBA remake is an exact copy of what she wore in the Japanese box art of the original SNES release. Just compare them.
- In Spirit Tracks, being possessed by Zelda causes a Phantom to turn pinkish-grey, instead of its normal grey.
- For bonus points, Super Smash Bros. features both Peach and Zelda in their pink dresses (even if the latter has it as an alternate costume in Brawl).
- In the animated series, Zelda wears a pink nightgown trimmed with feathers, and a pink bathing suit.
- The 16th main installment of the Beatmania IIDX series is subtitled "Empress." It has a very, very pink user interface.j
- Even in Persona 4, Yukiko's shadow is a pink-wearing princess.
- Estelle from Tales of Vesperia.
- Ace Attorney has the Show Within a Show Pink Princess.
- The red team's Fat Princess prefers pink. The blue team's princess prefers baby blue.
- Princess Kara of Illusion of Gaia
- Played with with Remilia Scarlet in Touhou; 1. She's not a princess, however, there are several noble or royalty motifs to her (her theme is called "Septette For The Dead Princess/Queen", she is called "The Queen/Empress Of The Night", she owns a mansion that is Bigger on the Inside, has hundreds if not thousands of Fairy servants, often displays a remarkable, charismatic facade whenever she's not being a Bratty Half-Pint in personality, and 2. Her dresses used to be white. They became pink after she spilled enough blood on her dresses to stain them too much for them to ever become white again. This is because she has, surprisingly for such a powerful vampire, little appetite for blood and is also a messy eater. However, this quirk is responsible for spawning her other, most widespread of her titles: The Scarlet Devil.
- Alyssa from Gungnir, otherwise known as Princess Alessandra Dlacroa, dresses mostly in pink and red and wields a giant lance covered in big pink roses.
- One of the unlockable characters in Rayman Origins is a Teensy Princess. Not only is her dress pink, but her crown is pink as well!
Web Comics
- Last Res0rt's HRH Adharia doesn't just prefer pink, Adharia IS pink—well, all the fur except her mane is, anyway.
- Her preferred color in clothing actually seems to be purple/lavender. Of course, given her fur, this may just be a way of avoiding pink overload.
- Speaking of which, there's also a pink-furred queen in Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures, who specifically says she does not need to get any pinker.
- The aptly-named Princess from Castleveina RPG has a pink dress as her standard adventuring gear. This is lampshaded later in the comic when in a side panel she meets Princess Zelda (disguised as Sheik) and learns to transform into her other outfit (a green comando-esque outfit dubbed "Metal Gear Princess" by the creator) and back.
Princess: I have this great pink dress...
Sheik: Of course you do. It comes with the territory.
- Girl Genius has Zola, who appears to be trying to deliberately invoke this trope. Even her airship is pink... very pink. Doubles as a subversion since Zola is an impostor and the real princess doesn't wear pink. This rather pushed her into bouts of cold seething and inventing for "miss pinkie psycho pants" new epithets, each including the "pink" part. Even her Death Ray, both the gun and the actual ray, are pink.
- Silvia from Gold Coin Comics.
- The Elven Princess from Xawu
- Firmly averted in The Fourth. Lord Skärva has set up a room in his castle for Princess Veronika since he kidnaps her quite a bit. Her reaction to being locked in it is "Ugh. So much pink."
Western Animation
- The princess from The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland has a pink dress (save for purple trim and several white hearts), and pink cape (save for white ermine trim and a red heart clasp).
- Aelita of Code Lyoko is often argued to be the "princess" of Lyoko, to the extent of it being her official nickname. And she does have quite a thing for pink.
- To the point of having a pink cell phone and a pink laptop. Oh, and pink hair.
- Princess Peregrine of the Storm Hawks episode "Royal Twist".
- While the real Princess Yue in Avatar: The Last Airbender averts this (she wears purple), the Ember Island Players rendition plays it straight.
- Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time is actually part human, part bubble-gum, so not only is her dress pink, but everything is, right down to her skin and hair.
- Princess Lana on Captain N: The Game Master wears a pink ensemble as her everyday outfit.
- Zelda, on the Animated Adaptation of The Legend of Zelda, normally averts this trope, as her day-to-day garments are mostly blue and brown; however, in the water park episode, she wears a pink bathing suit. Spryte, the Fairy Companion who is also a princess, plays the trope ramrod straight and wears pink all the time.
- Piggy, on Muppet Babies, lives and breathes this trope. Not only is her everyday outfit pink (as is she, being a pig), but whenever she plays "Princess Piggy" as part of the babies' big imagination project of the episode, she's decked out in full pink Princess Classic costume. (The only princessy exception was the Star Wars spoof, in which she was dressed like Princess Leia).
- Gwenevere on Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders.
- Princess Paw Paw of Paw Paw Bears.
- Princess Celestia in My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic is a very light shade of pink, closer to white. More prominent in her toy versions. Averted by Princess Luna, whose colour-scheme consists of blues and purples, and played straight by new Princess Cadence, whose body and part of her mane are both pink.
- While Princess Allura in the original Voltron played this trope straight, in the 2011 sequel Voltron Force she averts it - both her civilian wardrobe and Voltron Force uniform are colored primarily in shades of blue, the color of her Lion.
- In a 90s X-Men episode, Jubilee is telling a Fairy Tale with many of the characters in the show, including Scott as a prince and Jean as his princess, and she did wear some pink (but mostly purple).
- Transformers Generation 1: A princess in Daniel's dream world wears a pink medieval-like outfit.