Why Do All Disney Princesses Wear Blue?

Disney princesses have some rather obvious things in common, including their physical beauty, survivor spirit and an uncanny connection to wildlife.

And for some reason they also have the color blue in common, which made designer Christopher Kane wonder "why blue?" as he designed his new Beauty and the Beast inspired collection.

"When you think of every Disney heroine — Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine — they're all wearing blue! It's a thing. 'Disney Blue."

Leatrice Eiseman of the Pantone Color Institute says it's a way to empower female characters with a color usually associated with males, which we also associate with clear blue sky positivity:

"You're adding a bit of power to the character by giving her the blue." She adds, "It's a very subtle way of saying, 'Yeah, but young women, young girls, can be empowered, too.'"
"It's dependable. It's reliable. It might cloud up, but we know it's there."

-Via Good Housekeeping

That sounds like a completely made up answer. I doubt that anyone working for Disney was designing Cinderella's dress and thinking "this is so empowering." It probably has more to do with 1) the color schemes in the movies and what looks good on the characters and 2) the fact that "blue" designates a whole lot greater range of hue, shade, and intensity than say "yellow."

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

3 replies

Color theory associates the color blue with weakness. In "If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die: The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling" they pointed out that if a character should look weak or sensitive they would be wearing light blue.

I also think blue is a very basic, easy color that appeals to a lot of people and is good for merchandising.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

The first Disney princess, Snow White, was literally a princess who wore "royal blue" to indicate she was royalty. Were I to hazard a guess, other princesses in a Disney movie later may have been modeled off of Dorothy's light blue-n-white number in Wizard of Oz.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

For the last time: Alice is not a princess.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

1 reply

Commenting is closed.

Click here to access all of this post's 8 comments

We hope you like this article!
Please help us grow by sharing:

Get Updates In Your Inbox

Free weekly emails, plus get access
to subscriber-only prizes.

We won't share your email. You can cancel at any time.