Sometime around the late 2010s, something creepy began to happen to babies’ nurseries: the color disappeared. Not unlike the Fairly Oddparents episode where everyone turns into gray blobs, babies’ clothes and nurseries were fading into an eerily similar shade of beige (with some pops of terracotta, if ya nasty.)
This became known as “Sad Beige Baby,” a term popularized by mom and content creator Hayley DeRoche, who created satirical videos mocking clothing for babies that resembled dull burlap sacks, among other things. As a lifelong Color Enjoyer, I appreciated her videos. When I first saw her content, my baby was enjoying a lemon-yellow nursery with bright blue hot air balloon and elephant decorations, and it felt validating to know someone else found this neutral stuff boring as hell. Yes, I’m a bit of a hater. Let women enjoy hating things!
From 2015 or so onto the mid-2020s, sad beige reigned supreme. Moms on my mom group would post in dismay that their toxic mother-in-law bought them a gaudy pink Minnie Mouse blanket for their baby, deviating from the gender neutral registry (and in these cases, “gender neutral” doesn’t mean yellow and green, it means…you guessed it…beige.)
Sad Beige Baby isn’t just about beige—it’s about minimalism and natural materials. Think the slightly warmer-toned version of the Millennial Gray home decor trend:
Sad Beige extends to nursery decor, clothing, even toys:
At its peak, defenders of the all-neutral, muted baby palette insisted this was for the baby’s development. They said colors in the house would somehow be “overstimulating.” I even saw a Beige Defender insist that neutral colors and light wood were necessary for babies because they were “the same color as mom’s skin.” (Well, certain moms, anyway!) But I think everyone knew the reality of the situation: this aesthetic was a choice primarily for the parents. Millennial parents didn’t want to raise their children in the gaudy, primary-color-laden Fisher Price nurseries they grew up in. Not because those nurseries had been bad in any serious way, but because they were dated, ugly, and nowhere to be seen on the Instagram Explore page. I’m reminded of Kim Kardashian’s home tour, where nary a color could be found, the entire house resembling a pair of taupe Yeezy leggings.
Presumably, children live here, but nobody can tell. And ultimately—I know I’ll be yelled at for this but bear with me—that’s the point of this aesthetic. People can say this is somehow necessary for children’s development, but it’s for the parents. And I actually think it’s fine to do stuff for the parents, but please just be honest about it. I made this point on Twitter a while ago and was, predictably, yelled at (I take back the idea that babies “need” color—like, they won’t die without it—but it’s probably good to have at least some. Am I going crazy? Is that really controversial?)
“Overstimulation” is this sort of parenting world boogeyman that conveniently gets applied to things that parents consider gauche or tacky. Taking your baby to a loud and windy fjord on a pricey vacation to Finland is not overstimulating—in fact, the tot might just fall asleep to the relaxing sounds of nature! But God forbid Aiden come into contact with this:
Given that babies become “overstimulated” just by the realization that they are able to clap, or roll over, or hold up their heads, I’m not worried about the effects of color on babies’ development. As for plastic being overstimulating, what the fuck? lmao. Plastic is a material, and a baby has no idea what that is. Is beige plastic somehow okay? What about plastic that looks exactly like wood? If a plastic is actually “Swedish silicone,” is it okay? Babies are not the snobs we think they are. My four-year-old’s favorite thing to do is find the ugliest, brightest-colored, broken light-up toys that are discarded at the park and beg to bring them home. Please.
But anyway, now that we (hopefully) are in agreement that Sad Beige is primarily for the parents (which, to be clear, is fine) we can agree that this is a trend, like any other trend, and just like the light-up Fisher Price toys of yore, Sad Beige will one day be dated and tacky. I’m going to argue that this day has already come.
Ultimately, trends are all downstream of class. Most people don’t declare that they want to look or feel rich, but they often do, even if they don’t admit it to themselves. Trends become less powerful when they reach a point of saturation in which everyone is aware of them and everyone can afford them. Take, for example, “Love Island Face.” Excessive facial injectables used to be a class signifier, when they conjured up images of models and wealthy influencers like Bella Hadid or Kylie Jenner. Now, it’s giving, per my earlier earticle, “Love Island Contestant.” That’s not me trying to be rude about it—do what you want, and if you want lots of filler then go ahead. But it’s not the class signifier it used to be; in fact, many would say it’s a de-signifier. Once filler reaches a certain point, it signals that you aren’t upper class.
The perfect example of the class de-signifier is probably the Gucci Marmont logo bag, which in the late 2010s, was all I wanted. But I couldn’t afford it, so I never got one. It ultimately became so popular that people started manufacturing fakes in large quantities. Now, when I see it, I just kind of assume it’s fake. It no longer reads “upper class” to me, it reads “DHGate.”
Even though there’s no way to create “counterfeit beige” (I’m sure AliExpress is working on it,) this is kind of what’s happening with the Sad Beige Baby aesthetic. Sad Beige stuff used to only be accessible on bespoke baby sites like Maisonette or bonpoint. Now it’s available on Amazon from a plethora of unknown sellers who market their cheap baby toys as “Montessori” or “Sensory,” making sure that they are sufficiently neutral-toned to fool the aspirational Reels influencer moms:
I’m not trying to be a dick, by the way. It’s kind of impossible to talk about this stuff without coming off like a dick. As I’ve said many times in this article, it’s okay to like something just because you like it, and it’s okay to like something regardless of whether or not it’s trendy. But this article is about trends, so yeah, this is not really trendy anymore.
So what will replace Sad Beige? I have a theory:
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