Why Does Santa Wear Red? He used to wear blue suits, and purple suits, and weird yellow
Stockings. And what does Coca-Cola Have to do with any of this?
To understand why Santa seems to only have one red suit in his closet like a proper fairy
tale, we’re going to have start a long time ago in a faraway land.
So we'll start with our first question: when did the story of Saint Nick originate?
Well it seems like the original St. Nicholas traces back to a monk with the same name.
Estimated to be born around 280 AD in Patara, in modern day Turkey. He was known in his
time for his generosity and pious life. It’s said he gave away his inheritance and spent
his life helping the poor and sick.
He was known to be a protector of children and sailors and his feast day is December
6th, the anniversary of his death, which became known as a day when it was fortuitous to make
large purchases or to get married. His popularity remained high throughout Europe and by the
Renaissance he was one of the most popular saints. He was especially popular in Holland.
But even though Saint Nicholas’ feast day was celebrated around the holiday season,
that doesn’t explain how this popular saint became linked to the Christmas holiday. So
that brings us to our next question:
How did St Nick become Santa Claus and become linked to Christmas?
In Dec 1773 and 1774, a newspaper reported that groups of Dutch families celebrated St.
Nicholas’ feast day in New York. And Santa Claus came from the jolly guy’s Dutch nickname
Sinter Klaas, (short for Sint Nicolaas).
And in 1809 Washington Irving (known for writing “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow”) referred to St. Nick as the patron saint of NY in his “The History
of New York.” And Episcopal minister Clement Clarke Moore popularized the image of St.
Nick at Christmas time with his 1822 poem “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas.”
which spawned the famous line “twas the night before Christmas.”
And showing Santa as linked to the holiday became more popular as the practice of gift
giving on Christmas gained steam in the US in the 19th century, especially gifts for
young kids. By 1820 stores were advertising Christmas shopping to encourage people to
buy more gifts and products during the holiday season. Soon that spiralled into whole sections
for Christmas ads in newspapers, many of which featured Santa Claus.
From 1863-1866 artist Thomas Nast drew popular cartoons of a Christmas Santa in Harper’s
Weekly. And in the 1890s the Salvation Army had hoards of Santas on the streets of New
York collecting donations.
But Santa had a variety of get ups over the years. He was shown sporting everything from
a three cornered blue hat, to yellow stockings, a broad brimmed hat, Flemish trunk hose, a
red waistcoat, or a red robe. And Santa was known for both his wardrobe and appearance
changes, with some images showing him as alternately tall, fat, slim, jolly, or stern.
So that leads us to our next question: when did Santa start wearing his (now considered
classic) red suit?
Well although many of us may think it’s cemented in tradition, it actually is part
tradition and part advertising.
As I mentioned before, depictions of Santa and his attire have varied. And there are
images showing him wearing red robes. But Coca-Cola drove this image home. They began
running ads that featured a jolly Santa in a big red coat and white fur trim as early
as the 1920s.
In 1931 they commissioned illustrator Haddon Sundblom to make December ads that featured
a jolly, red suited, Santa Claus drinking Coke “to remind people that they could drink
Coke all year round (not just on summery afternoons).”
Sondblom drew his inspiration from the jolly toy giver in Clement Clarke Moore’s “An
Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas.” But even though the rumor is that Coke chose the
red color specifically to match it’s logo, the company still states that they simply
stuck with a color that Santa was already seen in before.
So even though they didn’t invent the image of Santa at Christmas or originate the idea
of his red suit, Coke’s clever ad campaigns to make people drink soda during the winter,
did help cement the image of one Santa (the fat, white bearded, jolly variety), virtually
eliminating all of the alternative versions that came before him in American pop culture.
It seems like the power of advertising packs a serious wallop. But that leads us to our
final question: why did this style of advertising have the ability to alter a time honored tradition?
Like Santa, ads have been around for centuries. But one of the distinguishing markers of older
advertising is that ads generally advertised new inventions or types of products by giving
the public information on these new goods and how to buy them. For example, 17th century
ads featured coffee but they weren’t aimed at having consumers buy a particular brand.
Instead they sought to introduce the idea of drinking coffee at all, a featured ads
that linked coffee to high society.
By the 19th century after the Civil War, US businesses were invested in economic recovery
and advertising in newspapers took on an important role. In the 1860s and 70s the first modern
advertising agencies in the US sprung up, N. W. Ayer in Philadelphia and J. Walter Thompson
in New York.
They started out by offering to take ads to newspapers on behalf of different businesses
before evolving into writing the ads themselves. Also at the tail end of the 19th century,
we started to see the emergence of brands, which were encouraged by the spread of pre-packaged
products. Rather than going to stores with their own containers, customers began buying
items that were already pre-wrapped and identified with a particular brand.
And by the time the 20th century rolled around ads focused on getting consumers not only
to buy new goods, but also to buy already existing products based on specific brands
were the norm. And Santa drinking a coca cola is a perfect example of how modern brand focused
advertising evolved.
So instead of listing all the features and benefits of drinking cola in general, 20th
century ads were geared towards using print, billboards, radio spots, & slogans to encourage
us to get products from one company over another and they started using powerful imagery, design,
and jingles to get us to remember which brand to buy from.
So how does it all add up?
Santa in a red suit existed before the Coca Cola ad campaigns. But there were many variations
on this tradition that didn’t include soda or jolly fat Santas, because there were other
images of skinny Santas, stern Santas, even kind of scary Santas, and they wore all sorts
of apparel and different colored suits.
But the common factor here is that traditions are sometimes part ritual, part celebration,
and part cultural representations. And it seems that some of the most successful ad
campaigns of all time work best when they take an already existent behavior (red suits
for Santa) and make them seem like the only standard or tradition. Before you know it,
a pitch for soda became a synonymous part of our traditional celebrations.
So what do you think? Have any other resources to share on the origins of Santa’s sartorial
choices? Drop them here along with a picture of your best holiday ugly sweater and we’ll
see you in the new year!
This week we were overwhelmed by all of your awesome comments and insights about women
in computer science. Our first shout out goes to Bobc on Youtube, who shared a great story
about their time spent in the Navy and the lectures hosted by Admiral Grace Hopper. Go
check out their amazing story on youtube.com/pbsorginofeverything !!!
Janet Daugherty on Facebook shared her own story of being a women in early programming
beginning in the 1960s. Check it out and thanks for sharing Janet!
Tony Vasile on Youtube recommends that anyone looking for great women role models in tech
look up Limor Fried, founder of Adafruit. Thanks for the recommendation Tony!
So the final comment comes from Ms. Glunz’ seventh grade English Language Arts class!
They wrote me a really touching note about what they’ve learned from watching our video
about women in computer science. These are some of my favorite comments to answer because
I love hearing from students and teachers who are driven and dedicated to learning.
You guys really made my week! Stay curious and thanks so much for your message (and I’ll
try to slow down in the future, sometimes I get pretty excited about history!) We'll
see you in the new year!
Keep commenting, sharing, and subscribing and we’ll see you next week!