Why is santa dressed in red and white

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Holiday Events. Join Our Team. Traveling Exhibits. Community Programs. Power of Children Awards. Visiting Artist Application. Corporate Donations. Planned Gifts. Renew your Donor Membership. Current Members. Why Nast settled on red is hard to say. Some have suggested there was a link with the iconography of the original St Nicholas, who is often depicted in red robes, but more likely is that it just felt aesthetically right, chiming with the rosy-cheeked, red-nosed Santa of the poem, and with the red outfit playing off the whiteness of the fur, beard and snow — Nast was the first to portray Santa as a native of the North Pole.

But within a generation the battle was over, and by the mids no self-respecting Santa would have been seen in anything but red. Both took the externals Nast had laid down but sought to humanise Santa by portraying him more naturalistically than their predecessor.

The definitive image of the red-robed one was, however, the product of hard-nosed commercialism. They used Santa imagery throughout the s, but only in did they produce an ad the public really warmed to when they commissioned a painting by Haddon Sundblom, an American artist of Swedish and Finnish heritage many of the Americans responsible for creating the modern Santa have roots in the Europe of St Nicholas.

Sundblom conjured up an idealised Santa — vast of stomach, red of face, with little round spectacles; so perpetually jolly and grinning that it must have been exhausting for the old fellow. Traditional ecclesiastical practices may be strong, but they are no match for Madison Avenue. Santa is the most well-known figure when it comes to the holiday season, but could you possibly imagine him without his red coat? In fact, his famous red outfit has become so commonplace in the world that nobody even stops to question where on earth it came from.

Rather than using all the money for his own pleasure and enjoyment, he used much of it to help the poor people. They would receive secret gifts from him, and he was eventually made a saint because of his generosity.

When it comes to why Santa is really red, historians have taken a look at the clothing of saints during the early centuries. Saint Nicholas lived during the 4 th century — a time when their robes were red and white. Nicholas is thought to have worn red and white attire, which could possibly be one of the reasons why our modernised Father Christmas wears those colors. Beginning in the 16 th century, Father Christmas was introduced to the UK and was the Santa-figure of the Christmas season.