THE COLOUR PURPLE
MEANING
The colour purple represents royalty, luxury, wealth wisdom and dignity. It is also associated with magic, mystery, independence, imagination, and creativity.
The negative meanings of purple are decadence, irritability, conceit, and pomposity.
HISTORY
Purple, unlike violet, is not one of the colours of the visible spectrum. It was not one of the colours of the rainbow identified by Isaac Newton, and it does not have its own wavelength of light. For this reason, it is called a non-spectral colour. It exists in culture and art, but not, in the same way that violet does, in optics. It is simply a combination, in various proportions, of two primary colours, red and blue.
Purple’s rarity in nature and the original expense of creating the colour has given purple a supernatural aura for centuries.
As early as the 15th century BC the citizens of Sidon and Tyre, two cities on the coast of Ancient Phoenicia, (present day Lebanon), were producing purple dye from a sea snail called the spiny dye-murex. The deep, rich purple dye made from this snail became known as Tyrian purple.
It took some 12,000 shellfish to extract 1.5 grams of the pure dye - barely enough for dying a single garment the size of the Roman toga.
Mountains of empty shells have been found at the ancient sites of Sidon and Tyre. The snails were left to soak, then a tiny gland was removed, and the juice extracted and put in a basin, which was placed in the sunlight. In the sunlight the juice turned white, then yellow-green, then green, then violet, then a red which turned darker and darker. The process had to be stopped at exactly the right time to obtain the desired colour, which could range from a bright crimson to a dark purple, the colour of dried blood. Then either wool, linen or silk would be dyed. The exact hue varied between crimson and violet, but it was always rich, bright, and lasting. It’s no wonder, that this colour was used primarily for garments of the emperors or privileged individuals and hence the connection with royalty was made.
In 1856, an eighteen-year-old British chemistry student named William Henry Perkin was trying to make a synthetic quinine.. His experiments produced instead the first synthetic aniline dye, a purple shade called mauveine, shortened simply to mauve. It took its name from the mallow flower, which is the same colour. The new colour quickly became fashionable, particularly after Queen Victoria wore a silk gown dyed with mauveine to the Royal Exhibition of 1862. Prior to Perkin's discovery, mauve was a colour which only the aristocracy and rich could afford to wear. Perkin developed an industrial process, built a factory, and produced the dye by the ton, so almost anyone could wear mauve. It was the first of a series of modern industrial dyes which completely transformed both the chemical industry and fashion.
Purple was popular with the pre-Raphaelite painters in Britain, including Arthur Hughes, who loved bright colours and romantic scenes. At the turn of the century, purple was a favourite colour of the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, who flooded his pictures with sensual purples and violets.
The colour has different meanings for different cultures. Among Mediterranean people, purple was reserved for emperors and popes. The Japanese christened it ‘Imperial Purple’. Purple is the colour of mourning or death in many cultures including Italy, Thailand, and Brazil. The United States Military awards the Purple Heart to soldiers wounded in battle.
In the 20th century, purple retained its historic connection with royalty; George VI (1896–1952), wore purple in his official portrait, and it was prominent in every feature of the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, from the invitations to the stage design inside Westminster Abbey. However, at the same time, it was becoming associated with social change; with the Women's Suffrage movement for the right to vote for women in the early decades of the century, with Feminism in the 1970s, and with the psychedelic drug culture of the 1960s.
In the early 20th century, purple, green, and white were the colours of the Women's Suffrage movement, which fought to win the right to vote for women, finally succeeding with the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920. Later, in the 1970s, in a tribute to the Suffragettes, it became the colour of the women's liberation movement.
During the 1960s and early 1970s, it was also associate with counterculture, psychedelics, and musicians like Jimi Hendrix with his 1967 song "Purple Haze", or the English rock band of Deep Purple which formed in 1968. Later, in the 1980s, it was featured in the song and album Purple Rain (1984) by Prince.
PURPLE AND BRANDING
Big brands use the colour purple, mainly due to the universal meanings that it portrays: mystery, honour, creativity, luxury, leadership, and even sentimentality.
Purple historically has been tied to royalty, fantasy, nature, and female-focused brands.