You may have noticed that, more often than not, Queen Elizabeth wears purple clothes. But have you ever wondered why though? Well, we certainly did (we are useless info junkies for a reason), and the answer is quite interesting.
You see, for centuries, purple has been associated with royalty and wealth. Back in the day, purple fabric was incredibly expensive hence, only rulers and could afford it. And when we say expensive, we do mean e-x-p-e-n-s-i-v-e. Roman emperor Aurelian famously disallowed his wife to buy a shawl made from purple silk because it literally, cost its weight in gold! But what makes purple so expensive?
Well, purple’s elite status comes from the scarcity and cost of the dye that was used to produce it. Here’s how it goes: (the article continues after the ad)
The dye used to make purple came from the Phoenician city of Tyre. Fabric traders obtained the dye from a small mollusk that was only found in that region of the Mediterranean Sea. But producing the dye, required a lot of work and more than 9,000 mollusks to create just one gram of Tyrian purple. This is why the price of purple fabric was insanely expensive and only emperors and queens could afford it.
And now you know!
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Photo: Wikimedia, Wikimedia, Wikimedia
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