Forbidden, Killer, and Impossible Colors
Part 3: Fatal wallpaper and lethal toothpaste
This is part three of “My Color Pilgrimage,” a five-part series on the wonderful world of color. Read the introduction, part one, and part two.
Throughout the history of the world, people have been alarmed by color’s power—and sought to regulate it.
Forbidden colors
In many places and times, sumptuary laws dictated the colors of people’s clothing. Rank, birth, wealth, and occupation were signaled by clothes and color, and certain colors were reserved for certain people.
In ancient China, only the emperor could wear bright yellow.
In ancient Rome, purple was highly regulated. During some periods it was permitted; sometimes women could wear it but only certain high-ranking men; sometimes only the ruler could wear it, on pain of death.
In Western European heraldry, it was generally forbidden to put red over or beside black.
In the sixteenth century, Protestant reformers shunned bright colors as signs of vanity.
In Victorian England, the color of mourning became highly regulated. Social rules dictated what people should wear after the death of a relative or monarch. Widows, for instance, wore full mourning black for months or years, and then dressed in half-mourning, when they also wore mauve, heliotrope, and other soft purples.
Even now, color decorum remains very strong. I would never wear red to a funeral, or dress an infant in black, or wear a green wedding dress.
Killer colors
