The World's Most Expensive Colors

For most of history a color was expensive when the material was rare or the labor was slow. Tyrian purple came from a gland in a sea snail, and it took thousands of shells to dye a length of cloth, which is why it was reserved for rulers. Ultramarine was ground from lapis lazuli carried overland from mines in Afghanistan; painters kept it for the most important robes in a picture. Cochineal, a red from an insect, and saffron, a yellow from a crocus stigma, were traded as luxury goods because the yield from each source was tiny.

Cloth dyed with these materials did more than decorate. It announced that the wearer could command a scarce resource. Courts regulated who was allowed to wear certain yellows, reds, and purples. A color became a privilege, then a symbol, then a habit of recognition.

Fashion houses still behave this way, with a dye recipe replaced by a trademark and a supply chain. A single red, green, orange, or blue, repeated on boxes, bags, and garments, is enough for a customer to name the house before they read a label. The plates that follow are those signature colors: not costly because the pigment is rare anymore, but costly because the color has been protected and repeated until it means one maker.

Before synthetic dyes, price followed biology. Tyrian purple came from a gland in a murex snail. Cochineal red came from a dried insect, saffron from the stigma of a crocus, ultramarine from lapis lazuli. A length of cloth in one of these announced that the wearer could command a scarce supply. Courts wrote laws about who was allowed to wear them.

In 1856 a chemistry student, William Perkin, accidentally made mauve from coal tar, and the price of purple collapsed within a generation. The expensive colors that remain are expensive because a house has repeated them until the hue means that house: a red, a green, an orange, a blue, protected by use more than by rarity. The plates are those signatures. Wear one as a quote, not as a costume.