Fashionable Colors for Late Victorian Women Scientists: Mauve

Late Victorian lady naturalists working in the 1890s were working in what is sometimes referred to as The Mauve Decade, "because of the characteristic popularity of the subtle color among progressive 'artistic' types."

The 1890s were the decade when Oscar Wilde became a celebrity, wore green carnations, wrote The Importance of Being Earnest (above, Judy Dench as Lady Bracknell)... His look was all foppish hair, velvet, silk cravats, dressing gowns, capes...." Oscar Wilde, my man.  I've wanted to Lady Bracknell AUNT AUGUSTA for a long time:

1895 Costume designed by Maurizio Millenotti,
made ​​by Sartoria Tirelli in 2001,
worn by Judi Dench in the film The Importance of Being Earnest. "Lady Bracknell’s color palette for nearly the entire film incorporates various hues of purple."

[Bonus: Sure signs you're an 1890s kid: you wear mostly mauve.]

The mauve of The Mauve Decade was one of the first synthetic dyes. It was invented by William Henry Perkin in 1856.

Looking good, Perkin.

I looked bad in mauve when it was popular again in the 1980s before I was a 19th century lady naturalist and everyone had a white and mauve dinette set it seemed. I don't look great in it now. Sorry, fashion history of early women in science, I associate it with decay. And sadness. You kind of have to make your mouth into a mournful meow when you meow mauve.

Yet because "the 19th-century mother of Maryland mycology" I'm hoping to historically re-enact, Mary Elizabeth Banning, was in her dotage in this decade, I will Mrs. Mauve. But with the color far from my face.

Met Museum, silk slippers, 1894. So very mauve.