Nowadays purple wisteria and mallow flowers kimono patterns (left) can be worn by all, but things used to be different.ĭuring the Nara period, about 1,400 years ago, only high-level officials and the Imperial Family could wear purple clothes since the year 604, when the twelve levels cap and rank system was enacted in Japan. It also required a lot of effort to dye using the color purple. Purple is called murasaki (紫) in Japanese.įor a long time in Japan, ordinary people were forbidden to wear purple clothes. The color purple used to be very rarely seen because it was difficult and took time to make. The color of purple used to be very pricey because it needed to be extracted from shigusa (purple gromwell plant), which is very difficult to grow. Purple Used to Be for the Ruling Class Only The tea ceremony led to the birth of its own aesthetics and potteries which would be designed in order to admire the color of matcha green tea even more. Since the 13 th century, the Japanese nobility would enjoy tea parties, and in the 15 Th century the tea ceremony was born and became highly popular among the samurai. One of the most traditional hues of green in the Japanese tradition is called matcha iro, literally the color of matcha green tea. Like in most cultures, the color green is usually associated with nature and a sense of peace and calm. This is also why in Japanese green traffic lights are called ao shingo (literally, “blue signal”).

Take, for example, aoba (green leaves) or aoume (green plums). Later the word midori (緑) was more widely used to say green, but the use of ao to describe the green color is still reflected today in Japanese vocabulary. Today this word means blue, but for a very long time the word ao (青) was used to describe both the blue and green colors, and there was no difference between them culturally. The Japanese call green traffic lights “blue lights.”

Murasaki color