Royal Colours

In the west, the colour purple is associated with royalty and nobility, as purple dye was hard to obtain, and so was only affordable to the rich. The reason for this was that the only purple dye available at the time, Tyrian Purple, could only be obtained from the mucous of a small number of Eastern Mediterranean sea snails

In China, Yellow is traditionally the ‘Imperial colour’, but for historical and mythological reasons, rather than the availability of the dye. The yellow dragon has always been the symbol of the emperor, to the point where the legendary Emperor Huang Di was said to become a yellow dragon when he died. According to tradition, yellow was exclusively worn by the Chinese Imperial family, and a certain points in history it became illegal for anyone outside the royal family to war it, punishable by death.