The story
Edo dyers, working with local water and ash mordants, produced a bluer purple than Kyoto's red-toned tradition and named it after their city. When the kabuki hero Sukeroku strides out with an Edo-murasaki headband knotted at his temple, the color is the whole character: metropolitan, defiant, and up-to-the-minute — the 18th-century equivalent of a designer logo.
