Shades of purple and mauve became very fashionable in the 1860s in the United Kingdom following the discovery of a reliable synthetic dye of this colour by William Perkin in 1856.
He had been trying to find a cure for the disease malaria, and was cleaning the flask he had used for an experiment on aniline when he noticed that the residue combined with alcohol to make a purple coloured liquid. This liquid was very effective as a textile dye, which he patented, and set up a factory to produce at Greenford in Middlesex in 1857. The new shade was called mauve, from the French word for the mallow plant which has purple/ mauve flowers. Queen Victoria seems to have boosted its popularity by appearing in a mauve dress in 1862.