Stately Cloak violet

An adjectival form of state, condition of dignity. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for the deep saturated jewel tones of formal ceremony — the deep blue of a robes-of-state, the deep red of a state-banquet velvet. Sits in the bold-and-formal corner alongside imperial and royal, with slightly less institutional weight.

Old Northern French cloque, bell-or-cape. As a color modifier, cloak implies a heavy-shoulder-mantle-and-bell-shaped quality, the visual register of Anglo-Saxon-and-medieval-cloak hand-heavy-shoulder-mantle-and-bell-shaped Anglo-Saxon-and-medieval-cloak-and-pilgrim-cloak cloak-and-heavy-shoulder-mantle surfaces under Anglo-Saxon-and-medieval-cloak-and-pilgrim-cloak Canterbury-and-Compostela-pilgrimage wool-cloak-light. Sits at the modifier-and-textile end of the grid, parallel to cape and cowl in usage.

Viola odorata, the European sweet violet — small, fragrant, and the original meaning of the color name in English (the Violet of the rainbow). The color refers to a fresh sweet violet blossom in late winter: a saturated, slightly red-shifted deep blue-purple with the matte finish of small five-petaled flower. Cooler than amethyst, warmer than indigo, with the perfumed weight of a flower used in Roman garlands and Victorian eau de toilette.