:: July 2001 
Feature
The Colorful Story of Mauve
How to you pronounce the word, mauve? Your choices include mov, mawv, or the Victorian era's morv. Whichever pronunciation you select, Cyberfibres recommends that you take a break from your current fibrework projects long enough to read Simon Garfield's book, Mauve – How One Man Invented a Color that Changed the World.
At times, fibrework seems like an experience outside the regular workings of the world. But as this book demonstrates, the world of fibre has spawned inventions that have touched the lives of virtually everyone on the planet.
William Perkin was a British teenaged chemist in 1856 who was trying to find a synthetic form of quinine for the treatment of malaria. Instead, his experiments with coal-tar produced a substance which turned silk a remarkable color of light purple – mauve. Perkin's discovery enabled dye factories to mass produce color.
His discovery proved the practical applications of chemistry for industry in such areas as perfumes, chemotherapy, and plastics.
So, rest your needles, looms, and spinning wheels while you enjoy a fascinating fibre read.