New Orleans Mardi Gras - Traditional Colors

Traditional Colors

Meaning of Colors
Justice (purple)
Power (gold)
Faith (green)

The traditional colors of Mardi Gras are purple, green, and gold. These colors are said to have been chosen by Grand Duke Alexis Alexandrovitch Romanoff of Russia during a visit to New Orleans in 1872. This doctrine was reaffirmed in 1892, when the Rex Parade theme "Symbolism of Colors" gave the colors their meanings.

In his book "Krewe: The Early New Orleans Carnival: Comus to Zulu," Errol Laborde shows the above mentioned meanings of the Mardi Gras colors to be false. He gives a much simpler origin, having to do primarily with looking good.

Read more about this topic:  New Orleans Mardi Gras

Famous quotes containing the words traditional and/or colors:

    We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the National Militia, and under the provision of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of President Monroe.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    Few colors last; with their eternal thirst, time and light suck on them, and they bleach the black doctor’s hat until it’s grey like a dunce’s cap.
    Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)