William Perkin invented the first synthetic dye.
Instead of buying new dresses, some of them borrowed Perkin's dresses.
An exhibit explains Perkin's discovery of mauve, or mauveine, an intense purple dye.
In 1864, 18-year-old William Perkin was experimenting with quinine in order to produce a new antimalarial drug.
Perkin, an artist by hobby, realized the potential
of“mauvine,” as he called it, and began marketing it as the first synthetic dye.
When he started fiddling with chemicals in his home in March 1856,
William Henry Perkin had no idea what was about to happen.
Perkin was tasked with finding a cheap way to produce quinine,
a substance used to treat malaria, which had to be extracted from the bark of exotic trees and was thus expensive.