It’s the Wimbledon tennis championships at the moment, so what better time to look at that iconic colour combination of purple, white and green used by the tournament – and also by the suffragette movement. But more of that later…
The colours also represented a sort of freedom for me, as when I turned into a teenager I redecorated my bedroom in these colours. I stripped all the pop-star pictures attached with sticky tape to the old lemon and white striped wallpaper, leaving lots of damage, and painted all the walls in a wonderful deep viridian green.
Then I put on top of that large areas of plain purple wrapping paper and on those I stuck my posters – which were now tasteful dark Lord of the Rings posters instead of pop stars. This was the 1970s, when Lord of the Rings was still three books, not three movies.
As a finishing touch I painted the old wooden wardrobe, dressing table, chairs and door frames in brilliant white.
I loved it, although my father thought it dark and ridiculous, and the colour scheme lasted until I became a proper grown-up and painted the room over in peach…
But back to Wimbledon and the suffragettes…
The traditional Wimbledon colours are dark green and purple, although I put white in there as well, because the tennis players all have to wear white and it is used for contrast in the logos.
I first noticed these colours on my one and only visit to Wimbledon, on a freebie press trip in the early 1990s. All I can recall now is the bucks fizz (champagne and orange juice) on the bus on the way and seeing Pat Cash play on Court Number One.
I took with me a rubbish 35mm throwaway cardboard camera and snapped a distant and fuzzy picture of Gabriela Sabatini practising on an outside court. Somewhere I think I have a polo shirt in the green and purple colours.
I haven’t been able to find an explanation of the green and purple for Wimbledon – but I suspect the green is the grass (it is after all LAWN tennis) and the purple may be for the tournament’s long association with British royalty – since 1907 when the Prince of Wales (later George V) attended.
Those were Edwardian times and purple and green were good old Edwardian colours.
Which brings us to the suffragettes (a name given them by the Daily Mail), who campaigned for women to have the vote in Britain in the early 20th century.
One of the suffrage organisations, the Women’s Social and Political Union of Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, adopted their purple, white and green colours in 1908. Here we DO know the meaning of their colour choice – purple for dignity, white for purity and green for hope.
There were banners, flags, rosettes and medals (for going on hunger strike in prison) – and even jewellery, often featuring amethysts, pearls and peridots. Mappin & Webb of London produced a special Christmas catalogue of suffragette jewellery in 1908.
There’s an excellent post by the Melbourne Blogger about suffragette jewellery.
Wikipedia says it’s a myth that the colours were green, white and violet to spell GWV as an acronym for “Give Women Votes”. But the colour scheme certainly gets my vote!
Thank you for the very informative article..There is so much more to the tradition other than “just” a tennis match…who would have thought..? Your article as usual was ‘awesome”…I llok forward to watching the Tournament this week-end…weedbychoice
Thanks as always for your kind words…
x
How can I order the pale brown, sitting down teddy above with his green cap and green tunic with the Wimbledon badge on the front? The cap has a purple edge, the sleeves go half way down his arm, and his tunic covers most of his tummy??
I’m afraid that is quite an old post now and the Wimbledon shop does not currently stock the teddy. But I have seen the same on this eBay link…
Best wishes 🙂
Please what are the “Pantone” numbers for the Wimbledon colours as I so painted a kitchen wall. It is much admired but all say the paint sold me by Farrow and Ball High Street
,vWimbledon, Breakfast room Green no.81 is too light and the Purple, Pelt no. 254, is too dark. The wall is however lovely.