Decorator colors (mauve and chartreuse) don't come into it.

Dimly recalled from my school chemistry classes is the information that mauve didn't exist as a colour until the invention of coal-based organic chemistry (circa 1870?) after which mauve and its relatives (magenta et al.) became all the rage; it was new and it was inexpensive. Later reading led me to the info that the colour was taken by the first wave of feminists to give their cause an identifying colour, not unlike the current association of red shirts and yellow shirts with opposing political groups in Thailand.

Oscar Wilde had something to say about the overwhelming availability of magenta in his last days, in France.

Cheers, Rowan