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Long before synthetic dyes became widely available, textile dyeing relied entirely on substances extracted from plants, insects, and minerals, a process that was often labor-intensive and yielded colors that faded or shifted with washing and sunlight exposure. Certain dyes, such as one derived from a particular type of shellfish, were so costly to produce in quantity that the resulting color became strongly associated with royalty and high status, since only the wealthy could afford garments dyed in it. The introduction of synthetic dyes in the nineteenth century, discovered somewhat accidentally during research into other chemical compounds, disrupted this association almost overnight, making vivid, stable colors available to ordinary consumers at a fraction of the previous cost. This shift had social consequences beyond economics, as clothing color gradually lost its former reliability as a signal of a wearer's wealth or rank.