The image of the “flesh” crayon and its antique-store label comes from Bob Doto’s “The Elusive Flesh Crayon: Ig’nant Toys,” https://notnewyork.net/2011/06/03/the-elusive-flesh-crayon-ignorant-toys/. At https://onmilwaukee.com/family/articles/crayolablog.html, Molly Snyder writes: “Crayola changed the name of this crayon in 1903, from ‘flesh tint’ to ‘flesh’ to ‘pink beige’ and then back to ‘flesh.’ It finally switched for good to ‘peach’ in ’62.”

The fashion print dates from 1897 Chicago and is at https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2018695709/. I post-processed it to restore contrast and color, and (because I lack a chemical analysis of the pigments in the original and a knowledge of clothing design in the 1890s) that involved guesswork about what Photoshop’s hue and saturation controls were meant to show me. The fourth man from the right in the front row, especially: in Chicago in 1897, would his suit really have been that shade?

Well, under their clothes all of the men in this image really had to be uncolored. Twenty-two years after 1897, Chicago’s Henry Blake Fuller had to self-publish his novel Bertram Cope’s Year because it hinted at gaiety. Even so, I suppose it may be that once upon a time in 1897 Chicago a fabric artist could at least have dreamed of a purple suit.