Colors that go with Plum for curtains
Plum · #8E4585
Plum (#8E4585) — a deep purple-red — pairs best with terracotta & clay, ochre & gold, deep charcoal, and teal. For curtains, choose terracotta & clay, drawn from 8 historically-grounded combinations below.
Curtains frame a room and filter its light, so the partners that work read cleanly against both the wall behind them and the daylight through them.
About plum
Plum is a deep purple-red — a gently muted, warm colour that reads as deep and grounding. As a warm tone it looks most resolved next to cool and neutral partners that temper its warmth, and it needs both lighter and deeper shades nearby for the value contrast the eye reads as finished. That balance is what makes it feel refined in curtains.
- HEX
- #8E4585
- RGB
- 142, 69, 133
- HSL
- 307°, 35%, 41%
- CMYK
- 0, 51, 6, 44
Accessibility: put light text on plum for AA legibility (contrast 6:1 against off-white).
Why plum pairs with terracotta & clay, ochre & gold, deep charcoal, and teal
Across the 8 historical combinations below, plum sits most often beside terracotta & clay, ochre & gold, deep charcoal, and teal. That tracks with colour theory: a warm, deep tone like this one wants cool and neutral partners that temper its warmth so the scheme feels intentional rather than flat, and both lighter and deeper partners supply the light-to-dark range the eye needs. Curtains frame a room and filter its light, so the partners that work read cleanly against both the wall behind them and the daylight through them.
- terracotta & clay
- ochre & gold
- deep charcoal
- teal
Using plum in curtains
For curtains, choose terracotta & clay and ochre & gold. Because plum is deep and grounding, keep it to anchor pieces or a single feature area and let terracotta & clay carry the larger surfaces.
8 combinations with plum, from the 1933 Dictionary
Lemon Yellow & Vandar Poel's Blue +1
Plate 168 from Sanzo Wada's 1933 Dictionary of Color Combinations — Lemon Yellow, Vandar Poel's Blue, Veronia Purple.
#8c4c62 #f8ed43 #064f6e
Deep Violet / Plumbeous & Veronia Purple +1
Plate 183 from Sanzo Wada's 1933 Dictionary of Color Combinations — Deep Violet / Plumbeous, Veronia Purple, Red Violet.
#8c4c62 #70727c #59256a
Rosolanc Purple & Orange +1
Plate 144 from Sanzo Wada's 1933 Dictionary of Color Combinations — Rosolanc Purple, Orange, Black.
#b73f74 #f37420 #111314
Rosolanc Purple & Cinnamon Rufous +1
Plate 204 from Sanzo Wada's 1933 Dictionary of Color Combinations — Rosolanc Purple, Cinnamon Rufous, Light Glaucous Blue.
#b73f74 #c27544 #a5c8d1
Spinel Red & Rosolanc Purple +2
Plate 277 from Sanzo Wada's 1933 Dictionary of Color Combinations — Spinel Red, Rosolanc Purple, Olive, Dull Violet Black.
#b73f74 #f27291 #837e31 #1e0e3f
Khaki & Deep Lyons Blue +1
Plate 236 from Sanzo Wada's 1933 Dictionary of Color Combinations — Khaki, Deep Lyons Blue, Purple Drab.
#84565b #bc892b #1c4286
Royal Purple & Silver
Imperial purple set against lunar silver — Heian courtly luxury at its quietest.
#7A4E8F #BCBCBE #2B2B2B #F4EEE0
Coral Red & Lemon Yellow +1
Plate 123 from Sanzo Wada's 1933 Dictionary of Color Combinations — Coral Red, Lemon Yellow, Taupe Brown.
#7a4456 #f58e84 #f8ed43
Plum in other settings
Other colors
From the archive
Support the archive The full catalog, on your disk, as a thank-you.
- All 378 palettes (348 Wada + 30 editorial) in five formats
- Figma design tokens (W3C-spec JSON, drag into any file)
- Tailwind v4 + v3 configs — drop into any project
- CSS custom properties — every plate, one stylesheet
- 378 museum SVG plates — print-ready at any size
- Full JSON — colors, names, eras, moods, dominant hues
Launching soon. The free archive stays free, always.
Library
Go deeper on colour
The colour-theory books behind pairings like Plum — history, reference and the science of what works together.
Book links are Amazon Associates affiliate links. Your price is unchanged; a small commission supports the archive. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.