Yue gets her glow-up (it's a bad joke I know XD), and becomes the moon spirit. I followed the show's lead on the shape and fabric change for Yue's transformation. I looked at some of the famous illustrations of Chinese Fairy Maidens/Deities (which take the Tang Dynasty style fashion and extra draping and exaggerate it into a mythical lady) and added back in shapes, motifs and textures from Yue's previous design.
(Reoccurring disclaimer for this art series: This is for fun, they are inspired by the show's costume designs and then extrapolated out with historical fashion or things I think will be fun to draw. These are not meant to be accurate, only inspired. I hope you like them!)
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[ image description: a digital drawing of Yue from Avatar: the Last Airbender. She is a brown-skinned woman looking down and walking towards the viewer. She has white hair tied in plaits, with turquoise stone ornaments in her hair. She is wearing a light purple deel with white facings at the closure and cuffs that have turquoise and coral embellishments, and a matching belt. She has a dark purple coat lined with cream fur and matching shoes and hat. She is wearing many strings of turquoise beads around her neck, and has a turquoise and coral medallion representing Twi and La. There is a block of blue in the top left, with pale cloud and moon outlines. There is a similar block of purple in the bottom right with intertwining koi fish outlines ]
prints ✨ commissions
I've been doing a lot of research into Mongolian clothing recently, and I also read that the water tribes' interior design is Mongolian inspired, so I thought it might be fun to put a little Mongolian spin on my latest Yue drawing. Her deel is based on the ones this Üzemchin couple are wearing, and I noticed the prevalence of turquoise, coral and filigree silverwork in Mongolian jewellery so I tried to reflect that too :)
I've also been kinda obsessing over water tribe blue. In my last rewatch I noticed that the SWT clothes are slightly more purple than the NWT, with the exception of Yue, who's also purple. Now, idk if this is a worldbuilding thing — maybe it's a representation of how the war affected the water tribes differently; the clothing in the SWT is older and more faded perhaps, since the Fire Nation raids disrupted trade so much, while NWT life (and trade) wasn't as affected. It could also be a design choice to visually distinguish Katara and Sokka (and Yue) from the NWT.
But @atlaculture made a really interesting post a month (?) or so ago about the water tribes and blue dye and I'd sort of like to add my own two cents (although, admittedly, my knowledge of historical clothing and dyeing comes from historical European/British clothes). I'm not a concise person, so I'll put it under the cut for the sake of everyone's dash:
In the British Isles, we traditionally used woad leaves (isatis tinctoria) for blue dye and it produces the same indigo compound as true indigo (indigofera tinctoria) only less concentrated. Woad is found across Europe, the Caucasus regions, western and central Asia, and as far as eastern Siberia (it was also brought to North America). Woad was also relatively cheap compared to indigo, since woad grows better in the colder climates while indigo is native to subtropical areas (west Africa, Tanzania down to South Africa, and India to mainland southeast Asia). There are lots of other plants that produce blue dyes, especially in the indigofera genus (the name literally means “bringing indigo”), but the point here is that the price of the dye is affected by where and what climates the plants naturally flourish in. I think it makes sense that the SWT would be importing woad dyes, which could come from the cooler south Earth Kingdom, rather than true indigo which would probably have to grow in the central Earth Kingdom. And, like I said, woad produces a lower concentration of indigo compared to true indigo, which could account for the faded colour — it would also make sense for the SWT to dilute their dyes to make them last further. On the other hand, the NWT retained a lot of their money and power throughout the war, meaning that they could likely afford to import indigo in spite of the higher costs.
The other thing I want to bring up is orchella weeds. These are lichens we used historically in the British Isles (and the rest of Europe) and they produce a whole range of colours between red, purple and blue depending on the species and the exact process. In fact, they're used to make litmus (and litmus tests), which pretty well shows the colour capacity of these dyes. These lichens have been grown from Cape Verde to Norway and Sweden. Given that lichens are remarkably hardy things and can grow from sea level to alpine elevations, and from tropical rainforests to frozen tundra, I think it's a safe bet that everyone and their mum knows about lichens in ATLA, especially as other lichens have also been a good source of purple dyes around the world. But I'm pretty sure that orchella lichens specifically do very well in costal areas, meaning again, they'd be very easy for the water tribes to get in trade (and maybe even find at the very subarctic fringes of the poles). Point being that it actually makes sense to me that the tribes have this purple colour, and particularly that the SWT has a more purple tinge to their clothing if they're having to substitute some of that woad or indigo due to trade disruptions or even just the war driving the prices up. I have no idea if purple has the same connotations of richness, luxury and royalty in Asia as it does in Europe, but if it does I could also see the shift towards purple being pedalled as a good thing from that perspective.
On the subject of purple and luxury, let's talk about Yue and purple. So, the European perception of purple as a regal colour comes from murex dyes. See, purple from lichen dyes fades in the sunlight, whereas murex dyes are fast (they don't fade). They were used as far back as the Ancient Phoenicians to produce vibrant and long-lasting purples (Tyrian purple, primarily) used largely, if not exclusively, on the clothing of the highest ranking, because it's also an extremely costly and labour-intensive dye to produce, requiring tens of thousands of snails. These snails are also tropical (so, coming from the central Earth Kingdom), further driving up the price should either water tribe want to trade for them. But it makes sense to me that royalty would import the most expensive dyes; it's a display of wealth and it's a display of power. Yue's clothing has a lot of those other subtle indicators of wealth too, from the big sleeves to the train on her skirt and the jewellery in her hair. However, I think as the war dragged on, murex dyes would become harder and harder to get — like I said, were they to exist in the ATLA world, they'd have to come from the central Earth Kingdom and travel for weeks to get to the NWT. This might be why Yue's outer clothing is that vibrant, murex purple but the inner isn't. Fun fact, there is a cousin of the murex snails (purpura) that was used in central America by the Aztecs and Mayans to make a dye also associated with royalty.
The other thing to note is that there is also a very similar dye that was made in western Polynesia from sea urchins. I haven't been able to find much on it, but given that the water tribes do have Polynesian influences (and sea urchins), it makes sense that this dye would be available as a sort of “home grown” version of murex. I'm not sure how fast a dye it is — like I said, I haven't been able to find much on it, so I think the research may not be out there, at least in a language I understand. I did find this Japanese source but I'm not sure how similar the method is to the Polynesian way. It does suggest that sea urchin dye is very potent, describes the colours obtained as “stable” and instructs on the different shades of purple obtained by mixing other chemicals such as calcium hydroxide (“calm purple”) and baked alum (“bright purple”), so I do believe it could be cheaper alternative to murex that the royal family might start to use as the war dragged on. The reason why I suggest that, certainly prior to the war, the NWT might prefer to use murex dyes, is as a display of wealth and power. We certainly see them fixed on tradition and social hierarchy, and there are opulent displays of wealth in their architecture, the feasts they throw, and the big jewellery that Yue and her father Arnook wear.
In conclusion, the water tribes could absolutely get their blue dye from plants. Woad and indigo are sources they could trade for, but the original post also highlighted some subarctic plants that produce blue dyes. The purple clothing could interestingly be both a display of wealth when coming from expensive murex dye, but also the disruption of trade and scarcity of blue dyes caused by the war.
