The work analyses the production and marketing of purple in Roman times. The analysis of merchants related to the sale of purple, purpurarii, and merchants of the best fabrics and dresses, vestiarii, allow access to visitors were the characters involved with the making and marketing of clothing and fabrics in the Metropolis. The fame of certain colours soon attracted the attention of the Roman elites, and during the imperial period, the purple became a state issue, allowing its use by a small number of people linked to the emperor’s family. At this point we make a brief review of the different leges sumptuariae. In this regard, we have taken advantage of, in addition to commenting that the places were more important for the extraction of this dye, to comment that they were the diverse productive techniques of the Mediterranean and Atlantic purples.