What Do The Three Mardi Gras Colors — Green, Purple and Gold — Stand For?

Ready to impress your friends?  How many people know where the three Mardi Gras colors came from and what they stand for?

Oddly enough, it wasn't even a Louisianan or a Frenchman who came up with the iconic colors.  It was a Russian.  Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich Romanov, to be exact.  He was visiting Louisiana for Mardi Gras in 1872 when he suggested the colors.  That year's Rex then decreed that the three colors officially belonged to Mardi Gras, and it's been that way ever since.

So what do they mean?

GREEN stands for Faith

PURPLE stands for Justice

and GOLD stands for Power.