It produces a medium-sized mushroom with a grayish-brown cap up to 5 cm (2 in) wide, gray-violet gills and a whitish stem with pale yellow belts below.

The cap has a broad, blunt and low umbo, which frequently lies in a depression since the margin which is initially rolled inward, then straight, often becomes turned upward.

The cap is almost uniformly colored dirty rusty-brown or ashy-brown to grayish-tan, sometimes slightly paler towards the margin, with or without a faint grayish-violet tinge when young.

[8] The gills are moderately crowded, about 4 mm (3⁄16 in) wide when mature, thin, and whitish-blue, grayish-blue or pale lilac when young.

On the rest of the stem there are sometimes remnants of the partial veil as yellowish-saffron hairy tufts, which form incomplete rings or scattered minute scales.

The cortina (a cobweb-like partial veil consisting of silky fibrils) is thick, whitish, and lasts only a short time.

[8] Cortinarius alboviolaceus is silvery-white to gray-violet when young and has a thick, white fibrillose veil, a bulkier stem, and elliptical spores.