History Main / ColorCodedSecretIdentity

* [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] and [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] [[{{Superman}} Clark Kent]] always wore a blue suit with a red tie. (Also seen in ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries''.)

* Justified in ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha''. [[WomanInWhite Nanoha's]] [[InstantArmor Barrier Jacket]] is based off her school uniform in-universe (it was the first thing to pop into her head when she was asked to come up with a design). This continues in ''[=StrikerS=]'', where her military uniform is also white.

** Even the villains get in on it. In ''Series/PowerRangersInSpace'', the surviving (Red, Black, and Yellow) PsychoRangers take on human form. [[DarkIsEvil To emphasize that they're evil]], they are all wearing black pants and black leather jackets and have colored undershirts so we know which one is which. Unfortunately for Psycho Black, this meant he was wearing nothing but black. Justified in this case, as we had never seen them as humans before.

** Fate also tends to prefer black clothing (according to supplementary material, it's her favorite color). And just like Nanoha, her [[SpacePolice Enforcer]] uniform is black.

** This is a takeoff of something former Doctors tend to do: for an example, [[http://i.imgur.com/go5MWCk.jpg this]] photograph from the 1980s shows only the current incumbent (Peter Davison) in costume, while all the former Doctors are wearing outfits that resemble their Doctors' - Pertwee in a velvet jacket and frilly shirt, Troughton in a bowtie and braces, and Tom Baker in a shabby frock coat with elbow patches, a silk scarf as a tie and a colourful stripy scarf.

** The school uniforms of the other girls mostly don't bear so close a resemblance to their magical girl outfits beyond the general sailor style (notably, Minako's uniform has the same color scheme as Usagi's and Ami's, despite studying at another school), and adaptations vary on how strongly the color-coding is in effect where it comes to their street clothes. In ''Anime/SailorMoonCrystal'' they almost uniformly dress in their signature colors, while in the '90s anime adaptation everyone wears a range of clothes in different colors from one day to the next and any color-coding is mostly coincidental.

* The kids from ''Anime/DigimonFrontier''. Except for Koji and Koichi, they mainly wears colors very similar to their Legendary Warrior Digimon forms (Takuya wears red and yellow like Agunimon, Zeo wears pink like Kazemon, etc).

* In ''WesternAnimation/SpectacularSpiderMan'', prior to becoming [[Comicbooks/{{Venom}} Venom]], Eddie Brock always wears a black leather jacket and a white t-shirt, foreshadowing the color-scheme of his living "[[ClingyCostume costume]]". Of course, once bonded to the costume, he naturally has it shapeshift to look like his civilian clothing.

-->-- '''''Series/PowerRangersDinoThunder''''', after Tommy Oliver becomes the Black Dino Ranger

** The school uniforms of the other girls mostly don't bear so close a resemblance to their magical girl outfits beyond the general sailor style, and adaptations vary on how strongly the color-coding is in effect where it comes to their street clothes. In ''Anime/SailorMoonCrystal'' they almost uniformly dress in their signature colors, while in the '90s anime adaptation everyone wears a range of clothes in different colors from one day to the next and any color-coding is mostly coincidental.

* In the current DCComics and dating at least from the 1970s ''{{Shazam}}'' TV series, Billy Batson always wears a red shirt with a yellow collar.

* ''Franchise/SailorMoon'''s costume as a magical girl looks almost exactly like the sailor-style school uniform she wears as Usagi Tsukino: a white SailorFuku with a blue sailor collar and pleated skirt and a red bow on the chest. The difference is mostly that Sailor Moon's outfit is a snug-fitting bodysuit rather than a loose middy blouse, the skirt is shorter, and the ensemble includes elbow-length gloves and red knee boots.

* Usagi's first school uniform looks very similar to the outfit she wears as Franchise/SailorMoon. They both have a white shirt/bodysuit with a blue sailor collar, a red bow on the chest, and a blue pleated skirt. In fact it looks EXACTLY the same, the skirt is just a lot shorter and she has red boots.

* GoldenAge and SilverAge [[{{Superman}} Clark Kent]] always wore a blue suit with a red tie. (Also seen in ''SupermanTheAnimatedSeries''.)
** LampshadeHanging in ''{{Smallville}}'' — Clark favoured wearing a blue shirt and red jacket...and that's ''why'' he became known as the Red-Blue Blur ''before'' he started wearing a costume.

** The current page image comes from ''Series/SamuraiSentaiShinkenger.'' Actually, they're... much less obsessively colorcoded than some series. {{Irony ''Shinkenger'' doesn't technically count for the trope}}, as all of them are fine with morphing in the middle of the street where everyone can see them (as well as announcing their names and having a long intro where the [[{{Ninja}} Kuroko]] wave huge flags with [[TheHero Takeru's]] family crest on them).

** The current page image comes from ''Series/SamuraiSentaiShinkenger.'' Actually, they're... much less obsessively colorcoded than some series. [[Irony ''Shinkenger'' doesn't technically count for the trope]], as all of them are fine with morphing in the middle of the street where everyone can see them (as well as announcing their names and having a long intro where the [[{{Ninja}} Kuroko]] wave huge flags with [[TheHero Takeru's]] family crest on them).

** The current page image comes from ''Series/SamuraiSentaiShinkenger.'' Actually, they're... much less obsessively colorcoded than some series. ''Shinkenger'' doesn't technically count for the trope, as all of them are fine with morphing in the middle of the street where everyone can see them (as well as announcing their names and having a long intro where the [[{{Ninja}} Kuroko]] wave huge flags with [[TheHero Takeru's]] family crest on them).

* The ''SamuraiPizzaCats''' civilian outfits were so similar to their mission gear (and they always wore the same helmets!) that it was often hard for the viewer to tell which they were in, yet the villains of the show couldn't even identify the heroes when in their civvies. Lampshaded at least once.

* In ''WebOriginal/TheFiveishDoctorsReboot'', as part of its running entirely on AdamWesting, all of the ex-Doctors (apart from Tom Baker, who [[TheVoice never appears]] outside of [[StockFootageFailure deliberately bad stock footage]]) dress in toned-down versions of their Doctor's taste when out-of-character. Peter Davison favours lots of beige and BrainySpecs, Sylvester [=McCoy=] wears printed scarves, dark clothes and little hats (as well as a FunTshirt with the logo for ''Film/TheHobbit'' on it), and Colin Baker wears seriously eye-searing [[PrimaryColorChampion red, blue and yellow]] checked shirts. Paul [=McGann=] favours a bottle green jacket, and David Tennant sticks to suits.

-->-- '''''Series/PowerRangersDinoThunder''', after Tommy Oliver becomes the Black Dino Ranger''

* 'Manga/TokyoMewMew'': the heroes' magical girl outfit has the same colour as the uniform they wear to work part-time in the cafe.

* In ''TigerAndBunny'', Kotetsu's PoweredArmor is black, green, and white. His casual clothes? Black slacks, green shirt, black and white vest with matching hat. Barnaby also has similar color coding, but he has the excuse of not actually ''having'' a secret identity.

* The ''PrettyCure'' franchise takes this to ridiculous lengths since ''YesPrecure5'' as they not only wear color-coded civilian clothes, most of them have color-coded ''hair''. The only one defies this trope is [[spoiler: Ako/Cure Muse]] of ''SuitePrettyCure'', who wears pink and blue despite wearing [[spoiler: black at first then going into yellow]]