Color-Coded Castes

"In ancient Rome, they wanted to make the slaves wear something so they could identify them, like a cloak. Then they decided not to do it because they realised if all slaves dressed the same, they would see how many of them there were, and they'd rise up and kill the masters."

— Lukas Matsson, Succession

Sometimes, societies in fiction will be explicitly divided into specific castes, such as one caste devoted to science, one devoted to law enforcement or military service, one devoted to more physical labor, etc. And some of those societies will extend this caste division into how their respective members dress, assigning each caste a specific color. Dystopian fiction, the worlds of which often feature a Fantastic Caste System, is particularly fond of this, as it can serve both as a handy way of color coding characters and making them visually memorable for the audience, but also to signal how controlling and influential the ruling body is, since it extends so far that they control how its citizens dress. However, this trope isn't exclusive to societies that enforce this kind of division of its citizens with threats of force; even organizations and societies whose members joined them willingly can use such dress codes and caste divisions.

Possibly a Sub-Trope of Colour-Coded for Your Convenience, though while that can be used as a narrative device for the audience's sake, this trope is actively enforced or encouraged within the universe of the story. Also of Dress-Coded for Your Convenience, though that also isn't necessarily enforced in-universe.

Super-Trope to Color-Coded Patrician. See also Fantastic Caste System, members of which tend to dress as described.

---

Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Is the Order a Rabbit?: Chino mentioned the town requires that its buildings to show the occupations of the occupants by this trope. For example, fishmongers will need to paint their houses blue, and bakers pink.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: The Students of Duel Academy are colour coded according to rank. Red are at the bottom. Yellow are in the middle and Blue are at the top.

Comic Books

• Clean Room: People in the Honest World Foundation visiting the titular clean room dress in colored overalls with white details based on their rank within the organization. Astrid, the organization's leader and founder, wears pink; Rooks, i.e. Astrid's closest bodyguards, wear grey; common security guards wear green; Chloe, as a wazir and Astrid's close lieutenant, wears purple; "Frells", i.e. regular people and "nobodys", wear light blue, and potentially special visitors, like Chloe during her first visit, wear orange.
• Judgment Day (EC Comics) combines this trope with Fantastic Racism. A human astronaut visits a planet of robots that come in two colors, orange and blue, and the orange robots get the lion's share of everything while the blue robots are reduced to second-class citizens.

Film

• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: While in uniform, the Dora Milaje wear elaborate metal neck rings. While most are silver, the commanding general wears gold.
• Dragonheart: A New Beginning: Lord Osric introduces a law that requires everyone to wear color-coded tunics: green for peasants, brown for castle servants, beige for artisans and merchants, black for soldiers, red for nobles and aristocrats, and white for the king.
• The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
  • Students at the Capitol Academy (seemingly analogous to high school) wear bright red uniforms, referred to as "academy rouge" by Lucky Flickerman.
  • When not in their trademark white uniforms, Peacekeepers in District 12 wear "civvies" made of blue, denim-like fabric.
• Kong: Skull Island: Amongst the tribe on Skull Island called the Iwi, the majority of them wear yellow paint on their bodies, except for two lead elders who instead use blue paint which makes them stand out.
• Logan's Run: The Sandmen all wear black and blue uniforms. Also the life crystals change colour. Within the City, those who aren't Sandmen wear clothes the same colour as their lifeclocks. The babies in Nursery are wrapped in white, a few children can be glimpsed wearing yellow (the Cubs in Cathedral also sport tattered yellow garments), older teenagers are wearing green, and twenty-somethings all wear red. The 30-year-olds' outfits at the "Renewal" are red below and white above, presumably because it's assumed they'll be reborn as infants and wear white again.
• The Woman King:
  • The Agojie - elite female warriors - wear tunics striped in red, blue, and purple. Those worn by higher-ranking officers include yellow stripes and a leather sash decorated with cowrie shells.
    • Agojie-in-training (often younger women) wear white tunics striped in blue.
  • Male soldiers/musketeers wear tunics striped in multiple shades of blue.
  • On the battlefield, Agojie wear patterned blue skirts and red garments resembling halter-tops, while male soldiers wear kilt-like garments in dark blue.
    • Nanisca, general and leader of the Agojie, wears a top of woven leather decorated with cowrie shells.
  • Palace eunuchs are draped in long purple robes.

Literature

• Nineteen Eighty-Four: In Oceania, members of the governing body, the Party, are all dressed in overalls, though members of the higher-ranking division, the Inner Party, dress in black, and members of the lower-ranking, middle class-like one, the Outer Party, in blue.
• The Avatar Chronicles: In the virtual universe of Saga, society is ordered in seven ranked color tiers — Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet, in increasing order of status. Each citizen is issued a card of their rank's color, and the color of your card determines what stores and homes you have access to, where you are and aren't allowed to go and so on. Most of the world's population is Red and lives in poverty, and only the highest elite is Violet. The Dark Queen, who rules over the world of Saga, is the only one to possess a Black card, which grants her authority to do whatever she wants and go wherever she pleases.
• The Black Magician Trilogy: Color codes the three different disciplines of magic (Warriors wear red robes, Alchemists wear purple robes, and Healers wear green robes) as well as rank (the heads of each discipline wears a black sash, the King's Advisors wear gold sashes, the Administrators wear blue robes, and the High Lord wears black robes). Also, at the end of The High Lord, Lord Balkan becomes the new high lord and changes the robe color to white, and the black robes are now worn by the Black Magican.
• Brave New World: Citizens of the World State are divided (and genetically grown) into five different castes. They are, in descending order of "rank" and assigned responsibilities, Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons. Members of each caste dresses in specific colors: Alphas dress in grey, Betas in mulberry, Gammas in leaf green, Deltas in khaki and Epsilons in Black.
• Divergent: The society of the story has five "factions" (not including the factionless, who live as homeless people): Candor, Abnegation, Dauntless, Erudite and Amity. Members of Candor dress in black and white, members of Abnegation wear grey, members of Dauntless wear black, members of Amity typically wear bright colors such as red or yellow, and members of Erudite wear blue.
• Dragonriders of Pern: The various Holds and Crafts have traditional colors and shoulder knot patterns that denote rank and affiliation. This is more an example for the characters than the readers, as the Hold/Craft colors almost never get described in the text. Harpers are associated with a light shade of blue known as "Harper Blue"; healers usually wear green.
• The Grace Year: In Garner County women must wear their hair in a braid with a colored ribbon wound around it. White is for young girls and black is for wives. Red, the color of warning and sin, is for the grace year girls, who banished to the wilderness for a year so their "evil magic " is purged.
• The Handmaid's Tale: Women in the Republic of Gilead are forced to dress in specific colors depending on their rank. The wives of Commanders wear blue, Handmaids wear red with white veils, Aunts (who train Handmaids) wear brown, Marthas (cooks and maids) wear green, "Econowives" wear striped clothing, young and unmarried girls wear white, and widows wear black.
• Harry Potter:
  • Certain professions in the Wizarding World are distinguished by specifically-coloured robes. Some of these are within the Ministry of Magic itself (where the "caste" aspect of the trope fully comes into play), but some independent organizations also have chromatic dress codes.
    • Members of the Wizengamot - the wizard high court - wear plum-coloured robes while in session.
    • Magical Maintenance employees - essentially custodians - wear navy blue robes.
    • The security guard in the Ministry's Atrium was mentioned as weaning peacock-blue robes (matching the ceiling), but there was no indication that this was an official uniform of the position.
    • Healers at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries wear lime-green robes, emblazoned with crossed wand and bone.
    • Employees of Weasly's Wizard Wheezes - the joke shop founded by Fred and George Weasly - wear magenta robes.
  • The robes worn by students of Mahoutokoro - the Japanese Wizarding school - change color based on level of achievement, starting out as pale pink and turning gold if top marks are achieved in every subject. If any student performs illegal or Dark magic, the robes turn white, resulting in immediate expulsion.
• A Hole in the Fence: In Metropolis, the color of your clothes denotes your social status. Servants wear dark suits. Middle class people wear somewhat brighter clothes. Senior civil servants and official wear light colors. And bright-white one-piece suits are reserved for the governor's family.
• The Hunger Games:
  • Although not described in detail, the prequel novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes mentions specific uniforms worn by students at the Academy, which presumably includes some level of color-coding.
  • Avoxes - people who have committed crimes against the Capitol and had their tongues removed as punishment - are dressed in white tunics and function as servants.
  • Gamemakers dress in purple robes while observing the Tributes' training, and the robe worn by the Head Gamemaker is embellished with fur at the collar.
  • Healers in District 13 wear white uniforms while on duty, in contrast to the gray clothing worn by ordinary citizens.
  • Peacekeepers - the Capitol's militant police force - dress in armored white uniforms.
  • The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes also mentions the wearing of fatigues (explicitly distinguished from white uniforms) during training and non-combat duties.
• The Machineries of Empire: Downplayed in the Hexarchate Galactic Superpower. The six factions each have a colour pairing: gray and bronze for Rahal (law); green and bronze for Vidona (punishment); blue and silver for Andan (culture and finance); black and silver for Nirai (science); red and gold for Shuos (intelligence); and black and gold for Kel (military). However, citizens don't have to join a faction and faction members don't need to wear their colours in informal situations. The Shuos hexarch jokes that he joined the faction because the colours look good on him.
• The Reynard Cycle: In Calvaria, you can instantly determine anyone's general profession and rank in society based entirely on the color of their clothing:
  • Children, and people of the service class, wear white.
  • Artisans, engineers, and laborers wear tan.
  • Members of the military wear gray. Non-Calvarians sometimes refer to all Calvarians as "the Grays" due to the fact that they've never seen one who wasn't a soldier of some kind.
  • The blood-guard (Calvaria's State Sec) wear black trimmed with red.
  • The Judges (the law makers and arbiters of justice) wear red trimmed with black.
• The Seventh Tower: The Chosen's society is arranged in a Rainbow Motif to match their light-based magic, determining the colours they wear and the privileges they're allowed. There is some caste mobility, so everyone dreams of ascending to a Violet lord, while the Reds are one misstep away from losing their magic rights and being demoted to white-robed Underfolk.
• Shades of Grey: The future-humans living in Chromatacia can only see one color each. People are sorted into castes based on which color they can see: the purples are the aristocrats, while the reds are the working class, and those who can't see any color are little better than slaves.
• Shadow and Bone: In the Grisha community as run by the king and queen of Ravka, the color of the Grisha's kefta ^note A special, armor-like robe denotes their role in the Second Army:
  • Corporalki wear red robes, trimmed with:
    • Black for Heartrenders
    • Gray for Healers
    • Blue for Tailors
  • Etherealki wear blue robes, trimmed with:
    • Cyan for Tidemakers
    • White for Squallers
    • Red for Inferni
    • Gold for the Sun Summoner
    • While he's technically an Etherealnik, the Darkling wears unadorned black
  • Materialki wear purple robes, trimmed with:
    • Gray for Durasts
    • Red for Alkemi
  • While not generally drawn from the ranks of the Grisha, palace servants wear white kefta trimmed in gold.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • The Graces are the all-female clergy of the Ghiscari religion practiced in Slaver's Bay, and their robes are color-coded to indicate their specific roles.
    • Blue Graces are trained as healers and battlefield medics.
    • Red Graces work as temple prostitutes.
    • Green Graces are high priestesses, with only one per city.
    • Pink Graces work as servants and attendants to the Green Graces.
    • White Graces are the novices who have not yet been assigned a role.
  • The emperor of Yi Ti - an ancient, vast, and wealthy empire in the further east of Essos - is the only person in the empire allowed to wear robes made of cloth-of-gold and decorated with green pearls and jade.
• An unintentional example occurs in La Saga de los Confines of Liliana Bodoc, in The Ancient Lands, in the empire ruled by Misaianes The Son of Death, there are millions of slaves who are the lowest caste of all, they even lack individual names. , and they are known as the people of spots. Because they are identified by the spots on their hands, if they are blackened they are coal miners, if they are yellowish they are sulfur grinders, if they are women and have swollen and reddish hands they are dyers, etc.
• Spinning Silver: The King of the Staryk Fair Folk wears pure white, and his subordinates wear progressively more and darker shades of grey based on decreasing rank.
• The Wheel of Time: The Aes Sedai Magical Society is organized into seven Ajahs based on interest: Red, dedicated to finding and De-Powering dangerous male channelers; Blue, active with personal causes; Green, aimed at preparation for Tarmon Gai'don, the Last Battle; Grey, mediators and diplomacy; Yellow, the healers; Brown, who dedicate themselves to study and knowledge; and White, the philosophers. And Black, the evil ones.
• The Wind Singer: The city of Aramanth has a caste system with the following colors (from lowest status to highest): Grey, Maroon, Orange, Scarlet, White. A family's position in the system is determined by its members' performance in the regular civic exams.

Live-Action TV

• American Horror Story: Apocalypse: The Cooperative institutes a color-coded caste system where the elites are called "Purples" and wear purple clothing, while servants are called "Greys" and wear grey clothing.
• Community: The episode "App Development And Condiments", which homaged dystopian films like Logan's Run and Zardoz, featured this. The Greendale students beta test a social media app, Meow-Meow Beenz, in which users can rate actions (and by extension people) as a number between 1 and 5. Greendale being Greendale, this quickly turns into a dystopian society where people are divided based on their average score, and dress accordingly: Ones live outside the school like outcasts, Twos dress in beige workclothes and do menial labor, Threes dress in black with grey stripes and serve as guards (based on the guard uniforms from Logan's Run), Fours dress in varying bright colors such as blue, green and orange, and Fives dress in white robes.
• Doctor Who: Daleks have, on a few occasions, started coloring its members to indicate higher levels of authority. A short-lived set of Dalek subdivisions introduced in "Victory of the Daleks", which were intended to become the official Dalek design (before audience backlash and ridicule led to the original design being restored), were colored to indicate their specializations and command levels:
  • Scientist - orange
  • Strategist - blue (later a darker, metallic navy)
  • Eternal - yellow
  • Supreme - white
  • Drone - red (later a darker, metallic burgundy)

Tabletop Games

• Paranoia: The dystopian, post-apocalyptic society of Alpha Complex sorts its citizens by Clearance Level in a Rainbow Motif from Infrared to Ultraviolet.^*(Rumours of a Gamma clearance level are treason.) All clothing and equipment is customized to a clearance level, which usually also determines its quality (Infrared gear is black; Ultraviolet, white). Paint, for obvious reasons, is highly illegal for citizens.
• Warhammer Fantasy: The Bretonnian nobility have sumptuary laws out the wazoo, which they occasionally waive for meritous common-born individuals... or rather, one they want to make ridiculous by authorizing him to wear certain colors, ensuring he's going to dress himself from head to toe in that color.

Video Games

• The Outer Worlds: Parodied. This generally doesn't apply, but the Rizzo's corporation markets a brand of colored vodka, Spectrum, where it's actually a criminal offense to drink any bottle that's above your paygrade: red for entry-level workers, yellow for skilled workers, orange for management, green for guards, blue for executives, indigo for the elite and violet for the ultra-elite.

Webcomics

• Homestuck: Trolls have a twelve-tier Fantastic Caste System determined by their blood colour, which also determines their lifespan and psychic abilities, and wear accents on their clothing to match their "hemotype". Karkat's insistence on nondescript grey is an early sign that he has a mutant blood colour, a potentially fatal deviation in their society.
• Outsider: The specialized castes that compose the Loroi military each possess a specific pair of colors that marks their armor and clothing. The Doranzer (medics) wear cream and light blue, the Listel (analysts and chroniclers) wear white and purple, the Mizol (diplomats, intelligence specialists and political officers) wear black and teal, the Soroin (soldiers) wear green and silver, the Teidar (combat psychics/Marine analogues) wear bronze and teal, the Tenoin (pilots) wear orange and tan, and the Torrai (commanding officers) wear gray and red.

Western Animation

• Legend of Korra: The uniforms worn by the United Forces (military of the United Republic of Nations):
  • High-ranking officers - regardless of bending ability or lack-thereof - wear red jackets, white trousers, and dark brown or black boots.
  • Ordinary soldiers wear specifically color-coded uniforms: Firebenders wear maroon; Earthbenders green; Waterbenders blue; and non-benders gray.

Real Life

• Ancient Rome: Only the patrician class of wealthy, influential landownwers were allowed to strut around with a purple stripe across their togas as a sign of their class. This is because the dye was made from tens of thousands of ground up rare sea snails, making it exceptionally difficult and expensive to acquire.
• Bhutan: The kabney is a long silk scarf worn as part of traditional men’s dress. The scarf comes in various colors and national law strictly stipulates who can wear what, based on their social rank and position in society.
  • Saffron yellow: Worn only by the king of Bhutan and the Je Khenpo, or chief Buddhist abbot.
  • Red: Worn by male members of the royal family and high-ranking officials.
  • Orange: Worn by ministers and other members of the government.
  • Blue: Worn by members of the Parliament.
  • Green: Worn by judges.
  • White: Worn by ordinary citizens.
• Canada: The military is integrated; that is the Army, Air Force, and Navy are all part of the same organization, and thus wears the same uniforms^note Though there are specific trades who don't wear the CADPAT uniform at all, they aren't the norm and all soldiers are issued CADPAT and use color-coded berets, undershirts, and insignia to distinguish their elements. The Army uses green, the Air Force blue, and the Navy Black. Specific trades will also have uniquely colored berets like Military Police (red), paratroopers (maroon), search and rescue (orange), foot guards (khaki), armored (also black), special forces (tan), and as of 2019 artillery, electrical and mechanical engineers, signals, and intelligence will be wearing army blue. They also adopt sky blue in lieu of their color when serving on a peacekeeping mission with the U.N. and terracotta when serving with the Multinational Force and Observers. On normal deployments, however, they all wear the Army's colors out of fear of enemy troops spotting the bloke in blue and deciding he's a priority target worth shooting.
• Elevator School: Some schools use differently colored school uniforms to distinguish between pupils from different levels.
• Imperial China:
  • Only the Emperor was allowed to wear yellow and write using vermilion ink.
  • During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the rooftops of houses in Beijing were strictly color-coded in accordance with the inhabitants’ rank; golden-yellow for the imperial/royal residences; green for lesser princes; and gray for commoners.
• Sumptuary laws: Many countries historically had sumptuary laws, restricting types of apparel and other objects only to certain segments of the population. While the specific reasoning for such laws could vary widely by time, place, and cultural context, one primary motivation was to maintain the prestige of the aristocracy, and in particular to keep nouveau riche merchants from upstaging the aristocracy. In some cases these laws could be simple and straightforward, while in others the regulation could reach down to the smallest details.

---