Basic Trope: Wearing certain items, or clothing or accessories worn a certain way, denotes a character's marital or relationship status.
- Straight: Alice wears a blue hair ribbon to show that she's single.
- Exaggerated: Single women who are looking for men wear blue ribbons. Single women looking for women wear pink ribbons. Single men looking for women wear blue bowties. Single men looking for men wear pink bowties. Married women wear yellow ribbons. Married men wear green bowties. Singles who aren't looking wear white ribbons or bowties. Singles who are looking for either men or women wear purple bowties or ribbons.
- Downplayed: Alice wears a wedding ring to show that she's married.
- Justified:
- It helps to more easily determine who's available and who's not.
- The blue ribbon is a remnant of an old Troperian tradition.
- Inverted: There's no way to determine from clothing, jewelry, or other accessories who's single and who's not. The only way to know is to ask.
- Subverted: Alice wears a blue ribbon, but it's not to show that she's single.
- Double Subverted: Well, not to show that she's single per se. It's rather to show that she's a virgin.
- Parodied: Alice wears a blue collar with a leash attached to show that she's available as a BSDM partner.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- There is no culturally-agreed-upon system of showing who's single/married/etc. via clothing or accessories.
- Marriage as an institution, or really long-term monogamous relationships (and closed polyamorous relationships) in general simply don't exist in this society. People simply hook up and then go their separate ways, so there's no need to determine who's single and who's not.
- Enforced: The law of the land is that single women must wear blue ribbons to show that they're unattached.
- Lampshaded: "Oh, she's got a blue ribbon! You know what that means: she's single!"
- Invoked: A given society decides it wants a quick and easy way to tell who's available and who's not.
- Exploited: Alice is single, but she wears the yellow ribbon of a married woman to ward off unwanted attention.
- Defied: Alice chooses not to wear an outward sign of her relationship status.
- Discussed: A college course in feminist politics features the use of the blue ribbon as a lecture topic.
- Conversed: "Did you see that Alice is wearing her blue ribbon again?" "Yeah, I guess things didn't work out with Bob."
