History Main / ColorCodedCastes

* ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'': In the episode ''El Bunny Supremo'' one member of each team had to eat a spicy pepper, followed by their partner diving off a cliff to complete the challenge. The spicier the pepper, the shorter the dive, and vice versa; eating the mild yellow pepper meant a dive from the highest point, a medium green pepper from the middle, and the spiciest red pepper from the lowest. A corresponding colored flag was waved after the pepper had been consumed to signal the diver.

*** Gray for [[DishingOutDirt Durasts]]

*** Black for [[HeartTrauma Heartrenders]]

* ''Literature/ShadowAndBone'': 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[[/note]] denotes their social status. Servants like Genya wear white, higher-ranking Etherealki wear blue, and the Darkling, the most powerful Grisha in the kingdom, wears black.

* ''ComicBook/CleanRoom'': In this Creator/{{Vertigo|Comics}} comic, people in [[{{Cult}} 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; [[spoiler: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.
* ''Creator/ECComics'': The story "[[https://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/54803.html Judgement Day]]" combines this trope with FantasticRacism. 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.

* AncientRome: 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 snails, making it exceptionally difficult and expensive to acquire.

* ''Creator/ECComics'': The story "[[https://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/54803.html Judgement Day]]" combines this trope with FantasticRacism. A human astronaut visits a planet of robots that come in two colors, orange and blue, and the orange robots discriminate against the blue robots.

* ''Creator/ECComics'': The story "Judgement Day" combines this trope with FantasticRacism. A human astronaut visits a planet of robots that come in two colors, orange and blue, and the orange robots discriminate against the blue robots.

->''"“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.”''
-->'''Series/{{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. [[{{Dystopia}} Dystopian]] fiction, the worlds of which often feature a FantasticCasteSystem, is particularly fond of this, as it can serve both as a handy way of [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience 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.

* ''Film/TheWomanKing''

** 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.

*** 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.

** 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.

** Peacekeepers - the Capitol’s militant police force - dress in armored white uniforms.
*** ''Literature/TheBalladOfSongbirdsAndSnakes'' also mentions the wearing of fatigues (explicitly distinguished from white uniforms) during training and non-combat duties.

* ''Literature/{{Divergent}}'': The society of the story has five "factions" (not including the factionless, who live as homeless people): Candor, Abdegnation, Dauntless, Erudite and Amity. Members of Candor dress in black and white, members of Abdegnation 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.

-->'''Series/Succession'''

* In the ''Manga/IsTheOrderARabbit'' manga, 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.
* The Students of Duel Academy in ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' are colour coded according to rank. Red are at the bottom. Yellow are in the middle and Blue are at the top.

* In the Creator/{{Vertigo|Comics}} comic ''ComicBook/CleanRoom'', people in [[{{Cult}} 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; [[spoiler: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.

* ''Literature/TheBlackMagicianTrilogy'', by Creator/TrudiCanavan, 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'', [[spoiler:Lord Balkan becomes the new high lord and changes the robe color to white, and the black robes are now worn by the {{Black Magic}}an]].

* ''Literature/TheHandmaidsTale:'' 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.

** The emperor of Yi Ti - an ancient, vast, and wealthy empire in the futher 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.

* The ''Series/{{Community}}'' episode "[[Recap/CommunityS5E08AppDevelopmentAndCondiments App Development And Condiments]]", which homaged dystopian films like ''Film/LogansRun'' and ''Film/{{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 ''Film/LogansRun''), Fours dress in varying bright colors such as blue, green and orange, and Fives dress in white robes.
* In ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryApocalypse'', 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.
* In ''Series/DoctorWho'', 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 "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E3VictoryOfTheDaleks 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: