Star Trek’s Starfleet Uniform Colors: What They Mean & Why They Changed

From the 22nd century, a gold Starfleet uniform meant command, until it switched from gold to red between Star Trek: TOS and TNG - why the change?

Star Trek's iconic uniforms have through a variety of changes in color designation and design in the past 57 years for a variety of reasons. In Star Trek: The Original Series' unaired pilot, there were only two colors - blue for the science and medical divisions and gold for everybody else. Due to the costs involved in mounting a second pilot for the network, the gold uniforms were retained for TOS' successful pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before". After that Star Trek embraced the gold, blue, and red uniforms that were an integral part of TOS' iconic visual style between 1966 and 1969.

The meaning of gold, red and blue have changed over the years and so too has the way that those colors are displayed on the uniform. This is understandable for a franchise that has been running for 57 years. Each new costume designer will have their own vision for how they think Star Trek's uniforms will look, and which characters would best suit which color. For example, Robert Blackman adapted original Starfleet uniform designer William Ware Theiss' Star Trek: The Next Generation uniforms for the 90s Trek shows and subsequent movies. Although he redesigned the outfits, Blackman honored the new color meanings decided upon by Theiss.

In the entire history of Star Trek, blue has always denoted that the officer wearing the uniform is attached to Starfleet's medical or scientific divisions. During the 23rd century, the gold uniform denoted command positions and were also worn by Star Trek's ace helmsman Lt. Hikaru Sulu (George Takei) and navigator Lt. Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig). The red shirts were worn by the engineering, security and communications divisions. The red shirts also had an unfortunate association with the countless members of Starfleet away teams that were killed in the line of duty. Meanwhile, Kirk's green uniform was usually reserved for diplomatic functions.

By the 24th century there had been a switch around of Starfleet uniform colors and their relevant associations. Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) wore a red uniform throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation, rather than a gold one, so too did his Number One, Commander William T Riker (Jonathan Frakes). Meanwhile, the gold uniforms were worn by everybody with an operational role from security down to engineering, with occasional Enterprise-D helmsmen wearing red uniforms, like Lt. Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) in TNG season 1.

There's never been an in-universe explanation for the red and gold switch between Star Trek's 23rd and 24th centuries. It can easily be explained by an operational decision made by Starfleet's wardrobe department to break away from the problematic "redshirt" association. Similarly, the more sober gray uniforms in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the Star Trek: The Next Generation uniforms could have been designed to reflect the war footing that Starfleet had found itself on while in conflict with the Dominion.

The real-life explanation for why Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes weren't dressed in gold is more interesting, however. There are apocryphal stories that Stewart and Frakes didn't look as commanding in the gold uniforms designed by original Star Trek: TNG costume designer William Ware Theiss. It's certainly true that the dark red uniforms worn by Captain Picard and Commander Riker pop better on screen than the gold uniforms worn by the ops team. More interesting still, Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) was supposed to be in science division blue, but it was a bad color for his pallid android skin tone.

Interestingly, Scott Bakula's Star Trek: Enterprise went back to the color distinctions from Star Trek: The Original Series. Each of the blue flight suits had colored piping around the shoulders reflecting yellow for command and red for operations. The only notable difference was that Lt. Hoshi Sato (Linda Park) had the blue piping of the science division on her uniform to reflect her role as the Enterprise NX-01's linguist and translator. It's thanks to Hoshi's scientific research into alien languages that Lt Nyota Uhura (NIchelle Nichols) can maintain hailing frequencies in her operational position aboard the USS Enterprise.

Other notable uniform variants are the similarly blue uniforms from Star Trek: Discovery which had gold or silver cuffs and side panels for command and operations, respectively. The iconic crimson movie costumes had different colored turtleneck sweaters under the tunics, presumably to denote crew role. Prior to those iconic crimson outfits were the poorly received monochrome uniforms designed for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which were sometimes referred to as space pajamas. The longer that the franchise continues into the future, the more likely it is that Starfleet uniforms will continue to adapt and change. However, Star Trek: Discovery's far future uniforms prove that Star Trek's command red is very much in style almost a millennium after it was first introduced.