In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the Handmaids wear red uniforms.
The color is part of Gilead’s rigid system of social classification. Handmaids are fertile women forced to bear children for the ruling class, and their ankle-length red dresses make that reproductive role visible wherever they go. Their outfits are completed by white headgear, including the wing-like bonnets that restrict their peripheral vision and conceal their faces.
Red carries several associations in the novel: fertility, blood, sexuality, danger, and public shame. The uniform also erases individuality. Handmaids are renamed with an “Of-” prefix based on the Commander they serve, so clothing and names together mark them as state-controlled property rather than autonomous people.
The other colors are easy to mix up. Commanders’ Wives wear blue, Marthas wear green, Aunts wear brown, and Econowives wear combinations of red, blue, and green. The red Handmaid costume became especially recognizable through the television adaptation and has since appeared in real-world women’s-rights protests.