Star Trek: Every Starfleet Uniform Ranked From WORST To BEST

11. Starfleet Uniforms - Mid 2260s

Designed by William Ware Theiss, the uniform seen from The Man Trap onwards (with variations) marked the distinctive visual style of early Star Trek. 

Theiss explained in Star Trek: Costumes: Five Decades of Fashion from the Final Frontier by Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann that the bright Green, Blue, and Red colours were picked for simple reasons: they stood out well on-camera, which was especially important in an era where many televisions were still in black and white.

The oft-discussed Green v Gold uniforms (it was the dress, just years earlier) were lime-green in reality, though photographed gold. This explains the apparent discrepancy with the dress uniforms, as though Science/Medical and Operations/Security remain the same colour, Command switches to an obvious green.

These uniforms had rank insignia on the sleeve cuffs, though they did away with the Delta patterning from shoulder to cuff. The assignment Delta was still on the left breast, which, in the early days of Star Trek, was ship-specific. The standard Delta was originally unique to the USS Enterprise, though this has been retconned in the years since.

This version of the uniform also featured a dress variant for female officers. Both versions came with high leather boots, while the standard duty uniform also had pants that fell as far as the calf.

Starbases had their variations on these uniforms, leaning more closely to the versions from the mid-2250s. Cadets of Starfleet Academy also had their own version, more silver in colour, with a bright, shining material.