Before Santa was consistently shown in red, he was depicted in several other colors, most often green , brown, tan, and sometimes even yellow.

Early Santa colors

  • In Victorian England, the “Father Christmas” figure was commonly shown in long green robes, symbolizing nature, winter, and midwinter festivals.
  • Early American illustrations of Santa in the 1800s also showed him in tan or brown outfits, sometimes with fur trim instead of the bright red we know now.

Other robe variations

  • Some 19th‑century images dressed Santa or St. Nicholas in yellow or other muted colors, especially in book illustrations and magazine art.
  • There are also examples of Santa in green suits in the 19th century, even after red started to appear, showing that his look wasn’t fixed for quite a while.

How red became standard

  • Cartoonist Thomas Nast’s late‑1800s drawings helped push a fur‑trimmed red suit into popular culture, replacing the older green and brown looks.
  • 20th‑century Christmas advertising, especially famous soft‑drink ads from the 1930s onward, then reinforced the red‑and‑white suit so strongly that most people forgot he had once been green, tan, and yellow too.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.