The club colours are a claret shirt with sky blue sleeves, white shorts with claret and blue trim, and sky blue socks with claret and white trim. They were the original wearers of the claret and blue. Villa's colours at the outset generally comprised plain shirts (white, grey or a shade of blue), with either white or black shorts. For a few years after that (1877–79) the team wore several different kits from all white, blue and black, red and blue to plain green.
The chocolate colour later became claret. Nobody is quite sure why claret and blue became the club's adopted colours. Several other football teams adopted their distinctive colours including West Ham United, Burnley, Scunthorpe United and Turkish club Trabzonspor. Crystal Palace also played in Villa's colours until the 1970s.