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Hakama folding

Kendoka wear uniforms that are most often dyed a rich dark indigo blue. The distinctive blue keikogi in Kendo is said to be dyed with a special medicinal pigment known as aizome. The dye in the best of these garments tends to rub off on the skin, and is said to help promote healing when a student is bruised or cut during training. Hakama are also dark blue in color, although not dyed with the same substance.

Students, depending on the preferences of their instructors, are also free to wear other colors in training. All black training uniforms, all white uniforms (particularly for women in some dojo), as well as uniforms composed of a hakama of one color and a keikogi of another are also common. In modern times, children often wear an unbleached white keikogi with black cross-stitching, known as a shiromusashi.

The colors worn in Kendo, as in all the martial arts, are types of symbolic statements. The dark blue or black uniform colors are associated with the samurai's traditional role as representatives of social order. Dark blue is also associated with the god Fudo, the immovable. White is thought of as the color of purity and death. Combinations of dark and light are often thought to express the duality of in-yo (or yin and yang), a phenomenon traditionally thought to underlie all existence.