The two-tone tabard is available in various combinations, including black and red, black and yellow, black and green, blue and natural, red and natural, and green and burgundy. The checkerboard or vertical division of the colors (mi-parti) served in the Middle Ages to indicate allegiance to a lord or city and allowed knights to visibly display both colors of their coat of arms simultaneously. Furthermore, a color symbolism developed from this to express the wearer's state of mind.