Cat coat patterns: tabby, tuxedo, calico, tortie and colourpoint

Cat coat patterns are not breeds: a tabby, a tuxedo or a calico can turn up in a pedigree cat or a street cat. A coat is the meeting of a colour (black, grey, ginger and their paler shades) with a pattern: stripes, white patches, patches of two colours, or darker points. Learn the handful of main patterns and you can name almost any cat you meet. This guide walks through them in the order you are likely to see them, and shows where each one sits in our Find your cat designs.

Tabby: a pattern, not a breed

The Cat Fanciers’ Association puts it simply: tabby is a pattern, not a colour and not a breed. Every tabby, whatever its stripes, carries an “M” on its forehead. Breeders and registries describe four main tabby patterns:

• Mackerel: narrow stripes running from the spine down to the belly.
• Classic: broad swirls and a circle on each side, with a “butterfly” across the shoulders.
• Spotted: the stripes broken into spots.
• Ticked: each hair banded light and dark, so the coat looks evenly flecked rather than striped.

Our Ginger Tabby sits with its back to you, stripes down both sides and rings on the tail, and the Grey Tabby shows its dark stripes in profile.

Solid colours: black, grey and ginger

A solid cat has one colour all over. Black is the most familiar, and the Cat Fanciers’ Association recognises 22 breeds that can come in solid black. Grey, often called blue by breeders, is a paler, diluted form of black. Ginger is the odd one out: almost every ginger cat shows at least faint tabby markings, which is why so many people think of ginger and tabby together. If you want to know why ginger cats are so often male, we explain it in why most orange cats are male.

Tuxedo and other bicolour cats

White spotting is a separate gene that leaves patches of the coat without colour. When the white is limited to the paws, chest, throat and belly of a dark cat, people call it a tuxedo. Registries rarely use the word; it is a nickname for a black and white bicolour, not a breed, and bicolour coats appear across many breeds. With more white, the same gene gives the harlequin coat (mostly white with large patches) and the van coat (white with colour only on the head and tail). Our Tuxedo wears its white shirt front and one white paw.

Calico and tortoiseshell

A tortoiseshell, or tortie, mixes black and orange in one coat, usually swirled or brindled together. Add white spotting and you have a calico, also called tortoiseshell and white, where the colours sit in clear patches on a white ground. Both coats are almost always female, for reasons that come down to the X chromosome. Our guide to calico vs tortoiseshell covers the difference in detail.

Colourpoint: the Siamese pattern

A colourpoint cat has a pale body with darker ears, face, paws and tail. The darker points come from a temperature-sensitive form of the enzyme that makes pigment, so colour only develops on the cooler parts of the body. It is the classic Siamese look, and it also appears in breeds such as the Birman and the Himalayan. We explain how it works in why Siamese cats have dark points.

How to read your own cat’s coat

Start with colour: is the cat black, grey, ginger, cream, or a mix? Then look for pattern: stripes and an “M” on the forehead mean tabby; white patches mean white spotting; two colours mingled mean tortie; dark points on a pale body mean colourpoint. Many cats combine two or more, such as a ginger tabby with a white chest or a tortie with tabby stripes. There is no wrong answer, only a more precise name.

Breeds that carry these coats

Because patterns are not breeds, the same coat can turn up in very different cats. The van pattern takes its name from the Turkish Van, named after Lake Van, and that breed comes only in bicolour coats. The Ragdoll and the Manx both list bicolour coats in their standards. Colourpoint belongs to the Siamese and its relatives, and the Bombay comes in solid black only. In mixed-breed cats, the patterns mix freely.

Cat coat patterns, embroidered

We drew seven coats for Find your cat: ginger tabby, black, tuxedo, calico, tortie, Siamese and grey tabby, each machine embroidered in its own thread colours at the centre of the chest of a tee, crewneck or hoodie, or on the front of a tote, never printed. If you live with a ginger, a black or a grey cat, the Ginger cats, Black cats and Grey cats pages gather every design with that coat.

Which piece to choose

Each of the seven coats comes on four pieces. The heavyweight tee is 100% ring-spun cotton, garment-dyed, in sizes S to 4XL. The crewneck and the hoodie are a soft fleece of cotton with some polyester, in sizes S to 3XL. All three are a relaxed fit, so order your usual size, and the size guide lists every measurement in centimetres. The tote is one size, 38 × 42 cm. Each design has its own two garment colours, chosen to set off its coat: the Ginger Tabby on white or true navy, the Tuxedo on grey or seafoam. Every piece is made for you after you order, and each product page shows the expected delivery dates, with free tracked shipping.

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