An original Final Fantasy dev shares a really interesting explanation for the design of the White Mage's robe

Koichi Ishii is currently the CEO and President of Grezzo, which has worked alongside Nintendo on multiple Zelda titles. Back in the day, Ishii was a part of the team at Squaresoft that birthed Final Fantasy. That means Ishii has some really interesting insight and thoughts on the series.

In another internal interview with Square-Enix, Ishii touches upon the design of the White Mage. He talks about the original costume in particular, and shares his own idea for what the red-and-white design represented. This is non a canon explanation, but I certainly wish it were!

One thing that really left an impression on me was when I saw the job character designs in FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - the white mage’s robe was portrayed as white cloth with thick red zig-zag triangle designs on it. I thought, “Could it be that everyone thinks that’s what the white mage looks like!?”

The image I had is that the red part of a white mage’s robe is embroidered from red threads imbued with magic when spun together, increasing the wearer’s magical power. The reasoning for the red threads being on the sleeves is that magic leaves the body through the hands and wrists, so that area is most effective. I was very particular about the lore that equipment like wands and amulets are used as a catalyst to turn natural power into magic, stimulating the user’s magic strength. That’s why I was adamant about never giving magic users iron equipment; if they use normal metals, their magic power will disperse so at least go with mythril ore...stuff like that.