The Federation is never quite satisfied with its uniforms. They’ve gone through quite a few iterations historically, different colors and ornaments meaning different things every few decades. On Deep Space Nine at the moment, red uniforms indicate command, but in thirty or forty years red might indicate medical, or engineering. The shapes of the comm badges might be completely different in a hundred years, judging by how they’ve been morphing recently. Bajoran apparel doesn’t change like that, not that we have uniforms, exactly—the earrings are the closest equivalent, and even their designs change slowly, a hundred years passing before any change in meaning happens.
This evidences a greater truth. Bajoran history, up until the Occupation, tended towards slower movements than Federation history. Bajor has had its share of disasters and upheavals, but they have occurred on a much-expanded timescale. The Bajoran culture remains patient, resilient, slow to accept any new ideas, and highly conservative, unlike the impulsiveness of the leading cultures of the Federation—Human, Betazoid, and Andorian, to name a few, with Vulcan culture as a notable exception.
