History Main / EmptyPilesOfClothing

* In ''Film/TheWitches1990'', a pile of clothes is left when a child turns into a mouse; unlike in the book and the [[Film/TheWitches2020 2020 film adaptation]], where the clothes disappear.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'' episode "Frog Day Afternoon," 3 ''very'' confused Planeteers find [[NotWhatItLooksLike Linka's and Wheeler's empty clothes lying on the ground in the middle of the night]]... because the poisoned darts they were hit with earlier caused them to shrink down super tiny in their sleep, but their clothes didn't shrink along with them.

* In ''Film/TheWitches1990'', a pile of clothes is left when a child turns into a mouse; unlike in the book, where the clothes disappear.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'': This happens to [[spoiler:Mother Gothel]] at the end, as a result of Flynn finally cutting Rapunzel's hair [[spoiler:and depriving her of her FountainOfYouth, which kills her]].

** In "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS2E7PrehibernationWeekLifeOfCrime Prehibernation Week]]", [=SpongeBob=] ends up leaving his clothes behind on a plant when hiding and Sandy thinks that he's gone missing ("[=SpongeBob=] always folds his clothes before running around... in the nude!").

After all, those clothes used to belong to ''somebody'', and people don't just... decide to take off and leave their clothes behind on a regular basis. (Sure, NakedPeopleAreFunny, but let's be serious here.) Therefore, discovering a pile of uninhabited clothing is a definite clue that something... ''unnatural'' happened to its owner. The cause may be anything (disintegration, a ShrinkRay, ForcedTransformation, CaughtUpInTheRapture, an OutOfClothesExperience, overdosing on a FountainOfYouth, etc.) but for this trope to play, an onscreen character, the audience — or both — must be less than certain about the ''how''. The {{Foreshadowing}} goes double if the clothing is ripped, torn, or otherwise provides forensic clues about what might have happened to them.

* ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'': On Deathwater Island, the characters find some discarded armour, next to a pool containing a golden statue. When they discover that the pool turns things to gold, they realise that the statue was in fact a person who dived in, and the armour was theirs, the clothes having rotted away long ago.

* In ''Anime/{{Scryed}}'', Scheris Adjani attempts to save her love interest by using her powers, which drains her life force. It happens off screen, but when he wakes up, all he finds are her clothes.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E26S4E1TheBestOfBothWorlds The Best of Both Worlds]]", after Picard is captured by the Borg, the search party looking for him on the Borg cube initially find only his uniform in a locker. They shortly thereafter find out he's been turned into a Borg himself.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. In the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E22Innocence Innocence]]", Tuvok meets a group of alien children on a planet who start disappearing off-screen only leaving behind their clothes. As it turns out, [[spoiler:the children's species [[MerlinSickness age in reverse]], turning into children toward the end of their life and then turning into energy when they die of old age]].

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E24LongLiveWalterJameson Long Live Walter Jameson]]", the more than 2,000-year-old title character is shot by Laurette Bowen, one of the many wives that he has abandoned over the centuries. He rapidly ages and turns to dust. Professor Samuel Kittridge and his daughter Susanna find nothing but an empty pile of clothes on the floor of Walter's study.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E143QueenOfTheNile Queen of the Nile]]", Jordan Herrick quickly turns to dust, leaving only his clothes, after Pamela Morris steals his LifeEnergy using a [[ScarabPower scarab beetle]] in order to maintain her eternal youth and beauty.

* The whole concept of The Rapture (in which True Believers will be bodily taken unto Heaven just before the Apocalypse hits, leaving only discarded piles of clothing behind). This is fervently believed by some Christians and dismissed as wishful thinking by others.

* ''Series/{{Chernobyl}}'' shows the genesis of one of the creepiest artifacts of the disaster: the pile of discarded firemen's uniforms in the hospital basement. Dr. Zinchenko orders that the firemen be stripped of their gear and has it dumped in the basement because she immediately recognizes that they're still carrying a huge dose of radioactivity. The camera lingers on the pile of jackets, boots, and gloves, transformed from protective gear to a deadly danger. (The heap of gear is still one of the most radioactive and dangerous objects there.)

Notice: As a '''DEATH TROPE''' (sometimes), there can be '''SPOILERS''' here. Beware!

* In ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'', this is all that's left of the real culprit after he gets dissolved into nothingness.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'', [[spoiler:empty clothes littering the ground are a surefire indicator that whoever used to wear them has turned into a daemon]].
* In the text-based game ''VideoGame/TheForgottenNightmare'', there are piles of empty clothing in various places in the game. The disappeared people seem to be in various stages of activity. The mystery is even more creepy because there are many people still present and walking around. It becomes apparent that [[spoiler:the people have been taken in the Rapture. The Protagonist was left behind, and events from the book of Revelation seem to be happening]].

* In the PC game ''VideoGame/LegendOfKyrandia2HandOfFate'', one of the many ways that the PlayerCharacter Zanthia can die is by [[HighVoltageDeath touching an electrified wheel]]. The shock vaporizes her until nothing is left but her clothes.
* In ''VideoGame/MissingOnLostIsland'', you and your girlfriend are attacked by goons. During the fight your girlfriend is shot by a strange ray gun and vanishes leaving only her clothes. Soon after, you are also shot with the same gun.
* When a city is pulled into the Nexus in ''VideoGame/NexusClash'' nearly everyone in it spontaneously disappears, which means this trope is the most likely explanation for why there are loads of spare clothes lying around for player [[RainbowPimpGear fashionistas]] to try on. At least, we ''hope'' that's why the beaches are littered with [[MakingLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces discarded swimsuits]].
* This is one of the mysteries in ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheAzranLegacy''. In the village of Hoogland, young girls are regularly "wed", or rather sacrificed, to a wind deity so as to calm its wrath down and ease the winds and tornadoes that plague the village. The girls are said to transform into a breeze upon their sacrifice, as evidenced by their empty clothes being left in the sacrificial chapel. [[spoiler:It's actually a hoax pulled off by the women of the village: by going through a secret passage, they are able to save the girls before they are actually sacrificed. They left behind their clothes to fool the men into thinking the deity accepted the sacrifice.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Riot}}'', upon the EvilSorceror main villain's defeat in the final stage, he first gets StrippedToTheBone. Then his bone turns to dust, leaving him a set of robes in his throne.

* In ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'', Consuls O and P set [[RivalsTeamUp Ethel and Cammuravi]] (the former under the threat of the annihilation of the recently liberated Colony 4) against the Ouroboros, aboard specially made [[HumongousMecha Ferronises]]. However, after Cammuravi [[EyeScream gouged out his own Iris]] to prevent the Consuls from controlling him, he and Ethel decided to forego their orders and [[BloodKnight engage in one last joyous duel against each other]]. Their life force was drained as they [[MutualKill both struck the other with a killing blow]], and their bodies faded into motes of light, leaving their clothes behind in the Ferronis cockpits.

* In ''Film/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'':
** Edmund and Caspian find Eustace's smoldering clothes and assume something terrible has happened to him. [[ForcedTransformation It has]], though not what they expect.
** On Deathwater Island, the characters find some discarded armour, next to a pool containing a golden statue. When they work out that the pool turns things to gold, they realise that the statue was in fact a person who dived in, and the armour was theirs, the clothes having rotted away long ago.

* In ''Film/TheWitches'', a pile of clothes is left when a child turns into a mouse; unlike in the book, where the clothes disappear.

* In ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'', this is all that's left of the real culprit after he gets dissolved into nothingness.

* In ''Film/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'', Edmund and Caspian find Eustace's smoldering clothes and assume something terrible has happened to him. [[ForcedTransformation It has]], though not what they expect.

* ''ComicBook/UltimateXMen'': In issue #41, a young man known only as "J"'s mutant power manifests one morning, which is to involuntarily vaporize all organic matter within a certain radius of himself after a short time of it being exposed to him. He wakes up on a normal day to find the house deserted and his mother’s clothes lying on the floor and all the organic food in the kitchen vanished. He heads off to school, passing an empty dog collar on the ground, then spots some people nearby but doesn’t notice them disintegrating as he turns away. When he arrives at school students start disintegrating around him shortly after he arrives leaving their clothing behind, including his girlfriend who identifies him as the source of the phenomenon as she burns away. The story cuts to Wolverine (who's immune to J's power thanks to his HealingFactor) entering a cave where J is hiding having been sent by Professor X who explains what's happened, that at least 265 people were killed by his power. After explaining that the situation will be covered up by a story saying a corrosive chemical leak will be blamed, Wolverine has to tell J that the story can never get out as if it becomes public a mutant was responsible it would lead to a worldwide pogrom against mutants. J, already distraught that his power is to be an uncontrolled WalkingWasteland, understands the implication and tells Wolverine to "just do it".

* In this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rY7kKf0WlE Alltel Commercial]], a group of nerds summon a wizard to deal with a rival. When he arrives the wizard accidentally disintegrates one of the summoners: The nerds body disappears in a puff of smoke and his clothes fall to the ground in a pile. Another nerd then [[NoSympathy takes his wallet]].

* In this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rY7kKf0WlE Alltel Commercial, a group of nerds summon a wizard to deal with a rival. When he arrives the wizard accidentally disintegrates one of the summoners: The nerds body disappears in a puff of smoke and his clothes fall to the ground in a pile. Another nerd then [[NoSympathy takes his wallet]].

* In Literature/TheBible itself, a sign of Jesus' resurrection from the dead is that the grave clothes He was wrapped in lay empty in the tomb, with the face cloth folded up and put in its own place.

* ''LightNovel/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'': Naofumi and Raphtalia both get worried when they wake up to find the clothing of Princess Melty but no Princess Melty. Then they remember that Filo, a giant bird, had expressed a desire to eat members of her own species and start wondering if that lack of scruples might extend to humans as well. Just as they start reproaching Filo over this the matter is settled when a sleepy Melty sticks her head out of Filo's feathers and wants to know what is going on. It turns out that she had found that sleeping in Filo's down was comfortable and warm but was definitely too warm for clothing. When Raphtalia experimentally sticks her arm in the down she finds it comfortable too and immediately falls asleep. Naofumi mutters something and goes back to bed as well.

* In ''LightNovel/StrikeTheBlood'', when [[KidFromTheFuture Reina]] returns to her own time, she vanishes in a burst of lightning, and her borrowed clothes fall to the ground.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': [[http://scp-wiki.net/scp-093 SCP-093 ("Red Sea Object")]]: