Coordinated Clothes

Sickening Sweethearts should dress alike at least once.

Aw, look, the characters, be they twins, a couple in love, loving family members or a group of friends, intentionally wear matching clothes to show that they belong together. The outfits might not be exactly the same, just similar and matching in style or following a shared theme. It's usually seen as cute, cool, creepy or just lame.

Coordinated Clothes will be often employed with Twin Tropes, especially Always Identical Twins to emphasize the identical look. Sickeningly Sweethearts like to choose matching outfits for fancy occasions or costume parties to make it clear that they are together. Lookalike Lovers may also sport similar dresses. It can be a trait of Those Two Guys or Heterosexual Life-Partners. Sometimes a group of friends and a posse might coordinate their clothes as well, or people who perform together. It's fairly customary for members of music groups to wear matching outfits on stage, especially in certain decades. Dance partners are likely to coordinate as well. Most people attending a Themed Party should wear matching costumes, too.

A variation occurs as a part of Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery when a character tries to imitate somebody they look up to. Copying their clothes is the easiest thing to do, and moreover, it implies they belong together. The person whose appearance is copied might welcome it as proper attention, but individuality and uniqueness is a valued thing, so the role model might get annoyed very soon.

This trope originates in wearing uniforms. Uniforms and sports shirts are worn to show that all the people wearing them form a strong group, and they build morale and encourage unity. However, wearing uniforms is enforced. This trope happens only when characters willingly wear the same clothes to show that they belong together, or when somebody willingly tries to copy their role model.

Sister trope to Superhero Team Uniform. Compare Model Couple, Whole Costume Reference (wearing an identical outfit that was famously worn by another character or Real Life person), You Are the New Trend (when a character's signature look suddenly inspires widespread imitation).

Contrast with Dresses the Same (wearing the same clothes by accident and considered embarrassing, especially by ladies).

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Case Closed:
  • In her début scene, Kazuha is very jealous when Ran accidentally shows up in the same shirt as Heiji, and so Ran changes out of it. Kazuha and Heiji are childhood friends who claim to be Like Brother and Sister but they're really a couple who just haven't started dating yet. Kazuha thought that Ran was the person Heiji was secretly talking to over the phone and wanted to meet with in person, and she interprets the outfits as intentional.
  • During the mystery that pops up after all of this, two identical necklaces are a subtle hint that another pair of characters are romantically linked.
  • At the end of the mystery, Ran and Kazuha end up switching shirts for a Brick Joke. Ran's once again wearing a shirt that happens to be similar to Heiji's current outfit, so she has Kazuha wear it instead. Kazuha feels super embarrassed, but Heiji is oblivious as to the romantic implications. Conan snarks to himself that those two are more like a straight-man and funny-guy duo than a couple.
  • In another mystery, Ran's mention of buying a matched set of pajamas gives Conan the "Eureka!" Moment necessary to solve the mystery. (The end of mystery stinger reveals said pajamas to be embarrassingly adorable.)
  • A Victim of the Week is an Elegant Gothic Lolita who apparently showed up at a diner moments before her body was discovered in a nearby bathroom, but Conan figures out that the one who made the appearance was the murderer, who'd had the victim buy the identical outfits precisely for this moment.
• The Dangers in My Heart: Outside of school, Ichikawa typically wears dark clothing with skull imprints (and the occasionally reference to death). Yamada catches on to this and sometimes wears either dark clothes or skull accessories in extra chapters. And after they become a couple.
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, the haori Zenitsu wears was given to him by his master Jigoro, they both wear the same triangular symbols pattern; a later series volume extra information makes it more of a bigger deal as it directly differentiates Zenitsu and Kaigaku views on their master, Zenitsu chose to wear what was gifted to him, while Kaigaku was also given the same haori but he didn’t ever wear it, this shows which disciple really respected their master.
• Subverted in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War. Kaguya shows up for her first post-Relationship Upgrade date with Shirogane in her school uniform because she figured he'd be wearing his as well (she'd literally never seen him wear anything else all the other times they've met outside of school), only to find that he had chosen to wear casual clothes instead because he thought that his uniform was inappropriate for something as special as a first date.
• In Laughing Under the Clouds, the three brothers of the Cloud Shrine all wear outfits of the same colours and styles, but with variations depending on each one's preference and age.
• In Naruto, Rock Lee is a mini-me of Might Guy, his teacher. Right down to the Big Ol' Eyebrows. In the Distant Finale and Sequel Series Boruto, Lee's own son Metal Lee follows this trend.
• Osomatsu-kun: The Matsuno sextuplets wear a matching blue shirt and slacks combo, which also carries into their other casual clothes and pajamas. Osomatsu-san keeps to this with the brothers' suits, pajamas, and choice in hoodies, but they otherwise wear vastly different casual styles. One chapter explains that their mother Matsuyo buys their clothes in bulk.
• Less obvious since they're usually just wearing school uniforms, but all of Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin's club outfits from Ouran High School Host Club are identical or nearly so. They also wore identical clothing as children a lot, most often made by their fashion designer mother to make them look good. Subverted in settings outside of school in the modern day; they wear similar clothes, but when they have free rein on choosing their own outfits it's pretty unlikely to see them dressed as a matched set.
• Rebuild World: As a result of realizing he has nothing nice to wear when planning to go out to dinner at a fancy restaurant with some of his lady friends (Elena, Sara, and Shizuka), and thinking that seeing his Virtual Sidekick Alpha in her Unlimited Wardrobe has ruined his sense of fashion, Akira remembers how he was impressed by seeing Sheryl in the dress he discovered adventuring and had custom fitted for her. So he orders custom tailored clothing for himself and the three to match Sheryl’s dress.
• Recovery of an MMO Junkie has a couple of instances of these that demonstrate the deepening relationship between Hayashi and Lily:
  • After clearing the beginner quest with Lily's help, Hayashi gets a pair of bracelets as loot. Though they're low-level gear, he notices that Lily is wearing the same bracelets, and he swears to wear them forever as a sign of their friendship (she gets flustered and tells him she doesn't mind if he swaps them out for better gear).
  • A couple of episodes later Lily gifts Hayashi a very expensive Badass Longcoat; he's a bit uncomfortable about accepting such a pricey gift, but Lily explains that Hayashi has become her best friend and the person with whom she has the most fun playing the game. She then equips the female version of the same outfit and asks him to become her partner^note essentially, her primary teammate and pretend boyfriend to keep male players from creeping on her; he dons the coat and accepts her offer, and the two of them wear both the bracelets and longcoats for the rest of the series.
• Sket Dance:
  • The Sket-Dan trio has a custom-made T-shirt for each of its members.
  • Played for Laughs in chapter 101 when Jin suspects that Himeko and Bossun are dating. Both of them denied it while wearing the exact same T-shirt.
  • In chapter 208, Tsubaki, absolutely not influenced by the Sket-Dan, tried to create a matching T-shirt for the Student Council.
• Soul Eater: The Mizune sisters all wear the same mouse-head hats and striped vaguely dress-shaped outfits.
• In one chapter of The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy At All that takes place in the future, Mitsuki Koga and Aya Oosawa, the two lead characters, both wear overalls while assembling IKEYA furniture.

Comic Books

• Batman villains the Trigger Twins wear identical buckskin outfits as part of their western motif. In one story, a woman is able to convince them that they are actually triplets, and that she is their long lost sister, by dying her hair blonde and donning a female version of their outfit; most notably having a short skirt instead of pants.
• In Robin Tim's friend Ives has a pair of identical twin cousins whose parents dress them in identical outfits. One of them seems to care a bit more about keeping those outfits looking nice though since she keeps any bows and ribbons tied perfectly while the other tends to leave them undone or uneven.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): Lillie, Millie and Tillie Heyday like to wear matching outfits, the better to pull of a triplet switch.
  • The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016): Two of the young women in the Holiday Girl's musical group are identical twin sisters, and most of their outfits are sewn from the same pattern in different colors, with Tilly usually wearing brighter colors than Milly even though the dresses themselves are the same dress.

Fanfiction

• Guys Being Dudes: Elaphe got Spark an Emo band hoodie back when they were dating in hopes of being "one of those matchy couples", but Spark couldn't quite pull off the aesthetic and ended up not wearing it much.
• Panem Reborn features a pair of fraternal twin gamemakers (Virgil and Vivian Locke) who wear identical suits during public events. The picture used to depict them also shows that they don't seem to differentiate themselves from each other^note The picture used to depict the other twin is a mirrored copy.
• Total Drama Legacy, a fanfic about the Fan-Created Offspring of Total Drama characters competing for the million, one of the challenges has all the participants team up with one of their parents. Both members of each duo also have to wear the same outfit that the parent wore on Total Drama.

Films — Live-Action

• The twin girls in 3 Women always wear the same dress.
• Beetlejuice:
  • Jane Butterfield, a realtor who sold their house to the Maitlands and is also their relative, wears matching outfits with her little daughter Jane. First they are both seen in black when they go from Adam and Barbara's funeral — they wear very similar dresses, handbags and identical hats. Later Jane and little Jane wear identical light yellow sweaters, light blue and white striped shirts with polka dot ties shaped like a flower.
  • Beetlejuice/Betelgeuse imitates Adam's clothes when he wants to convince him and Barbara that they should hire him as a bioexorcist. He switches from his shabby coat to Adam's red T-shirt, white and black plaid shirt and beige pants.
    Beetlejuice/Betelgeuse: Hey guy, come on! We're simpatico here... Look at us. Huh? We even shop at the same store!
• Chicago: At the end, Velma and Roxie perform their singing and dancing routine in matching outfits. They start in a long white fur and then strip it, each wearing a silver sexy dress. They have various props like hats or sticks, shaped like guns. Their hair styles contrast wonderfully - both have '20s Bob Haircut, but Velma has black and straight hair while Roxie has curly and blond hair. See the video at youtube.
• Done very subtly but heartwarmingly in The Conjuring Universe with the happily married Ed and Lorraine Warren; Ed's ties are often from the same fabric as Lorraine's skirt or dress. (For just one example, see the dancing scene at the end of The Conjuring 2). Most fans don't even notice it until it's pointed out, but it's a lovely little detail that ties them together and shows them as a united front.
• Inverted in Dirty Dancing where the two main characters wear clothes of contrasting colors throughout the movie, even for their dance number where couples very often wear matching outfits.
• The Andys of Hot Fuzz are two inseparable detectives who, though not very good at their job, certainly dress for it.
• In A Knight's Tale, when Will is invited to a banquet with the other knights, Jocelyn sends her handmaid to inquire what he'll be wearing. In a later scene, Jocelyn asks what he'll be wearing to another banquet, but this time he's angry at her and replies "Nothing!". She retorts that they'll cause quite the scene, because she'll dress to match.
• Each of the teams in Midnight Madness wears shirts of the same color.
• In Never Been Kissed, the group of mathematical enthusiasts go to a prom in matching outfits. It makes them feel secure.
• The twins wear matching outfits several times in The Parent Trap remake, sometimes to confuse the others about which twin is which. When the mother sees both her daughters for the first time since their separation, each is dressed in yellow and white. She tells them not to do this to her because she's already seeing double and asks who is who.
• Rags: Andrew and Lloyd always wear matching outfits as part of their "Android" shtick, including always having the same hairstyle...until the very end, where Lloyd changes up his look as Charlie's backup dancer and stops copying Andrew.
• Stanley Kubrick's The Shining: The creepy sisters wear the same light blue dresses with pink ribbons. The identical look multiplies the creep out factor.

Literature

• 1-800-Where-R-U: Jess's mother has a habit of making two copies of the same dress, and insisting she and Jess wear them at the same time. Jess doesn't like them and considers them embarrassing, but puts up with it because her father's promised her that if she does so without complaining, he'll buy her a motorcycle when she turns eighteen.
• The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Tales: Before the beginning of the story, Tadd and Todd usually wear the exact same clothing. Tadd tries to differentiate himself by carrying/wearing a large number of different items, only to find that Todd has tracked down the exact same items. At the end, they're back to wearing matching clothes.
• In Bloodlines, Sydney and Adrian accidentally wear coordinating clothes on more than one occasion — usually Played for Comedy, but also used to show how in sync they are, even as Sydney vehemently denies her attraction.
• A Brother's Price: Dressing a family all in the same colour or variations thereof is the latest fashion trend, as the protagonist and his sisters are told by the group of tailors whose job it is to make them outfits for the upcoming ball.
• Ellen and Otis: In one chapter of Ellen Tebbits, Ellen and Austine decide to dress like twins for the first day of school and ask their mothers to make them matching dresses. It doesn't turn out the way they hoped, as Austine's mother isn't a particularly good seamstress and Austine's dress turns out badly.
• In Hemlock Grove, the Sworn girls don't wear the exact same outfits, they usually have the same theme with color variations.
• Lottie and Lisa (original German title Das doppelte Lottchen — "The double Lottie", known to many as one of its many film adaptations, e.g. The Parent Trap) by Erich Kästner: Nine-year-old girls Lisa and Lottie are twins separated as babies who accidentally meet at summer camp. Lottie brought two dresses of the same kind, and each girl wears one, complete with matching braids, for dinner. They wanted to confuse and amuse other children and their camp supervisors.
• Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey:
  • Isabella Thorpe, a reputed beauty, tries to invoke the trope by suggesting her newest, bestest friend Catherine that they should be dressed exactly like each other because men often do take notice of that. She probably wants to invoke the beautiful twins image and attract attention. The innocent Catherine doesn't follow.
  • Isabella's younger and less attractive sisters Maria and Anne try to imitate Isabella's style and they dress like her. According to the narrator, it kind of works, but their rude brother John thinks his younger sisters are laughable and quirky.
• In Two Little Girls in Blue, twins Kathy and Kelly tend to wear similar or identical-looking outfits, which becomes a plot point after they're abducted. Margaret went to a store named Abby's to buy matching blue dresses for her daughters to wear at their birthday party. The clerk, Lila Jackson, mentions that coincidentally another woman came in earlier looking to buy matching outfits for twin girls, though she was unsure of the size. Both Lila and Margaret realize it's too much of a coincidence and that the woman was buying clothes for Kathy and Kelly in preparation for kidnapping them.
• In Worm, the Travelers all dress in black and red, New Wave dresses in similar white and their preferred color costumes, and the Wards wear identical concealing body suits to help surprise the 9.

Live-Action TV

• 'Allo 'Allo!:
  • Those Two Guys British Flight Lieutenants Castairs and Fairfax always wore the same clothes. Mostly it was a more or less ridiculous disguise, for example as onion sellers or cleaning ladies.
  • Captain Hans Geering and Colonel von Strohm usually wore uniforms, but sometimes they sport the same disguise as onion sellers.
  • Herr Flick and his assistant Herr von Smallhausen are Gestapo officer who both wear black suits, leather coats and hats. They would sometimes wear the same disguise trying to catch some La Ressistance people or as part of their schemes, e.g. onion sellers, gypsy musicians or monks.
  • When some girls from Hitler Youth and two serving girls perform Bavarian Dances in the café, they all wear the appropriate uniforms for the act.
  • Michele and other members of the Resistance all wear a beige Conspicuous Trenchcoat.
  • Women from the Communist Resistance all wear the same clothes. The most distinctive piece of clothing is a red scarf they have around their neck and light blue shirt.
  • Sometimes the group from the café was forced to coordinate their outfits as part of some crazy plan. They dressed up as characters from horror stories, classical musicians, flamenco dancers or gypsies.
• Ally McBeal: The dorky-looking dancing twins frequent the idealized bar where the whole office keep going after work. They always wear matching outfits and dance in synchronized movements.
• In The Amazing Race, the teams are assigned a color to be Color-Coded Characters, several teams a season will take it a step further.
• On Arrested Development, this seems to be the norm for the Motherboy pageant if the past pictures of Lucille and Buster are any indication.
• The Big Bang Theory:
  • "The Holographic Excitation": The gang is going to a Halloween party organized by Stuart and Raj. Two couples decide to have couples costume.
    • The newly weds Howard and Bernadette are both little people (as in short and thin), so they dressed as a couple of cute smurfs for a Halloween party.
    • Amy's proud to be Sheldon's girlfriend, and she tries to convince him to wear something romantic that shows everyone that they belong together. Sheldon doesn't understand the sentiment and would prefer Star Wars characters R2D2 and C3PO, or Hewlett and Packard, founders of the HP company. Their compromise is being dressed as Raggedy Ann and "Raggedy" C3PO.
  • One episode features the gang dressed up as superheroes from the Justice League of America for a New Year's Eve party in a comic book store. Too bad there were several gangs with the same idea, but Leonard and co's costumes were the coolest and they won the competition.
  • Howard gets cajoled by Bernadette into transmogrifying his World of Warcraft character's equipment to match that of Bernadette's.
  • Rajesh is mentioned to post photos of himself and his little dog Cinnamon wearing matching sweaters on social media.
  • In "The Imitation Perturbation", Penny and Leonard host a costume party:
    • Howard and Bernadette are a married couple who go as Mary Poppins and a chimney sweep.
    • Newlyweds Sheldon and Amy go dressed as Howard and Bernadette. They imitate them, which of course annoys the couple that gets imitated. (It's actually a successful attempt to get back at Howard who dressed exactly like Sheldon and kept imitating him earlier in the episode for a wear-a-costume-to-work thing.)
• One case on Burn Notice has Michael, Fiona, and Sam dress alike to give the impression that they're part of a larger operation. Michael even explains as much in voiceover.
• Community:
  • In "Studies in Modern Movement", Dean Pelton is dressed exactly the same as Jeff when they have their day at the mall. Down to matching watches.
  • In Halloween Episodes, Troy and Abed make a habit of this:
    • In "Epidemiology", Abed dresses as the Xenomorph from Aliens while Troy dresses as Ripley in the power loader armor...at least until Troy realizes he's not attracting any females and dresses as a "sexy Dracula".
    • In "Horror Fiction In Seven Spooky Steps", they're dressed as Inspector Spacetime and Constable Reggie. Oddly, they're dressed like this even before they were asked to attend a party.
    • In "Paranormal Parentage", they dress as Calvin and Hobbes. Jeff and Annie attempt to get in on the act by dressing as a boxer and his ring girl. Unfortunately, Annie misunderstands and goes as the ghost girl from The Ring.
• Cranford: The Honourable Mrs Jamieson is a snobbish woman who dresses her dog to match her own clothes for social gatherings, e.g. for Lady Ludlow's garden party.
• Doctor Who:
  • In the serial "The Enemy of the World", Victoria is wearing a jumper and kilt, just like Jamie always does. Some shippers have semi-seriously drawn the conclusion that they were an item and she was wearing his clothes.
  • "Destiny of the Daleks" has Romana introduce her new regeneration to the Fourth Doctor wearing his clothes, to his narcissistic glee. Later in the story she changes it for a better-fitting 'girly version' of his outfit, in a pink coat and a cream scarf.
• Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23: Robin, Chloe's neighbor and her former roommate is obsessed with Chloe and desperately tries to be her best friend. When June decides to sell Robin information about Chloe, one of the items is "coordinate with Chloe". Robin is beyond happy that she and her idol wear the same dress in the elevator.
• The Drew Carey Show:
  • A little person who works at Winfrid-Lauder looks up to Mimi and starts dressing like her to be a "Mini Mimi".
  • A man starts taking after Drew, down to dressing like him and decorating his house to look exactly like Drew's. It creeps Drew and his friends out.
• On Endurance, once contestants are paired with someone, both will wear outfits (both the outfits they wear when competing in missions and more the casual clothing worn when not competing) that are similar to the specific color that their team was assigned to help make it clear who is partnered with whom.
• The Sickening Sweethearts Happily Married Beta Couple Howard and Hilda Hughes in Ever Decreasing Circles always wore identical ghastly cardigans.
• In the Gilmore Girls episode "Application Anxiety", Lorelai suggests to Rory that the siblings they just met are acting like they're together too much to just be brother and sister. Once they come back having changed their clothes, Lorelai notes to Rory that they're color-coordinated as further proof.
• Chuck and Blair on Gossip Girl were often wearing matching outfits. Half the time it wasn't supposed to be a conscious decision on the part of the characters but rather a subtle way of showing how connected they always will be.
• Growing Pains: In "Michaelgate", the Schwartz Twins, a pair of cheerleaders who volunteer to help Mike with his campaign, always wear identical sweaters, boots, skirts, earrings, and hair accessories.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • "Slutty Pumpkin": Halloween episode of the first season had several examples, some of them Played With.
    • Lily and Marshall are a cute couple and very much in love. They like wearing corresponding Halloween costumes, for instance they went once as Sony and Cher (surprisingly, Marshall as Cher) or a pirate and his parrot.
    • Barney wants his best friend Ted to coordinate their Halloween costumes. He brought two costumes of ace pilots and wants Ted to go as his literal and metaphorical wing-man. Ted defies the trope as he insists on wearing his old costume as the infamous ballot vote "Hanging Chad" because that's how his possible soul mate Slutty Pumpkin remembers him.
    • Robin and her boyfriend Mike joked over emails about dressing up as Hansel and Gretel. Mike thought she was serious, but Robin's part of the costume was missing.
  • Barney and Abby (guest starred by Britney Spears) wear matching outfits. Each wears a white T-shirt, a light blue jumper and jeans. It was Barney's idea to wear it and humiliate Ted. Its purpose was to mock Ted's quest for a perfect soul mate.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022): Because of institutionalized homophobia, Lestat de Lioncourt and Louis de Pointe du Lac can't be too blatant about the fact that they're a couple in public, but Lestat subtly defies society's restrictions by having identical tuxedos made for himself and Louis, so any observant spectator at the Don Pasquale opera or passerby on Rue Royale during 1939's New Year's Eve celebration can easily deduce that the two men are together based on their matching attire.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Before the Gang's Halloween party at Paddy's, Mac and Dennis planned on going as Mario and Luigi. However, Mac changes his costume at the last minute without telling Dennis, leaving him in the lurch.
  Dennis: Without my Mario, what am I? I'm just like some weird Italian plumber, I look like an asshole!
• Mimpi Metropolitan:
  • In episode 60, Dian wears matching shirts with his online date, Niken, and suggests Bambang should do the same with Melani. When Niken appears and doesn't look like how she looks on social media, Dian takes a look at Niken's shirt and to his horror confirms that she really is Niken.
    Dian: Here's the thing, Bambang. If our girlfriends really loves us, then they would wear clothes that are the same as ours, or matching ones.
  • In the next episode, Bambang is insecure about his relationship and considers buying matching hats just as Dian advised. But since he realizes that Melani would find it tacky, he buys matching handphone cases instead.
• The 2012 ABC series The Neighbors:
  • The alien members of the gated community all dress identically. The main alien family may dress in a slight variation, but they still colour-coordinate with the community and with each other.
  • The father-and-son and mother-and-daughter have always worn matching theme Halloween costumes, but this year the son decides to go out with his new school friends as a zombie and the daughter "goes slutty" by declaring that she and a neighbor boy will go as "hot doctor and slutty nurse." Due to the fact that the neighbor boy is a Cloud Cuckoolander alien, he assumes that he is supposed to be the slutty nurse.
• The HBO comedy series Not Necessarily the News: There was a "sniglet" (= any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should) that describes this trope; "fods" — noun, couples at amusement parks who wear identical T-shirts.
• In Once Upon a Time, Regina and Rumplestiltskin both wore black and blue for an episode after they started a sort of Heel–Face Turn and tried to redeem themselves for their loved ones. They are still as antagonistic as ever, and end up disagreeing on the best way to carry this plan.
• Our Miss Brooks:
  • In "The Festival", Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin attend the titular festival as Romeo and Juliet.
  • "Red River Valley" sees Walter Denton, Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin dress as hillbillies to audition for Deacon Jones' Square Dance troop.
  • In "Amalgamation", Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Munsee and Mr. Talbot dress as Dutch Vaudeville comedians to annoy Mrs. Pryor. It Makes Sense in Context.
• In Popular Emory Dick's younger twin sisters, Emily and Emma, wear matching clothes. The only difference is the colors of their tops. Otherwise they wear the same skirts, shoes, and even black mink jackets. Later they wear different outfits, but just to wear clothes identical to what Nichole and Mary Cherry are wearing respectively.
• Red Dwarf:
  • "Parallel Universe":
    • In the Cat's dream sequence, the Cat performs the "Tongue Tied" song while Rimmer and Lister are his backing vocals. The trio is dressed in matching red suits with frills.
    • The guys travel to parallel universe. Their female alter-egos Deb Lister and Arlene Rimmer are dressed identically to regulars Dave Lister and Arnie Rimmer. It shows that they are the same personality, but it was hardly their choice as they couldn't have known in advance.
  • In "Backwards", Rimmer and Kryten wear matching pink and sparkling outfits, starring in an act called "srehtorB esreveR lanoitasneS ehT" ("The Sensational Reverse Brothers") when they got to a parallel Earth.
  • "Quarantine": At the end of the episode, Lister, Kryten and Cat all wear red-and-white checked gingham dresses which Rimmer wore when he was insane, being infected by the holo-virus. The guys probably want to psych him out the same as he psyched out them with his madness.
• Selfie, Henry dates Julia who is very similar to him in personality, and they often dress in similar or matching outfits.
• Schitt's Creek: Mother and son Moira and David almost always dress in black and white, high-end designer looks. David even admits at one point that he was "dressed by his mother well into his teens" and it is heavily implied that he models his own style after his mother's.
• In Disney's Shake it Up, Gunther and Tinka are extravagant twins who often wear matching outfits, but not the same ones (e.g. Gunther's will sport a 'G' and Tinka's a 'T'). They are brother and sister rather than of the same gender, so Gunther's outfits are slightly creepy.
• In The Sing-Off, the members of each group are given coordinated outfits each week, though they switch it up so as to prevent people from identifying the group with just one particular color.
• Wonder Woman (1975): Jeff and Barbi Gordon in the episode "Amazon Hot Wax".
• The X-Files, "Eve": Teena and Cindy, who are creepy murderous clone girls, wear matching red hellish outfits. It was probably a case of I Just Knew because they did not grow up together, making their identical look even more disturbing.

Music

• Barber Shops Quartets traditionally wear striped outfits with straw hats.
• This was said to be the original reason that Johnny Cash became "The Man in Black" - Cash and the Tennessee Two wanted to match for their audition, and a black shirt was the only color they had in common. (It also proved to be easier to keep clean on the road.)
• Kalafina: The members normally help plan their own outfits, so the dresses are usually similar in color and style but with subtle differences.
• The Statler Brothers wore matching outfits through the 1970s and into the 1980s.
• *NSYNC made coordinated clothes a trademark in the late '90s and still continued to bring it out from time to time in the early 2000s (and their brief 2013 reunion performance).

Pinball

• Mayfair, based on My Fair Lady, shows Eliza and the flower girl wearing the same Pimped-Out Dress to emphasize their shared roots.

Professional Wrestling

• Tag teams will often wear matching outfits in the ring. Or clashing outfits in the case of those like The Strong Style Thugs and The Addiction.
• Stevie Richards and Victoria would frequently wear color coordinated clothing just to make them that much more sickeningly sweet.
• A.J. Lee, during her kayfabe relationships with Daniel Bryan, John Cena and CM Punk, fitting her gimmick of a crazy, obsessed stalker for a valet. Punk also wore on occasion AJ's merch, although not for storyline purposes: they were in a real-life relationship at that time (and were married as of 2014).

Theatre

• Usually relied upon to signify twins in productions of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and The Comedy of Errors, where the actors playing the sets of twins are unlikely to appear that similar otherwise. Especially necessary in Twelfth Night, in which the pair are not identical twins, but Half-Identical Twins with the girl disguised as a boy, and they're still supposed to be impossible to tell apart.
• In the 2011 New York Philharmonic production of Company (Sondheim), all of the married couples are colour-coordinated, with the lighting in their scenes made to match.

Video Games

• Robert and Rosalind Lutece of Bioshock Infinite always wear matching suits. This is partly explained by the fact that they are both mad scientists. They also seem to get a kick out of trolling people with their Creepy Twins act.
• There are no less than four sets of these in Hometown Story:
  • The woman running the restaurant and her children all wear pink.
  • A hunter father and son both wear red and white.
  • Three blacksmith siblings (only two of which have the excuse of being twins) have almost identical outfits.
  • A mother-daughter pair are both dressed in yellow and orange.
• In No Straight Roads, the rock band Bunk Bed Junction wear one half of a full ensemble between them. Zuke wears the black jacket, Mayday wears the black pants, and they split the pair of black gloves. While interviewed on a radio show, Mayday explains that it's to symbolize that they're a unit working together.
• In the social game Pet Society, many featured outfits came in a version for boy pets and girl pets. Some players pretended to date other player's pet and they could happily match the outfits, be it the very same clothes or one could wear the boy version and the other girl version of the costume.
• Pokémon: Trainers in the "Young Couple" are Sickening Sweethearts who, in some games, wear matching clothes. In one design, the boyfriend wears pink pants and a green Luvdisc shirt while his girlfriend wears a pink skirt and a red Luvdisc shirt. The shirts, when side-by-side, look like they're kissing.
• A very common sight among "E-Daters" in RuneScape is the coordination of outfits, usually designed around the various capes of accomplishment.
• It may have been born out of Luigi being a Palette Swap, but the titular Super Mario Bros. wear matching overalls and caps.

Visual Novels

• In Melody, the title character and Sophia coordinate clothes for a music-themed party that the two of them go to together (along with the protagonist).
• Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 3rd Story actually has this as a small mechanic. The player can purchase clothes for the heroine that are identical or extremely similar to a piece of clothing that one of the guys wears. Wearing them while on a date with them results in them mentioning having similar tastes in clothing or, if the player has her wear them while the guy wears the appropriate outfit, too, jokes that they must be on the same wavelength to have picked that particular outfit that day.

Web Animation

• Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse has Barbie invoke this with her rival Raquelle of all people: After Ryan stains Raquelle's new dress, Barbie dresses her in the sparkly pink dress that she wears almost all the time (including during the show's opening).

Webcomics

• In Arthur, King of Time and Space, when Mordred first arrives at Camelot in the baseline arc, Guenevere wonders if he's been told his parentage. The last panel shows Mordred wearing a tunic and cloak identical in cut to Arthur's, except in black rather than yellow. A few strips later, the same gag is pulled with Galahad, who wears Lancelot's armour in white. Although, while Galahad just wants to honour his father, Mordred's motive is more reminding everyone who he is.
• In Girl Genius Zeetha and Higgs are seen wearing matching striped shirts.
• Gunnerkrigg Court: Tomboy and Girly Girl couple —-Kat and Paz—- go to a dance in subtly complementary outfits: Girly-girl wears a nautical-inspired dress while Tomboy is basically wearing a naval dress outfit minus the jacket.
• Magicians and their familiars often wear matching outfits in Never Satisfied.
• Pixie and Brutus: A platonic version; Pixie talks Brutus into doing a best friends costume set with her. Brutus turns down the idea of being a flower and a bee or The Princess and the Pea, but agrees to Batman and Robin...only to find himself stuck as Robin, much to his chagrin.
• In League of Super Redundant Heroes, Keith and Lazer Pony talk about the latter's relationship with Mary-Sue in this strip. In the final panel, Mary-Sue comes in wearing a shirt that says "MS(Heart) L" and holding an identical shirt that says "L (Heart) MS".
  Mary-Sue: I got us matching shirts LP! We're gonna look so cute together!
  Lazer Pony: Awesome!
  Keith: Excuse me, I'm gonna go have a post-traumatic breakdown.
• While it's not drawn attention to (they don't even appear in the same panel) a Shortpacked! Halloween strip shows Leslie and Robin dressed as Young Justice's Artemis and Kid Flash.
• In Yokoka's Quest, Azha wears a very similar outfit and colour scheme to his cat familiar Misha's cape and bow, which is named Matching Outfit on the between-chapter status screens.
• In Your Throne Prince Eros and his fiancee, Psyche, wear clothing in the same color and with similar patterns embroidered whenever they show themselves as a couple in official function.

Web Videos

• The Autobiography of Jane Eyre: In episode 21 "Hijacked", Blanche and Mr Rochester wear matching colours. Both Blanche's top and Mr Rochester's jacket are dark purple.
• Billybae10K's The Amazing Race: Downplayed; each team was assigned a color at the beginning of the season, and most of the teams wear skins associated with such, but it wasn't mandatory and some (Team Patater Tots) skip it entirely, while others (Team Neophytes) barely do so with any notability.
• The Lizzie Bennet Diaries: In episode 59 "Staff Spirit", Charlotte Lu wears a Ketchup costume for Halloween work event, while her direct supervisor Ricky Collins is dressed in a Mustard outfit.
• Even though it's never brought up in the actual episodes of Pretty Dudes, each of the six main characters wear matching necklaces that symbolize their friendship. No other characters are ever seen wearing one, and the main characters wear them even when they're shirtless or nude.

Western Animation

• During the attack in episode one of City Hunters, every man is dark-haired, in a blue-and-white tee, wearing jeans and brown shoes. (This is to show the many aspects of the main character's personality, who is wearing the same outfit in reality)
• An episode of Doug had the entire school constantly dressing up in the same outfit as a popular actor at one point. When the outfit he wore was Doug's, Doug gets incredibly fed up as he's always worn that look. When he's ready to just go with it, it turns out they've changed outfits again - this time, to Skeeter's.
• DuckTales (2017): During their only appearance in the series, Lena and Violet's fathers are shown wearing matching "I'm with dad" t-shirts.
• Very downplayed in Gravity Falls. All of the Pines wear some shade of red somewhere, but otherwise their clothes are unique and still identify themselves belonging to the same family / or as twins. A complete analysis of their colors here.
• Me and My Moulton: The three sisters wear shirts that say 1,2,3 in descending order of age. Sort of necessary since there are no names given and no dialogue (instead there's a Character Narrator) and all three kids have the same Limited Animation face.
• Mickey Mouse (2013): In "Couple's Sweaters", Mickey reluctantly wears a Homemade Sweater from Hell when Minnie plans on wearing a matching sweater on their date. When he finally confesses to Minnie that he hates his sweater, she reveals she hates hers also, and two agree never to wear them again.
• The Simpsons:
  • Twin sisters and Those Two Women Patty and Selma who are single and live together wear similar clothes and have similar hairstyles.
  • In "Team Homer", Mr Burns buys matching green shirts for his bowling buddies. The guys are very moved by it, almost forgiving him that he is such a poor player.
  • "Marge's Son Poisoning":
    • Marge and Bart wear light violet outfits for their duo at the karaoke night. Marge starts to feel uneasy because she realizes it's a bit too much.
      Bart: You know, Mother, I wasn't sure about tonight. But seeing us dressed the same really feels right.
      Marge: Well, now I'm not so sure about the bells on the painters pants.
      Bart: Are you kidding? I love my tinklies!
    • Agnes and Seymour Skinner both wear white outfits with black notes print. They sing "Ebony and Ivory".
    • Kerney, Jimbo and Dolph dress alike for their performance — they all wear white shirts, blue sweaters and light-colored pants. After the karaoke night is cut short, they sing "My Sharona" in the Simpsons' front yard.
  • In the episode "The Last Of The Red Hat Mamas", the group of friends called "The Cheery Red Tomatoes" wear red dresses and pink hats. Marge is very happy when they accept her as their member.
    Marge: I feel a happiness I've never felt. I not only have friends, I have a hat to prove it.
  • In "White Christmas Blues", one couple that stays at the Simpsons' bead-and-breakfast wear red-and-green checkered vests.
• On South Park, the Goths are proud of their non-conformity. "If you wanna be one of the non-conformists, all you have to do is dress just like us and listen to the same music we do."
• In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Big Pink Loser", Patrick starts dressing up like SpongeBob as part of an attempt to be a winner just like him. SpongeBob finds it a little creepy, but flattering.
• All members of The Tool Street Gang (except for Squirt, who can’t really wear anything due to how his body is shaped) wear identical blue Rough Overalls. They also all (including Squirt this time) wear matching pairs of red boots. Oh, and they all have White Gloves too.
• Total Drama:
  • Katie and Sadie wear identical outfits as a tribute to their incredibly strong friendship. It is noted in her biography that Katie sews the clothes for the both of them specifically so they get to match.
  • Due to Reused Character Design, Alejandro and his brother Jose wear the same clothes, only where Alejandro wears a red shirt, Jose wears a blue one. This symbolizes their antagonistic relation.
  • Twins Amy and Samey wear the same cheerleading outfit as a representation of them being identical to one another. This becomes part of the plot when Samey takes Amy's place to save herself from elimination.
  • Topher wears clothes in exactly the same colors as his idol Chris. Chris is initially flattered, but when Topher begins his scheme to replace him, the fun comes to an end.
  • Due to Reused Character Design, Sky and her sister wear nearly identical pseudo-sporty outfits in pastel yellow and black.
  • From Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race:
    • The Fashion Bloggers both wear pastel blue tops and a dark blue pair of pants or skirt. Also, Tom wears glasses to see and Jen matches that by accessorizing with sunglasses on her head.
    • The Ice Dancers have matching uniforms.
    • The Rockers wear shirts with a matching logo.
    • The Sisters both wear the same style of swimsuit.

Real Life

• Some twins (or their mothers) indulge in having the same outfits. Many identical twins hate being forced to dress alike, at least beyond the age that they are old enough to have a say in the matter. Some, but not all, psychologists are also opposed, saying it robs each twin of their individuality.
• Joey and Mel Schwanke wear matching outfits for 35 years. They have 146 custom-made matching outfits, typically matching Joey's dress and Mel's tie.
• It's a common occurrence in Asia for couples to wear matching clothes. According to the article, a pair of really committed lovers can be recognized by wearing the same outfit in countries like Korea, China or Japan. Public displays of affection remain a taboo there, and matching outfits can be a substitute.
• In Japan, the phenomenon of couples wearing matching clothes is referred to as bacouple. It's a portmanteau word formed from "baka" (Japanese for "fool") and English "couple".
• Many couples will coordinate their clothing for formal occasions, such as proms and weddings. The most common variant is the man having his tie and cummerbund match his date's dress (or in the case of a white wedding gown, matching any kind of decorations, such as a sash, bow or even her shoes.)

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