Dressing Down

"I traded in my dress shoes for comfort.
I've traded in flawless make-up for freshness.
I traded in styling my hair for 30 more minutes of sleep."

Wan Jo, Daily JoJo, "Ep. 36 — Masks On (4)"

Stories love to show us that an Action Girl or the young woman who is Hollywood Homely was actually Beautiful All Along, typically by having her show that She Cleans Up Nicely.

But sometimes, the opposite happens. Something has happened in the life of the glamorous girl, who could be anything from a Princess Classic, to an Alpha Bitch, to a girl who is Spoiled Sweet, or anything in between. While we would usually see her in a Pimped-Out Dress or at least something highly stylized or fashionable, instead she has shown up in something very mundane, or even downright frumpy, and people notice. It's not that she seldom dresses this way. It's that no one has EVER seen her dress in such a manner before (particularly noteworthy in animated works that typically have Limited Wardrobe in play, as the characters will often be dressed in their trademark outfits.)

It might be because of a bad breakup, a failure at work, the loss of someone close, or, in some works, part of The Masquerade. It may also be the result of a far more traumatic event, in which case it can overlap with O.O.C. Is Serious Business. Whatever the cause, the woman will be dressed far less glamorously than is the norm for her.

Don't be surprised if male characters (and a few female characters, depending on the type of story being told) still find her attractive, or even find her more attractive in her new appearance, seeing her now as an Unkempt Beauty. However, it can also be a total subversion of Beauty Is Never Tarnished.

Compare Important Haircut for another trope where someone changes their appearance for story reasons, and Riches to Rags, for when this is caused by financial crisis.

A return to their original style can signify a She's Back moment.

Unrelated to "What the Hell, Hero?" or "The Reason You Suck" Speech, which are both examples of another meaning of "dressing down".

While this can be Truth in Television, its frequent connection to traumatic events means No Real Life Examples, Please!.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Yukino Miyazawa, the female lead in Kare Kano, is known at school for being perfect and always appearing well-put together. On her days off, however, she prefers to laze about at home in a tracksuit and glasses. The plot opens when her Love Interest unexpectedly stops by to drop off a CD, and she casually answers the door thinking it's her sister.

Comic Books

• Spider-Gwen: Gwen Stacy was known, in her original Earth-616 incarnation to be a very stylish girl. And her Earth-65 counterpart had her own style, too. Which is why in the second issue of her solo title, the rest of her bandmates are shocked to see her passed out on a sofa, barefoot, wearing the leggings of her costume and a sweater she fished out of the trash.
  Glory Grant: Just look at her, Em Jay... She's dressed like a homeless person!
  Mary Jane: I knooow. She looks awesome. I hate her so much.
• Super Mario Adventures: One episode had Princess Toadstool wearing Luigi's plumber outfit while raiding Bowser's Castle to rescue Mario. Ironically, Luigi himself had a similar idea and was now wearing her dress.

Films — Animation

• Ralph Breaks the Internet: The Disney Princesses are shown in far more casual outfits than the Pimped Out Dresses they're typically known for. Highlights include Belle in a tank top, Merida (who, to be fair, actively hates her princess dress in the movie) in shorts, and Elsa and Anna in a sweater that says "Just let it go" and a plaid shirt and Converse respectively.
• In Turning Red, there are only two scenes in the whole movie in which Ming is not wearing a Qipao: The Photo Montage within the first couple minutes and toward the end of the third act.

Film — Live Action

• Pacific Rim: Uprising: Liwen Shao is first portrayed as a no-nonsense Corrupt Corporate Executive in immaculate suits and makeup. When she defrosts and helps save the world, she switches to a tank top and gets disheveled from physical work.

Literature

• In Howl's Moving Castle, Michael remarks that he'll know Howl has fallen truly in love only if Howl doesn't spend hours in the bathroom, making himself prettier before meeting a girl. When Sophie is captured by the Witch of the Waste, Howl rushes to rescue her, looking disheveled and unkempt.
• In the novel Speak, because of Melinda's traumatizing summer, she no longer cares to make an effort to fit in or dress well. At the end of every semester, she receives a report card, where she sarcastically adds a new grade. One time, she claimed that she got an F in clothes.

Live Action TV

• The Big Bang Theory: In "The Barbarian Sublimation", hot girl Penny, at a low point in her life, gets addicted to the Age of Conan online game, at which point she wears only sweats with her hair in a messy ponytail.
• Gilligan's Island: During "The Second Ginger Grant", Mary Ann develops amnesia after a blow to the head, and thinks she's Ginger. To help with the situation, the genuine Ginger has to pretend to be, and dress as, Mary Ann at the time.
• How I Met Your Mother: Barney Stinson wears expensive tailor made suits at all times, except when attending a funeral, where he goes in casual wear. According to him, suits are full of joy and made for the living, not the dead.
  • Robin also stops putting in the effort after a particularly bad breakup.
    Ted: (squints) You have a Cheeto in your hair.
    Robin: No, we ran out of Cheetos last week—Oh, hey!
    (Robin picks it out of her hair and eats it)
• Killing Eve: Villanelle always wears beautiful designer clothes until Season 4, in which she tries to find religion and then has to show that she can be less materialistic.
• Scrubs:
  • Much was made about how Eliot Reid took great care of her appearance while working in the hospital, to the annoyance of the other female doctors, who took umbrage, as they felt Eliot was being incredibly shallow and showing them up at the same time. She decides for a time to forgo this in order to try and blend in better, leading The Todd at one point to ask her if it's "greasy" outside.
  • Carla is suffering post-partum depression, and Turk is trying to help her. Dr. Cox calls his wife, Jordan, to assist. Jordan, who is usually very stylishly dressed, is currently very pregnant herself, and enters the building to Bad Vibrations and the song "Isn't She Lovely" wearing sweatpants, a loose hoodie, a t-shirt, and mussed hair. Cox hastily tells her she looks pretty. Turk nervously adds, "So pretty."
• Young Sheldon: Zig-zagged. Sheldon wears button shirts and a bowtie, extremely formal for a preteen kid. They're also the opposite of what adult Sheldon wears in The Big Bang Theory, where the character was first introduced, which is usually a t-shirt with a superhero logo on top of a long sleeve shirt. In the end of season five, however, Sheldon realizes that he's entering puberty and decides that it's time to change his wardrobe; at the very end of the season finale, he buys his first superhero shirt.

Mythology and Religion

• The Bible: In the Book of Joshua, the Gibeonites disguise themselves in rags and worn sandals, carrying cracked wineskins and moldy bread to convince the Israelites that they came from far away before entering a treaty with them. The Israelites were not happy when they learned that they'd been tricked, but the Gibeonites pointed out that God had instructed them to empty the land of people, and they had already heard of their military victories, and so they'd pressed for peace.

Webcomics

• In a rare male example, Tip from Skin Horse usually wears the absolute height of women's fashion, but he falls into a deep depression after losing his wardrobe in a failed attempt to get a law passed granting rights to non-human intelligent beings. We see him unshaven and wearing sweats, and he's basically unrecognizable.
• Daily JoJo: Wan Jo puts painstaking effort into his appearance until the mask mandate makes him realize that nobody cares how he looks. Thanks to Eunjo's encouragement, he downgrades his daily attire to something more comfortable, but he still dresses very well when the occasion calls for it. He returns to his impeccable attire after getting rejected by Eunjo, even after they do get together.

Web Video

• Emma Approved: Emma Woodhouse, a haughty, stylish professional, only dresses down when she's truly feeling low: first when she realizes she was wrong about James Elton, then when Knightley leaves in the aftermath of the Boxx Hill debacle.
• The Lizzie Bennet Diaries: Downplayed. Lydia Bennet, who usually wears cute bright clothes, earrings, and makeup, tones it down while dating George Wickham, wearing grays and less makeup. Considering he's slowly revealed to a perpetrator of psychological Domestic Abuse, this tone-down is a bad sign of Lydia's mental state, despite seeming to be happy and in love with him.

Western Animation

• Danny Phantom: In "Attack of the Killer Garage Sale", Dash is hosting a party with a dress code that calls for expensive duds, so Danny and his friends hold a garage sale to raise money. But when they raise enough and buy the flashy clothes needed, they find out that Dash changed the dress code to "loser chic" because he spent all his money at their sale. For further irony, the guests are dressed in the exact same plain outfits that Danny, Sam and Tucker usually wear.
• Daria: The Fashion Club decides to have a "Fashion Don'ts" costume party, which sees Quinn asking to borrow Daria's typical outfit. The rest of the Fashion Club are similarly dressed down for the scene.
• The Owl House:
  • Lilith in the first season is always seen wearing a floor-length, sleek, black dress with her hair straightened, giving her a prim and proper look befitting the head of the Emperor's Coven. In season two, after turning traitor, she wears a ratty skirt with a T-shirt featuring a battery which is later swapped out for a more normal outfit with a more lively color palette. She also stops straightening her hair, which slowly returns to its original, curly and frizzy state.
  • Hunter is always seen dressed in his flashy Golden Guard uniform unless wearing a disguise. However, after running away from Belos upon learning the Awful Truth, he winds up wearing a much plainer brown and grey outfit.
  • After commencing the Day of Unity, Belos ditches his priestly robes for the clothes he wore as Philip before taking on his role as emperor. However, Luz points out that while it would be considered a normal outfit in the seventeenth century, it's far from regular wear in modern day.