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"Yo! Aren't you cold in that skimpy dress, with these damn cold winds?"
Characters with a Limited Wardrobe will sometimes find themselves wearing far too little to possibly be comfortable given the current temperature — but will usually not act any differently to how they do in other temperatures.
This trope also applies to other times the clothing is grossly inappropriate to the environment. To be expected in Video Games, especially free roaming ones unless finding appropriate clothing becomes a Broken Bridge.
Compare Most Common Super Power, Impossibly Cool Clothes, Stripperiffic, An Ice Suit, Breast Plate, Fur Bikini, Sexy Santa Dress.
Contrast Stylish Protection Gear, Happy Holidays Dress, Pretty in Mink.
Not to be confused with being exposed to actual elements.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Justified in Claymore, as the procedure that turns the titular warriors into Half Human Hybrids also makes them much more resistant to the elements. When one Claymore, Clarice, shows up in the snowy north in a heavy fur coat the other Claymores quickly realize something is up, and it's revealed that she's an incomplete hybrid (and thus dead last in ranking) and is not resistant to the point of the others, who treat her like The Load and consider her useless.
- Sailor Moon, especially in the first season finale, which takes place in the arctic circle. Let's not even get into how a character who was burned to death by "magma" merely looked like a few seconds' worth of flame had scruffed her up a bit...
- It was just a psychic illusion, so the fact that she was scorched at all is actually what's silly.
- They did act differently than usual, though. Usagi whined and complained about being too cold but Mars scolded her for being a baby.
- Averted in the second season of Digimon. The characters still have somewhat Limited Wardrobes, but they have outfits for each season — so when it's winter, they wear warm clothes, etc., while in the Real World.
- Played straight in season 1, where the Digidestined are scattered across the digital world, with Tai notably in nothing but underwear and sneakers in a snowy climate. He does find his clothes fairly quickly, though.
- Chrono in Chrono Crusade wears a coat, leggings and gloves constantly, no matter what the weather is like. He rarely comments on the weather at all or even takes off his coat to cool down.
- Of course, he is a demon.
- Amu in Shugo Chara! transforms into her Heart persona (outfit: cheerleader skirt and teeny tiny tank top) while skiing and instantly complains that it's completely inappropriate for the situation.
- Averted by the Dirty Pair; the Angels always change into something warmer in cold weather.
- Averted and poked fun at in One Piece. Everybody puts on winter clothes when they go to Drum Island, except for Luffy who fails to notice it's cold until it's too late. At one point he even puts a fight on hold while he goes to find a jacket.
- Averted again, same arc, when Zoro gets lost wearing nothing but his pants (long story). When he finally finds his way back, the local village is in the middle of a Mexican Standoff with Wapol's Mooks. He immediately beats down all of the mooks so he can get a pair of their boots and a jacket.
- Bizarrely played with in the anime's "Ice Hunter" filler arc. Most of the Straw Hat crew wears weather appropriate clothes, except for Luffy and Franky. They both wear a parka and gloves but continue to wear shorts and a speedo(respectively), Luffy retains his sandals and Franky continues going barefoot. Don Achino, the villain of that arc, also wears next to no clothing but he's justified thanks to his Devil Fruit powers.
- In one of the episodes about the rest of the crew after their defeat by Kuma we see Franky, who is in a winter country. The locals are naturally horrified to see him in his speedo in the middle of a blizzard, to which he replies, "Ew! No!" (seriously.) He then tries to warm himself up with his patented 'SUPAAA!' dance, but it doesn't work and he freezes solid in a block of ice. Yup.
- When the plot of Naruto eventually leads to the snowy Land of Iron, many of the characters are quite inappropriately dressed for the area. While some at least started wearing jackets or coats, the Leaf and Sand Village ninja are still wearing sandals, Sakura and Karin are still wearing biker/short shorts, Temari and Samui are still wearing a sort of dress/skirt exposing most of their legs, and the Raikage continues to not wear anything on his upper body but a cloak that leaves 60% of his chest exposed.
- Averted sharply in Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Not only does Ed nearly collapse from exposure while inadequately dressed, he almost gets frostbite on the stumps of his arm and leg because his automail, being made of metal, conducts heat away from his body very efficiently.
- Inverted in dealing with Sloth. He freezes solid within seconds when they kick him out into a snowstorm while he's lightly dressed and doused in fast-evaporating diesel fuel. For an illustration of the principle, turn a compressed-air-in-a-can duster upside down and spray it on something (but NOT your skin). The fluid gas that comes out almost instantly boils off once it's no longer under pressure, riming whatever you spray it onto with frost. But even this could only give you a good frost burn in that time frame. When you account for how huge he is, the amount that would be coating him wouldn't be enough to freeze him solid even if all of it were completely evaporated using only his body heat.
- Played with in an early Fairy Tail arc. Natsu plays this trope straight, not being bothered by cold weather due to his powers. Lucy, on the other hand...
- For both Grey and Lyon, exposing themselves to the elements in snow-covered regions was part of their training routine. Afterwards, as a habit, Grey wears a shirt or a long coat only about half the time. On the other side, he isn't in such cold places any longer...
- Pokémon characters occasionally dress for the weather, but usually walk around in their standard, summer-y outfits no matter what. For Misty, this involves a couple walks in snowy mountains wearing micro-shorts and a really short, sleeveless t-shirt. When "dressing for the weather", half the time she just puts on a jacket and continues walking around in shorts, too. Like all other Pokemon media, neither Dawn nor Candice spent a second of their time in snowy areas not wearing a short skirt, either.
Comics
Films — Live Action
Literature
- Lampshaded in The Dresden Files, where various supernatural gribblies can walk around in frigid conditions wearing nothing heavier than T-shirts, and Harry complains about this at length, along with his own inability to do the same, despite the fact that he's a wizard and later on the Winter Knight.
- Done explicitly by the Marat in the Codex Alera series, where they have no problems skipping about in bone-chilling temperatures in loincloths. Being Marat, though, their ability to resist extreme temperatures comes in quite handy. This causes some impropriety in the Aleran lands since the women dress the same as the men. When Tavi brings on a team of Marat horsemen as auxilliaries for the First Aleran, he convinces them to wear actual clothes and armor by presenting them as gifts, which the Marat don't refuse because that insults the gift-giver.
- Lampshaded in Discworld, where an explicit requirement for taking on the life of an adventuring barbarian is resistance to cold.
- In Animorphs, the titular superheroes can only morph very skimpy skintight clothes, so when they're in the Arctic, they're very poorly dressed. However, this is explicitly referred to, and until they turn into polar bears, they're in serious danger of freezing to death.
- Both played straight (Torc) and justified (Paul/Pwyll) in The Wandering Fire.
- In Mistborn, Ham is a Pewterarm, or one who can burn pewter to increase most of his body's capabilities. Cold doesn't bother him, so his preferred uniform is a vest, even in the middle of winter.
- Subverted in The Wheel of Time. The Aes Sedai are known for their mastery of a concentration trick which allows them to ignore extremes in temperature. However, while they'll show no external signs, harsh weather can still harm them.
- In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "Gods of the North", the woman wears a light veil of gossamer. On a snowfield. Really, Conan, that is a hint you know.
- The Witch Species in The Golden Compass live in cold climates and wear relatively little. Although they feel the cold, they know it won't harm them, so they put up with it in order to better commune with nature.
- Averted in the Magic Tree House book Sunset of the Sabertooth, when Jack and Annie show up in the Ice Age wearing nothing but swimsuits and towels. Realizing that they'll freeze to death if they don't find better clothes, they take shelter in a cave and put on some fur clothes left by the family that lives there.
Live Action TV
- Inverted in Brimstone, Ezekiel Stone wears long sleeves and a trench coat in the middle of the day in LA. Justified with Fridge Brilliance when you realize that Stone spent the last fifteen years in Hell and consequently summer in southern California is much colder than he's used to.
- In two early back-to-back Doctor Who serials, Jamie finds himself wearing his kilt in both Tibet and on a glacier. In the former, he is told to put on warmer clothing, but claims that as a Highlander he is unaffected by the cold. He later regrets the decision. In the latter, no one seems to care.
Tabletop Games
- Technically speaking, in 3.5 Dungeons & Dragons, if you have frost resistance 10 (which is pretty easy to get), you're completely immune to any natural cold. Some players take advantage of this to have barbarians walking around the arctic in a loincloth. Also note the endure elements spell, which does the same thing, but only applies to weather.
- In Changeling The Lost, one of their low-end magical powers allows them to be comfortable in any temperature, regardless of clothing or lack thereof.
Theater
- A famous moment in the history of Broadway musicals was Mary Martin introducing Cole Porter's song "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" in Leave It to Me. As the chorus boys (of which Gene Kelly was one) danced around her, she stripped off a few articles of clothing. The backdrop for this scene (which was not strictly relevant to the drama) was the snow-covered Siberian steppes — the Irkutsk train station, to be precise.
- At the end of In The Next Room, or the Vibrator Play, Catherine and Dr. Givings strip down and have sex in the snow.
Video Games
Web Comics
Web Original
- For a male example, Oran in Broken Saints takes off his shirt in the desert at night.
- Gloriana of the Whateley Universe wears her superhero costume in the middle of winter in Boston and finds this out the hard way. Plus, she left her cape at home because it was too bulky to hide in a purse.
Western Animation
- A self-conscious reference appears in Drawn Together, in which one member of the fictional League of Heroes is named "Not Dressed for This Weather Woman".
- In Avatar: The Last Airbender Sokka and Katara have furs for the cold weather, but Aang appears to suffice with a light suit/robe in the South Pole. Apparently all of the Air Nomads are fine wearing that much even though they all live on mountains.
- In Avatar Extras, it's revealed that Aang knows a special breathing technique that keeps him warm while he's sleeping. No explanation on how he's able to keep warm when he's awake, though.
- Averted and Justified with Zuko. In the first season finale, he covers himself head to toe in protective gear, and is able to survive swimming in freezing waters due to a special breath technique that allows him to breath fire. However, he is in very real danger of freezing to death the whole time, which prompts Aang to take him with them after he gets knocked unconscious. Two seasons later, he gets stuffed in a "cooler" (a cross between a solitary confinement cell and a freezer) and uses the "breath of fire" technique to keep himself warm.
- Averted in Justice League Unlimited episode "The Balance". Upon entering the center of Tartarus, which is frozen, Hawkgirl begins complaining about the temperature and becomes very irritated when she learns that Wonder Woman's "armor" magically shields her from the cold.
- Averted in Teen Titans. When the team goes to Siberia on a mission, most of them wear modified costumes suited for cold weather (Raven's fur-trimmed cloak is especially nice). The only exceptions are Starfire, who isn't bothered by cold (at least until a heavy snowstorm takes its toll), and Beast Boy, who quickly regrets the decision and takes various animal forms to avoid freezing his ass off. The locals draw attention to Starfire's outfit rather quickly, but for different reasons.
- Averted somewhat in ThunderCats. After New Thundera reforms, they get snowsuits for when they're travelling in winter areas. And the first time we meet Snowman of Hook Mountain, Lion-o has a cape to billow dramatically around his bare legs and arms, but when the other Thundercats show up all of them are dressed in their normal uniforms.
- On Thundera, they didn't wear anything except for utility or mark of office. During the voyage to Third Earth, Jaga was explaining to them how on this hostile new world they were going to have to wear clothes to deal with the environment (of course, that depends on your definition of clothes). Apparently life was so good on Thundera, it was Crystal Spires and Togas minus the togas.
- Averted in Conan The Adventurer of all places. Although they all suffer from Limited Wardrobe, everybody has a cold outfit they switch to when climbing mountains, or journeying north. Conan goes from his trademark loin cloth to being covered from head to toe in fur.
- Gargoyles wander around in all climates in those handsome barbarian shorts. Goliath actually says that cold does not bother them early in the series, although in a later episode a different one complains about the cold. Maybe he just can't get as many updrafts.
- Elisa nearly freezes to death on the "world tour", when their open skiff emerges from Avalon in Norway, and they need to move fast to get her to shelter and warm clothes.
- The girls of Winx Club traipse through the dead, blizzard-y galaxy of Sparks/Domino in their skimpy fairy outfits. Their class also went on a hiking expedition in a swamp in school-issued hiking uniforms consisting of short-shorts.
- A one-time character in an episode of American Dad is a cheerleader in a outfit asking Steve why he stopped rummaging her trash. Note how the rest of characters are dressed for winter but not her
.
- Inverted in one episode of The Boondocks, where Huey continues wearing heavy winter gear in the middle of an unexpected heat-wave during winter. He doesn't seem too concerned about the heat, but everyone else keeps asking him why he's still wearing all those layers.
Fan Fic
- In the opening chapter of My Immortal, Ebony is outside wearing little more than a corset and a miniskirt whilst it is sleeting or "snowing and raining" as the story puts it.
Real Life
- NFL Cheerleaders often wildly underdress for a sport that is played outdoors in fall. ESPN.com columnist Gregg Easterbook thinks this helps teams win, and gleefully points out when cheerleaders dress warmly and the home team subsequently loses. He also complains when coaches overdress as well.
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