Limited Wardrobe - Television Tropes & Idioms

Probably the only instance of this happening in commercials, but... Billy Mays, who seemed to don his blue shirt/tan pants ensemble for everything he was in. When he died in June 2009, He was buried in this outfit and all of his pallbearers wore it as well.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome.

Close Advertising

All the main characters of Cowboy Bebop have signature outfits that they always wear. Perhaps explained by their being dirt poor.
Unless he has to disguise himself, Lupin III always wears that suit of his, though the color of the jacket changes from work to work. It's common for fans to refer to certain arcs and remakes of the show simply by the color of the jacket Lupin wore in them (green, red, or — rarely — pink). Likewise, his allies (Jigen and Goemon) and Inspector Javert (Zenigata) never change outfits. The one exception is Fujiko, whose entire style (including her hair color) is subject to change.
- Knowing Lupin this is on purpose, Clothes Make The Legend and all.
- It is in fact the case that Lupin has several copies of each suit. Also, there are two different colour schemes for the suit, sans the jacket. Yellow tie with black shirt and black or navy blue pants, or pink tie with blue shirt and white pants. In some of the films he wears a blue jacket. As for Fujiko, she not only dies or un-dies her hair but also evidently makes use of breast implants on occasion and has them removed later.
The anime Noir is sort of halfway there — when not wearing other clothes for the purpose of their work, Kirika and Mirielle wear the same outfits day in and day out. While Mirielle does look good in a black miniskirt and boots, there are limits...
- Especially noticeable when they're doing a hit in a Muslim country, where wearing a face-concealing veil (or at least not wearing an attention-grabbing Western miniskirt) would make sense.
- They do sometimes wear more practical outfits for an assassination-job, along with occasional disguises, but this is done very inconsistently. Sometimes Mireille does her work in top, miniskirt and high heels, even though she would have had plenty of time for switching to a better outfit.
- Chloe from the same series takes the opposite tack. While she occasionally is seen in tunics at the Soldats' headquarters her entire closet at her Paris apartment is filled with identical green cloaks.
  - Er, Chloe's closet is filled with colourful, frilly dresses - that she never, ever wears. Supposedly it's a reference to her seiyuu's previous role as Tomoyo of Card Captor Sakura.
Similarly, Maia in the anime Daphne In The Brilliant Blue wears the same fancy party dress every day, when she's not in agency "uniform" or a disguise — and sometimes as part of a disguise.
A character on Nadia the Secret of Blue Water, having suffered the destruction of his hat by gunfire, discards it and pulls an identical hat out of his pocket; the same character is later seen keeping four identical white linen suits in his closet.
In the same vein, Ishida Uryuu in Bleach: after his mantle is destroyed, he pulls out an identical spare. Other than this, however, the anime is known for providing its characters with a very wide variety of unique casual wear when not in their school uniforms.
Dragon Ball: Each character has a preferred fighting outfit (mostly orange karate uniforms for the humans and Saiyan battle armor for the Saiyans). Piccolo not only always wears the same outfit, but one of his powers is the ability to spontaneously conjure a new one whenever needed.
- Note that it's the same kind of outfit, but not the same outfit throughout. DBZ characters change clothes very frequently, often because of Clothing Damage.
  - "Clothes Beam is easily my most metro attack."
- Dragon Ball Z hung a lampshade on this in one episode, where Goku opens up a closet on his spaceship to find... nothing but the orange gi that he wears every day.
Inu Yasha's Kagome is almost constantly in her school uniform, and in one of the movie serials is actually presented with the outfit by her mother so she can change into it before going to the past. This made sense initially as she fell into the well on the way to school and was stuck in the feudal era without a change of clothes (and was initially averted as on the second trip there she had different clothes). Afterward this was entirely for the sake of recognition as while she wears casual clothes when she is in the present outside of school, she wears the uniform exclusively when in the past despite the impracticality of hiking for miles in a skirt and school shoes.
- Word of God states that Kagome prefers to wear her school uniform when she travels to the past because it's durable and it's easy to wash the blood out of it. Think about that.
  - For those not familiar with the series, Kagome's outift consists of a green skirt, a red necktie, and a WHITE blouse.
  - I think I heard from somewhere that students rarely have spare uniforms, so I'm guessing those things have to be easy to take care of. After all, it's not like she wants to pack extra clothing and weigh down that massive backpack even more.
  - Bleach will get anything out including dye. Great for her white top. Also one would assume that school Uniforms are cheaper (in some places) and easier to replace then regular clothing should the damage, large amount of blood etc. ruined it beyond her ability to clean it.
Played with in Kujibiki Unbalance: Komaki wears her trademark scarf everywhere — even in the sauna, when wearing a skimpy bathing suit. Likewise Izumi with her hat and goggles. The cast attend an Elaborate University High with the usual Japanese school uniforms, but do have street clothes and other clothing that they wear out of school... but Komaki always has her scarf, and Izumi her goggles.
Lampshaded in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. When Rude, a powerful bruiser sort wearing a suit-and-tie uniform and known for always wearing sunglasses, has his sunglasses broken, he looks outraged, produces another identical pair from his pocket, straightens his tie, and seems to be reinvigorated, despite just having had a billboard dropped on his head.
Each of the Kanon girls has her own signature outfit, even those who don't go to school. In the Toei version, they seemed to only wear these outfits, except when the plot called for something else. Ayu has an excuse; the others do not. However, see below.
- Yuuichi and Kitagawa lampshade the trope by pointing out that while their clothes always look exactly the same, they're not! Really! They don't believe each other.
On Golion/Voltron, each main character has a single set of civilian clothes that they wear at all times when not in uniform. They are wearing these clothes when they arrive on Planet Altea/Arus, and they apparently never see the need to expand their wardrobe for the rest of the series.
- The only exception is the Princess, who has two or three outfits: the pink dress she wears before she joins the team, and the pink jumpsuit afterwards. Plus her uniform is pink. Princesses Prefer Pink, after all.
Every Digimon character has a trademark outfit. In Digimon Adventure and Digimon Frontier, this made sense, because they were Trapped In Another World (although they didn't bother to change after they came back). Digimon Adventure 02 immediately zapped them back to the outfits they wore in the first episode every time they entered the Digital World, and Digimon Savers was a Cop Show, so they were technically in uniform. Digimon Tamers is the least likely to happen in real life; except for Ruki, the kids attend a no-uniform school, yet they wear the same thing every day. Ruki is the only exception; besides her "broken heart" outfit, she also has a school uniform, and once she repairs her relationship with her mother, the broken heart is replaced by a new and otherwise identical "healed heart" shirt.
- Digimon Adventure and Digimon Frontier can be excused. The creators said in the Digital World, your appearance is based on your picture of yourself. That's why the Digidestined's clothes automatically changed when they entered the Digital World and why the Chosen Children's clothes revert back to normal after demorphing.
- Digimon Adventure 02 is on middle ground: outside of the Digital World, all of the characters have their own clothing, and what they wear changes as the seasons do. If you pay attention, each character has at least three or four distinct outfits.
Shingetsutan Tsukihime provides a particularly painful example, due to Arcueid's outfit being simultaneously extremely plain and extremely characteristic. She never changes it; even being literally chopped to pieces doesn't stop her from wearing the same clothes later.
- To be fair, it's much the same case in the games, and the clothes themselves are magically formed. Not to mention she has at least one other outfit (the "vampire princess" dress).
Misaki in Welcome To The NHK almost always wears the same sweater and miniskirt, even under freezing conditions.
The creators of Samurai Seven even remarked on none of the samurai ever changed outfits, justifying it by saying that they had to carry everything they owned with them. Though Katsushiro seemed to have a change between his red-riding-hood-esque purple rain coat and something a little more mature for the last episodes.
- That doesn't explain Uky?'s outfit, though. As the son of a wealthy magistrate and later as the Emperor, he should have more than that one outfit. And no, throwing on a coat doesn't count.
The undines and their apprentices from ARIA are almost always in their uniforms, also when they are not working or training. This is especially strange since the uniforms don't seem particularly comfortable and make them stick out like a sore thumb. Then again, the gondolier business seems to be by far the most important thing in their lives.
Part 3 of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure plays with this when Jotaro's jacket is burned during the Wheel of Fortune fight. The next chapter has Joseph note that Jotaro had a tailor in Pakistan make an exact replica out of sheep wool.
- All the characters in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean — granted, they are prisoners (and one priest).
Most of the characters in Naruto: Naruto's orange tracksuit, Sasuke's blue shirt and white shorts, Sakura's red dress...
- Sasuke wears a different, black outfit for a short period of time, before quickly reverting back to the old outfit.
  - Word Of God said the change was due to the outfit being hard to draw. He has a few different versions of his Shippuden outfit.
- This Troper's brother actually asked her why Sasuke wore a different shirt sometimes. She responded with 'Because he's not a slob and actually has more than one set of clothes.'
- The Sand Siblings get new outfits in the Sasuke Retrieval Arc and filler, partly to symbolize their alliance with the Konoha, and partly because the old ones were hard to draw.
  - And despite appearing less than any of the other teams they have all have new outfits by their second appearance post-Time Skip. And as a side note Kankuro's Facial Markings change pretty much every time he reappears.
  - Likewise, Sasuke's outfit undergoes various changes in wardrobe after fighting Deidara and later Itachi, which seem to result from both a change of attitude and Clothing Damage.
- Many of the Leaf Ninja who lost in the preliminaries of the Chunin Exams — Ino, Tenten, Kiba, Hinata, Lee and Choji — wear casual clothing while coming to watch. In Shippuden, Sakura and Hinata do the same when they're not on missions.
Played straight with the first arc of Initial D, averted from Initial D Second Stage onwards.
- Arguably, this was more of a budgetary concern than a stylistic one (at least as far as the anime was concerned). While the First Stage's characters wore uniforms of sorts, they did reflect the kind of clothing that was popular with Japanese youth in the early to mid 90s. Although Ryouske's Miami Vice-esque white structured sports coat and white loafers always seemed a bit exaggerated to this troper. From the Second Stage onwards, all the characters, even secondary characters in rival teams, have a changing wardrobe which also reflects Japanese fashion amongst tuners and auto enthusiasts. The anime production teams apparently put quite a bit of effort into making the people in the galleries as well as the racers look authentic.
While his friends varied things up a little bit, Yugi almost always wore his school uniform.
- Yugi had just two things to wear in the show, his school uniform and an outfit that made it look like he was heading for an S&M club.
One of the Blue Seed's omake has Matsudaira wondering why Kusanagi always wears the same clothes and if he ever takes them to be cleaned. This is even more amusing when you consider that Kusanagi's trademark red coat tends to get literally torn into small pieces during his transfformations, yet in the next episode it is usually seen again, undamaged.
Cain Blueriver from Lost Universe had a literal closet with dozens of those capes of his, which he frequented after his escapades.
In the earlier part of Detective Conan, Conan nearly exclusively wear a blue suit, a white shirt, and a red bow tie. Later he was seen with a better variety of clothes.
- Then again, since Conan was originally Shinichi, it could be that his old school uniform was the only outfit he still owned from back then.
  - That doesn't mean that he have to wear it for most of the first 17 volumes, though...
Averted by Kaleido Star — although she has a couple outfits that we see her in several times (most notably a blue shorts and white T-shirt combo she trains in), in general Sora wears a different set of clothes in almost every episode. She even has different sets of training clothes, ranging from the aforementioned shorts and T-shirt to a leotard and ballet slippers.
Nearly all the characters of Witch Hunter Robin, with the exception of the Rich Bitch Faux Action Girl.
The anime of Ranma ½, compared to the manga, has a much smaller wardrobe for the characters, and for more secondary characters like Ryoga and Mousse, changes in costume were usually reserved for special episodes. While special outfits still showed up (for example, a Chinese "Maoist" uniform that Ranma used for fancy attire, or various forms of dress for disguising his female form), they were often used repeatedly. Ranma Saotome, himself, was almost always seen in a sleeveless Chinese shirt and bracers, undershirt and long Chinese pants in the everyday anime (with pre-curse flashbacks invariably showing him in a gi like his father), whereas manga-Ranma almost never wore the same thing twice. Part of the reason for this might have been budget issues, which actually got the anime canceled briefly (a second company picked it up after the end of season 1, hence why it ends on a Recap Episode).
In One Piece, many characters wear almost exactly the same outfit (Luffy's red vest and blue shorts, or Zoro's white shirt, green haramaki and black pants), or a similar outfit with variations (Sanji typically wears suits, Usopp often wears overalls and Franky typically has a Hawaiian shirt and speedo). These are often forced to change on certain conditions, such as the climate, or other plot related circumstances (for example, Zoro changes his shirt after his underwater fight with the Sky Sharks). Subverted with Nami and Robin, who change clothes quite frequently and have a variety of outfits; Nami has four different outfits during the main part of the Thriller Bark arc.
- Although while Luffy's outfit does change from time to time, it's only as far as colours go. They did add to his wardrobe however with the addition of an armband, which proves to help him out later on.
- Actually, it's more like the same style rather than the same clothes; frankly, I haven't seen Zoro in a white shirt for years...
In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, while the clothes of the characters change between seasons, they will wear the same casual outfits until then. Heck, in the first season, you could practically predict which episodes Nanoha would perform her Stock Footage Transformation Sequence based on whether or not she's wearing her orange long-sleeve shirt and brown skirt combo when the Jewel Seed Monster attacks.
- By StrikerS, where they didn't use the Transformation Sequences that often, the characters were allowed to have multiple sets of casual clothes (okay, maybe only one or two), but of course they'd almost always be seen in either their Barrier Jackets or their uniforms anyway. Which is completely justified.
In Suzumiya Haruhi, unlike the other characters, Yuki Nagato constantly wears her North High uniform, even on weekends when the Brigade searches the city for mysterious events. The Beach Episode "Remote Island Syndrome" is the only time she's seen in casual clothing.
The various Zoids anime are particularly grievous examples. In all four seasons, most of the characters have one or two outfits each, their "day" wear and what they wear when driving their Zoid - and even then, the latter seems optional. The only time a character will wear something else is if the plot needs it.
The royalty and nobility of Le Chevalier D Eon, even thought their few clothes are still Pimped Out Dresses.
Maru and Moro of xxxHolic have two similar dresses each; they also seem to each have a kimono, though we never see those. This is made all the more noticeable by the fact that mistress Yuko has an Unlimited Wardrobe
Mostly followed in Pokémon, with the later exception of Ash changing clothes when he goes to the area of the newest game.
Just about every character in Soul Eater has a trademark outfit, and with recent chapters, sometimes even two or more.
It is interesting to note that just about every single character in FLCL are examples of this trope except for Eri Ninamori.
L Lawliet/Ryuzaki from Death Note. Do I even need to explain?
- There have even been pictures showing he really does have◊a million of the same outfit.◊
In Kaze no Stigma, Ayano wears her school uniform all the time, even when she spends the day out of school. In episode 13, she takes her time choosing between three identical outfits◊.
Almost every human in Transformers has no more than two outfits, but Jean in Victory really takes the cake - he always wears that hoodie, suspenders, red shoes, and jacket even while attending school.
The entire family March in the Little Women adaption from Nippon Animation.
Every single character in Genesis Of Aquarion. They have one outfit for piloting the Vectors, and one for day-to-day use. Possibly justifiable for Apollo, being a street urchin, but you'd think Silvia and Sirius at least could afford a more varied wardrobe, being royalty and all...
Kazuma and Ayano in Kaze no Stigma. Perhaps because Kazuma doesn't really carry luggage, he actually only has the one jacket, one shirt and one set of pants (but with all the money he gets paid, you'd think he'd be able to afford it). Lampshaded to an extent by Ayano, where in a scene she deliberates over three sets of her school uniform to see which one looked better. In fact, many of the characters that reappear are wearing an outfit seen before. One reason could be a semi-school setting, however. Outfits are much better in the manga.
[[Yotsubato seems like a more severe case than she actually is; some people misremember her as only having one shirt, but it's actually a number of shirts with the same design scheme: an X body with Y sleeves and collar (and sometimes shoulders). Careful comparison reveals significant differences. That said, she does have other outfits that don't follow this pattern: her pajamas, her swimsuit, her yukata, her poncho, her recycled shirt, her hapi, her "flower cupid" outfit from episode 18, her triangle-like dress from chapter 27... umm... that's still not that much. Maybe others will surface.
Kenichi The Mightiest Disciple: Played straight with Ryozanpaku masters and most Yami masters. (Which clearly underlines their being badasses.) A notable exception to this was when the Ryozanpaku masters put on some normal civilian clothes when pretending to be Miu's relatives so that they could attend Miu's school play performance. On the other hand, this trope is averted with most of the teenage characters, if not for any other reason then for the fact that they must have some normal outfit when attending school. Kenichi didn't even have a field battle outfit until the chapter 145.
Ash and Brock from Pokemon have one outfit per arc (except for a short time during Diamond & Pearl where they got winter clothes for a few episodes when traveling to Snowpoint City, though they've already switched back despite being at the equally frigid Lake Acuity.) The female companions, however, get slightly larger wardrobes.
Played straight with Banjō, Toppo and Garrison in Daitarn 3; averted for the two ~~bond girls~~ female sidekicks. Also, defied in episode 20: Koros captures both Beauty and Reika, turns them into Meganoids and sics them on Banjō. Banjō kills them both, then explains that he noticed "Beauty" and "Reika" are wearing different clothes than the ones they left home with, and therefore are two female Meganoids disguised as Beauty and Reika, who indeed are still being held captive by Koros.)

Close Anime & Manga

Fox Trot oddly plays this straight with some characters, but averts it with others. Peter Fox almost always wears jeans, the same sweatshirt and a baseball cap with the letter "A" on it. Likewise, Eileen Jacobson always seems to wear the same shirt and skirt.
- Lampshaded in a strip where Jason got hand-me-downs from Peter. In the final frame, Jason is wearing a miniature version of Peter's regular outfit.
  Jason: It's high time someone asked you a question...
  Peter: Lookin' good!
Doonesbury: B.D. always wore his football helmet 24/7. Then when he was in the First Gulf War he switched to a "Fritz" helmet. He wore the helmet until he was wounded and discharged from the army. Lampshaded when they had to have a special operation to remove his helmet.
Mo from Dykes to Watch Out For invariably wears jeans and red-and-white striped shirts. Her girlfriend once gave her a shirt with a slightly different pattern for Christmas, and Mo immediately asked if she could exchange it.
In the X Wing Series comics, Wedge Antilles basically wears only three outfits: orange Republic flightsuit when flying, white-and-black formal uniform in formal occasions, and his civilian clothes, which consist of black boots, blue pants, brown jacket, and a vertically-striped turtlenecked shirt. Anything else, and he needs a plot reason to wear it.
While most supervillains have actual costumes and can thus be a little justified in this, Ox of Marvel Comics' Enforcers just wears a distinctive set of normal clothes that serves the same function but without the justification. Apparently he just likes turtlenecks, vests, and khaki slacks.
Similar with the Sandman who is iconically associated with his brown slacks and green horizontally striped shirt.

Close Comics

Lampshaded in Yu-gi-oh: The Abridged Series. When Yugi appears in a different outfit, he remarks, "Isn't anyone going to notice I'm not in my school uniform?"

Close Fan Works

Abe and Aaron spend the majority of Primer in black slacks, white oxfords, and neckties. In fact, the color of their ties is the only difference both their outfits.
All of the main cast of The Royal Tenenbaums wear the same clothes throughout the entire movie, regardless of time shifts. In flashback sequences, you see that most of the characters even dressed this way in childhood.
The entire cast of Mary Poppins, including the presumably well-off Banks family.
Most of the Hogwarts faculty in the Harry Potter films.

Close Films

Literature example: Harry Dresden, of The Dresden Files is almost never seen in anything other than a black duster, black jeans, and a grey T-shirt unless the plot call for a change in wardrobe.
- Considering that someone is usually trying to kill Harry and that the duster is essentially magicproof and weaponproof enchanted leather armor, wearing the duster makes a LOT of sense.
In Jurassic Park, Ian Malcolm only owns black and gray clothing, claiming that the only thing which bores him more than fashion is professional sports, and he prefers not having to think about what he has to wear every day.
Where's Wally's Wally is contractually bound to enforce this trope.
- Then again, so is Waldo. *wink*
Similar to the Jurassic Park example, Cayce Pollard in William Gibson's Pattern Recognition is allergic to brands (no, really, it's a condition) and dresses only in shades of grey with all logos or labels removed; her clothes are referred to as Cayce Pollard Units or... wait for it... CPUs.
In the Seekers of Truth, the Wizard always wears the same suit and hat (or appears to), and Specter and Shade have consistent outfits mainly because their abilities help protect them from temperature extremes.
In The Destroyer series Remo always wears a black t-shirt and black chinos, regardless of climate.

Close Literature

Used thematically in Battlestar Galactica. Roslin laments that one of the suckier parts of surviving the genocide of your race is that you're stuck with the clothes on your back (snark emphasis ours). Played straight with Bio-Cylons, being essentially clones of each other, all wear the same type of clothes and outfits whenever we see them. Considering they were for much of the series run like a set of a thousand twins with little personality to distinguish individual members, it reinforced their conformity and lack of individuality. We the viewers can tell Boomer completely assimilated back into her Cylon side when she starts dressing like her "sisters".
Steve from preschool show Blues Clues has the same outfit, including the green-striped shirt, in every episode while his "brother" Joe has a variety of different outfits.
- Although all of the outfits were the same design just with a different color.
A rare live-action example: in the kids' science show Beakmans World, Beakman is always seen in his fluorescent green lab coat, and Lester is always seen in his rat suit. This, however, does not hold for the lovely young female assistant, who wears a different outfit for each segment.
Justified, Lampshaded and then Parodied in the character of Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. The leather coat he continuously wears through his time on Buffy is revealed through Flashback to have been stolen from the body of the last Slayer he killed and as such is a trophy. In an episode of Angel, he's caught in an explosion and his coat is destroyed. He complains that the coat had incredibly sentimental value to him and was "irreplaceable". Gilligan Cut to his new employers providing him with a new identical coat as well as a wardrobe full of them which he seems quite pleased with and wears for the rest of the show's run.
- Of course, that happened in the penultimate episode of Angel, so "the rest of the show's run" constitutes one episode...
- Rather amusingly, when he was unhinged following his acquisition of a soul, Spike tried to "disguise" himself so he wouldn't be identified with the old Spike. His disguise? Wearing a shirt that wasn't black.
- Parodied in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 2 episode "What's My Line, Part 2": When Kendra (a slayer very dedicated to her call, with no personal ties whatsoever) has her shirt damaged in battle, she angrily comments on this by shouting (in her trademark accent) "That's me best shirt!", followed by the even more angry follow-up comment "That's me only shirt!" At the end of the episode, Buffy gives her one of her own shirts.
Same for most of the humans in Pee Wees Playhouse. Pee-wee always wore the same suit with bowtie, Miss Yvonne always had the same layer-cake dress, Cowboy Curtis always had the cowboy getup complete with chaps, etc.
Doctor Who has this. Starting with the Fifth Doctor, each Doctor in the series has his own specific costume, as do most of the companions throughout the 80's. Before 1980 and the Fourth's regeneration into the Fifth, each Doctor typically wore costumes which were variations on a theme (in a way reflecting more of a "dress sense" than an actual costume). In the new series, the slight flexibility in wardrobe from earlier in the series is reintroduced; as the Ninth Doctor's sweater's colour often changes, as does the color of the Tenth Doctor's suit.
- First Doctor: Old-fashioned Edwardian ensemble; typically white-and-black-checked or grey trousers, white wing-collar shirt, waistcoat, black frock coat, and occasionally an Astrakhan hat and a black cloak.
- Second Doctor: Typical Cosmic Hobo apparel. Most often a rumpled frock coat, baggy checked trousers and bowtie.
- Third Doctor: Very much a dandy. Tended towards black trousers and velvet smoking jackets of various colours, with ruffled shirts and a black cape.
- Fourth Doctor: Mostly in earth tones. His most recognizable image was of a long brown, gray or burgundy coat (though for his first season he wore a short corduroy jacket), various waistcoats, a wide-brimmed felt fedora, buccaneer boots, and ridiculously long scarves. In the final season of his tenure, the variations ceased and he wore a much more stylized burgundy version of his traditional costume - still with the long scarf but now with breeches, a heavier, longer burgundy greatcoat, and the first appearance of stylized question marks on his shirt collar.
- Fifth Doctor: Wore a Panama hat, white tennis shoes, orange, cream and brown stripes trousers, a V-necked cricketing jumper, and a buff frock coat with red piping.
  - This is a Edwardian-era uniform for playing cricket, and inevitably in one episode he ended up playing in a match.
  - Can't forget the stick of celery in his lapel. I'm serious. It really is there.
- Sixth Doctor: A garish, clashing outfit of black and yellow striped trousers, a multicoloured waistcoat, and a patchwork coat which defies description. The production notes for the series at the time specified a "totally tasteless costume". Newer webcasts and remakings of older episodes have replaced the amazing technicolor dreamcoat into a more muted (and more easily drawn) blue ensemble which has proven popular with fans who thought the striking colours distracting.
  - This troper once heard the Sixth Doctor referred to as "The BBC Colour Test Man".
- Seventh Doctor: Checked tweed trousers, a red, yellow and green pullover decorated in question marks, a cream colored coat with a paisley scarf, brown-and-cream brogues ("wingtips" to American tropers),a black umbrella with the handle in the shape of a red question mark, and a straw hat. Later on in his tenure the colours of his costume became much darker; his jacket and hatband all became dark brown. In his final appearance he wore a more formal costume with a red velvet waistcoat and tweed jacket, but retained the checked trousers and straw hat.
- Eighth Doctor: Cream trousers, black boots, green velvet frock coat, silk cravat and double-breasted waistcoat. This was based on a stylized "Wild Bill Hickok" fancy dress costume he stole (though it doesn't seem to much resemble any genuine outfit worn by Wild Bill Hickok in any photos of him that this troper has ever seen).
- Ninth Doctor: Utilitarian garb with black shoes, black trousers, a brown/black leather jacket and a jumper (again, a pullover sweater for you Yanks out there) of varying colours. Interestingly, he also wore a watch (though older Doctors occasionally used a pocket watch).
  - Other Doctors were seen to wear wristwatches too, most notably the Seventh Doctor.
- Tenth Doctor: Converse trainers in various colours, a brown suit with blue pinstripes, and some combination of various shirts and ties or, less frequently, no tie and a T-shirt underneath. Often complemented with a long brown wool trench coat he claims to have been a present from Janis Joplin. In his second and third seasons, he gains a new suit with a reversed colour scheme - blue with brown pinstripes. During these seasons he regularly switches back and forth between the two suits.
  - The Tenth Doctor also wears a "black tie" outfit (tux, black bow tie and black Converse) in a few episodes. He complains occasionally that something bad always happens when he wears it. Considering the average plot of a Doctor Who episode This Troper wants to know how he tells the difference.
  - 'Answer to that's easy. It's made pretty clear all sorts of whacky, fun, but generally pleasant or at least mostly alright in the end stuff happens between each episode. During these, the normal clothes are generally worn. And then he gets out the "black tie" outfit. Whole cruise liners' worth of people are slaughtered, entire population irreparably torn from their bodies and emotions or just burned as "bad stock".... The black suit is often accompanied by things taking a nasty turn, rather than a close shave/cool adventure with no (or minimal) casualties turn.
  - Lampshaded by Donna when she meets the Doctor for the second time :
  Donna : You're even wearing the same suit! ...Don't you ever change?
  - And the brown and blue suits come in pretty handy for the finale of the 2008 season: The clone's in blue. Well, after being in his birthday suit.
- Eleventh Doctor: tweed jacket with a dickie bow tie, rolled up black pants and black boots
Carl Kolchak only ever seems to wear an old seersucker suit, tennis shoes, and a ratty porkpie hat. This is commented on several times during the series and at one point a co-working buys him a new hat that he promptly tries to dispose of. Word Of God from Darren Mc Gavin was that Carl deliberately chose to make that outfit his permanent wardrobe after being fired from a newspaper a decade or so prior to the series.
The various Power Rangers series' have a variation of this: while the actual outfits of the characters may change, the outfit is always predominantly, if not entirely, of that character's color as a Ranger. In one episode, Tommy Oliver, who has been a Green, White, and Red Ranger in previous series, hangs a lampshade on this by complaining about having to change his wardrobe when he becomes a Black Ranger.
- Some of the middle seasons though have teams that wear the same street clothes outfit for virtually every episode (unless the plot explicitly calls for a change of costume). Later seasons mix the two: varying street clothes in a color scheme that matches the ranger color and a uniform that they wear constantly.
- To mention Tommy again, he wasn't immune to this from the start, especially when he was in his "evil" phase. Apparently being mind-controlled makes you want to keep to a select wardrobe. Even afterwards, that one green flannel shirt showed up in a lot of his outfits.
While all of the characters of LazyTown have one default outfit, most of those can be excused because the character is either a puppet or a superhero. Stephanie has the most variable wardrobe for non-plot reasons, especially in season 2, but Robbie Rotten is only ever seen in a red-and-purple striped suit or red-and-purple striped pajamas except for plot-related disguises, despite an extremely large and apparently magical wardrobe.
Clark in Smallville wears a red jacket over a blue shirt 95% of the time, as an homage to his future superhero identity's colors. In fact, one of the dead giveaways to the viewer that an evil alien clone was masquerading as him was that the clone was wearing those colors inverted.
- It used to be one of many outfits he wore (he always did favor a blue shirt) but as the series went on he started wearing it more and more (perhaps a homage to him growing into his super hero role). Quite possibly the most extreme case was in the return of the shapeshifter episode where he was wearing a brown jacket when said shapeshifter paralyzed him with kryptonite, but apparently switched to his red one before confronting her (thus making it easy for us to tell them apart).
Thelma Harper wears the same dress on most episodes of Mamas Family, and her daughter Eunice seems to have worn the same dress and hairstyle since childhood, while the other major characters wear different outfits, but of a similar color and style, like Naomi's off-the-shoulder yellow dresses and Iola's high-necked pink ones.
- Even the male characters weren't exempt from the trope: Vint was always seen wearing tan or beige, and Bubba always wore green. It's also worth mentioning that in the Mama's Family reunion episode of Vicki Lawrence's talk show, Beverly Archer (who played Iola) said she never wanted to see pink again as long as she lived.
It's an incredibly rare event when one of the Supernatural boys gets a new piece of clothing. Sometimes they have to wear the same clothes for episodes at a time — Sam, for example, didn't change from Salvation to In My Time Of Dying. Word Of God that they tend to stink a bit.
Jon Stewart seems to suffer from this in real life. When not "at work" (and thus in a suit) his gray T-shirt and khakis are such a constant that fanartists would rather die than depict him in anything else. When named one of NYC's Best Dressed, he protested: "Same fucking shirt, every day — that's not personal style, that's OCD!"
Trailer Park Boys: Julian never wears anything other than a black t-shirt, black jeans, and an earring and choker. Ricky changes clothes literally once per series.
Justified on Lost: Most of the characters are plane crash survivors living on a deserted island, and the only clothes they have access to are the ones in the luggage that survived the crash, and so they often wear the same outfit for several episodes at a time.
- The most notable example is Ana Lucia, who wore the exact same clothes her entire time on the Island...even after they reunited with the main group. The only difference was that sometimes she had the jacket, and sometimes she didn't.
Contrajustified on Star Trek Voyager: they're a zillion lightyears from home, they have to make do with what they can scrape together, but the top priority is getting the rebels out of their leather trench coats and steampunk armor, and into the exact same Starfleet uniform as everyone else. Flag on the play.
- A slightly less extreme example of the straight version is Deanna Troi who (as one humorist put it) went from cheerleader to aerobics instructor after the first season typically wearing one of only two or three full body unitards throughout most of the series.
Horatio Caine of CSI Miami regularly wears a black or dark blue suit with a tieless blue shirt.
- Don't forget "The Sunglasses of Justice".
Mike from Burn Notice seems to pull something similar, except he prefers a wider range of colours. His favorite suit is pretty much a khaki version of Horatio's, which has been established to be Armani. He will generally wear whatever's appropriate to the job, otherwise. In season two, he started wearing thermal shirts. A lot.
Played with in the Seinfeld episode "The Seven": Jerry's girlfriend wears the same dress every time they meet.
Jerry: What in God's name is going on here? Is she wearing the same thing over and over again? Or does she have a closet full of these, like Superman? I've got to unlock this mystery!
In Knight Rider (1982), Michael Knight always wore a polo shirt (often red, sometimes blue or pink... don't ask about the pink) underneath a leather jacket, with jeans. It helps a lot with stock footage.
- The 2008 series has Michael Knight (Jr.) with a gray t-shirt and khakis. For cold weather, Michael wears a red long sleeved shirt underneath the gray t-shirt. Word of God says that the iconic leather jacket will come into play later in the season.
On Gilligans Island, Gilligan, the Skipper, and the Professor almost always wore the same stuff outside of dream sequences and the like. Mary Ann, by contrast, had a variety of outfits, and the wardrobes of both Ginger and the Howells were virtually unlimited (leading to Fridge Logic about why they would take so many clothes with them on a three-hour tour).
Justified in 24 where an entire season takes place in 24 hours, giving most characters no chance to change outfits between episodes.
Justified for Annie in Being Human: she's a ghost, and always wears the clothes she died in. However, there are subtle changes depending on her mood, etc.
Two Words: Jamie Hyneman.
- Even if the white shirt is taken off for whatever reason, Jamie tends to stick to the black/gray/white color scheme. It was almost shocking to see him in bright red Nomex for one test.
Kotaro Minami from Kamen Rider Black and Kamen Rider Black RX. In a recent press conference to promote the upcoming crossover movie in Kamen Rider Decade his actor is seen wearing an updated version of one of his old jackets.
Justified in Monk, where the title character has a closetful of the same outfit to save time on deciding what to wear (a stopgap to prevent OCD lockups)... and, at one end, his old police uniform from before his Heroic BSOD.
Columbo wears a shabby raincoat, an odd asymmetrical haircut, and a tiny cheap cigar. Equally iconic was Peter Falk's real glass eye that caused him to constantly look at things crooked.
Get a Life had a particularly odd version of this: Chris's parents wore pajamas and robes at all times, in and out of the house.
Patrick Jane, the Mentalist, only seems to own the one set of clothes (brown shoes, dark blue suit, light blue shirt, no tie, blue waistcoat).
- And this troper sees absolutely nothing wrong with that. That vest is the reason she began watching the show in the first place. So lovely...
For some unknown reason, Jason Morgan in General Hospital only goes around in a black muscle shirt and black jeans. To spice it up, sometimes he wears a black leather jacket when it's colder.
Understandable on Farscape, where the characters are refugees and former prisoners who are frequently on the run. However, over the course of the series their wardrobes did evolve, reflecting the levels of badass they were all accruing. The most obvious case was when Crichton gave up his IASA jumpsuit for Peacekeeper leather.
Ben Matlock on Matlock always wore the same light colored suit in court. One episode even made fun of this when his daughter tried to get him to wear more modern custom suits for an episode.
The members of the Cartwright family, the protagonists of Bonanza, always wore the same outfit, to enable the show to reuse stock footage of them riding and that kind of thing. A live action version of something found more often in cheap animation. (Or So I Read.)

Close Live Action TV

If there is any sort of outfit change, it'll likely be no more than a Palette Swap. The few times it doesn't apply is with the female lead's wardrobe, each outfit more titillating than the last. Oh, and whenever the male lead has to infiltrate the enemy.
Hero John R. Blade from Sin wears the exact same gear throughout the game, but can don a worker suit when infiltrating a chemical plant. He goes loincloth when mutated, but magically regrows his uniform again when de-mutated.
Most specific video game examples would be redundant, but there are a few specifically obnoxious examples. One such is in Kingdom Hearts 2, where The Beast is always in his cloak when he is in your party — even though he was wearing a complicated suit moments before.
- Ironically, the Kingdom Hearts series also partially subverts this; several worlds give you specific outfits based on their own theme. For example, Halloween Town gives the party Halloween-costume-mash-up outfits, while Space Paranoids changes the characters' outfits to Tron-inspired "program" outfits.
In The World Ends With You, where fashion is a key gameplay mechanic, none of your outfits actually appear on your character. Which is good, because ANY character wearing a tux, bright orange sandals, a baseball cap and carrying a skate board would look bizarre. Not to mention you can crossdress and even wear animal mascot suits...
In The Sims, Sims only normally wear one each of a preset number of outfits (one set of "Everyday" clothes, one set of "Underwear", etc.) The player can make them change one of these outfits, but even if the Sim in question owns every piece of clothing available to him/her, he/she will never wear a different outfit of a given type unless the player explicitly tells him/her to.
- Which probably should be classified as aversion, since Sims will not do anything if the player does not tell them to. If not in Free Will, in which they would still eventually perish if not controlled. So... yeah.
In Tales of Symphonia, certain titles (which impact the characters' stats) will change the characters' outfits, but this is generally a bad idea for actual gameplay purposes as these titles convey no benefit. Most titles, including the ones your average player will actually want to use for practical purposes, show them in their "regular" outfits.
Thousand Arms had quite a bit of Lampshade Hanging of this trope. For example, one question in the Dating Sim portion of the game had an answer of "I've been wearing the same clothes the whole game!"
Humorously lampshaded in the first Gabriel Knight game: Gabe's character was designed to wear a bitchin' leather trenchcoat, which he wears whenever he goes outside. Not a problem, except it's June. In New Orleans. Per his assistant Grace: "I wish you wouldn't wear that coat in June. I can smell you from here."
Characters in Fire Emblem keep one outfit throughout the game (with the exception of lord class changes), this is justifed with characters who are wearing armor and other uniforms (and the Greil mercenaries are implied not to be able to afford any more), but defectors still wear the colors of the enemy after they join you, but there is really no reason for Ilyana to change only a cape over a 4 year period◊ period◊.
In Shenmue if you look in Ryo's wardrobe you’ll find nothing but white T-shirts and blue jeans, just like the ones he’s wearing. His jacket however is one of a kind. Also every single character in the series never changes their clothes.
Mario and crew all wear the same outfit all the time — even when swimming. There are a few exceptions, such as Dr. Mario having his white lab coat. Peach — and the other Princesses -also have a shorts and T-shirt ensemble for sports, a jumpsuit for riding motorcycles, AND a set of Strikers armor (because soccer in the Mushroom Kingdom is just that vicious).
- In Paper Mario, it's showed that Peach's Closest is full of identical dresses, but she insists that they are different.
The Longest Journey is perhaps notable for giving the heroine four largely different (in color; but that's just how the graphics were back in '99) outfits throughout the games. Too bad, the hottest of them (the orange-black one, in case you are wondering) was taken away half a chapter later. Dreamfall carries on with the good tradition.
The enormous cast of characters in Touhou are almost universally portrayed with their own unique outfit — and never wear anything else. Some of these are justified, however.
- Out of all the characters that appear in two or more games, the only ones (to this troper's rememberance) that ever change their dress in the Windows series are Marisa (color changes, the more recent apron change) and Reisen (removed the overcoat), barring the slight changes required of the heroines in Perfect Cherry Blossom for the winter environment (e.g. a scarf for Marisa). All of the returning PC-98 characters (Reimu, Marisa, Yuuka, and Alice) also get a new one for their Windows debut.
Partially averted in Persona 3, in which major characters will change outfits depending on the season and occasionally whether or not there's school. They tend to have only one or two outfits per season, though. Very minor NPCs, naturally, receive no change.
- For clarification: most of main characters have a winter uniform and casual outfit, a summer uniform and casual outfit, and a bathing suit, plus specialized outfits for certain situations (like sports practice or hitting the hot springs). FES adds the ability to wear some of those outfits as armor, including maid outfits and more suggestive items. During normal gameplay you'll only see one set of "casual-school" clothes, though. See "exceptions" below.
  - And of course, unless you have one of these special costume items, when you go to Tartarus, the party will always change into their school uniforms, regardless of what they were wearing before.
- Played straight with Nozomi and Aegis. Aegis takes to wearing her winter uniform all the time once she starts attending school mostly because it's convenient, though she has a single blue sundress somewhere in her wardrobe. Nozomi admits he's so fat nothing else fits him.
Subverted heavily in the fighting game Dead or Alive. Every game presents characters with two different outfits to begin with. Beating the game with that character universally unlocks the third. More outfits can be unlocked with further in-game play, occasionally to the extent that one character will have ten different outfits.
Street Fighter does this a bit. Ryu is only ever seen in a karate gi (apparently, it's all he has to wear), Sakura still wears a schoolgirl uniform even when she's supposed to be 20, Dan only ever wears a pink gi, and even when M. Bison changes bodies, he's always got the same getup. Not to mention Zangief running around in a Speedo... in the cold Russian north... at playgrounds full of children...
- Averted with two characters in The King Of Fighters games: Athena and Benimaru receive new costumes with every sequel. This also holds true to the crossover games. Kyo. Terry, and Kensou also have gotten new duds in the series, but not at the frequency the former two have.
Since, unlike most MMORP Gs, the outfits in City of Heroes are unrelated to actual equipment (which exists in a more abstract form) and mostly determined at character creation, each hero is generally stuck with one outfit (possible with a Palette Swap if the character is in a supergroup). You can pay a hefty sum of money to change things around, but then you have to pay as much to change it back again. As you gain levels, you are rewarded with additional costume slots, which allow you to change outfits at will. In a sense, this makes Limited Wardrobe a kind of character defect that you eventually buy off.
Justified in Devil Survivor, as the characters are caught in a lockdown a good distance from their homes for the course of the game.

Close Video Games

In Homestar Runner's Strong Bad Email 199, Strong Bad compliments Homestar's same-shirt-he-always-wears.

Close Web Animation

The webcomic Adventurers! makes fun of the fact that changing a video game character's equipment doesn't change that character's appearance.
The main characters of 8-Bit Theater, it being a sprite comic, have so far only changed clothes to represent their class change.
- Except when they are in disguise, which happened occasionally.
Acknowledged in Suicide For Hire, with Arc's Steely Dan shirt:
"I thought I already got this shirt from you?"
"Yeah, I gave you number twelve. This is number forty-two."

Close Web Comics

Lampshaded in the web fiction serial Dimension Heroes when Brittany and Tami go clothes shopping. Brittany is excited about a neat shirt she found on sale, only for Tami to point out that it was remarkably similar to the one she was currently wearing.
At Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe, the only thing Bladedancer ever wears is a mandarin top with yoga pants. She's not very comfortable with her body. Generator also has a Limited Wardrobe, but for a different reason: she's really poor. She works in the school sewers as her scholarship job (at Whateley, this is a hazard-pay kind of job).
- Mega-Girl. the only thing Marty ever wears is her super-suit. Phase found out she studies in it. Not only does she have very few clothes, but the more she wears her suit (it's a psychokinetic construct), the more it gives her the Most Common Superpower.

Close Web Original

The cast of Scooby Doo may be the archetypical set of examples; their standard costumes are so identified with them that the outfits were faithfully reproduced for the live-action films. In What's New Scooby-Doo?, they acquire new outfits, and even change them occasionally, but consistently maintain the same colour schemes as the original series.
- Shaggy and (obviously) Scooby didn't actually change notably. Velma's outfit is identical, what's changed is that now she's got a figure (compared to the original series, when her body could be described as "boxy" at best, although I prefer "Hazmat drum on legs". Seriously, perfect cylinder). The change probably had something to do with the fact that the chick who played Velma in the live-action movie was hot and looked really good in a bikini.
- In some of the newer animated movies, all of the human characters but Shaggy wear a variety of updated clothes, although Daphne still always wears something violet and and Velma still looks nerdier then Fred and Daphne. They lampshade their previous consistency when they get sucked into a video game a friend of theirs made of their adventures. The computer version of them are all wearing traditional outfits. Daphne says that they must not have seen their friend often enough because he hasn't noticed their fashion changes. Then everybody stares at the two Shaggys who are identical except for the color of their T-shirts and the real Shaggy says "why mess with a classic?"
  - Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island took more than a few shots at Lampshade Hanging this, including Shaggy (who had the same outfit as always) opening a suitcase full of green shirts and then pondering what to wear and Fred (who had a new outfit for the movie) secretly posing in a mirror with his old scarf before discarding it in disgust.
- Used humorously in a Cartoon Network promo, where Mystery Inc. is waiting for someone in the van. It's Velma, barefoot, shuffling through drawers of socks trying to find orange colored ones.
Spongebob Squarepants has been revealed to have many copies of his standard clothing in several episodes, though he occasionally wears other things.
Star Trek The Animated Series had an excuse since its characters all wore uniforms, but being a Filmation product, it still needed to cut corners further — Uhura's earrings never changed, and at least one Trek professional has complained about it.
In Daria, nobody changes clothes, including the Fashion Club members.
- Not entirely true. While most of the characters DID wear the same set of clothes throughout the entire series, all the Fashion Club members did actually get new outfits between the 3rd and 4th seasons. They still wore those same outfits all the time after the change, though, with the rare exception when the plot makes them wearing something different a necessity.
- Lampshaded in "Life in the Past Lane", where Jane dates a guy who is practically obsessed with vintage 1940's clothing and culture. When she's having trouble picking out clothes for a date, she says "It was so much easier when I had one outfit."
The Simpsons does this and has done many Lampshade Hangings about it, most notably the episode where Homer found that his blue pants were discontinued by the maker after wearing out his last pair.
- Also, when Bart has trouble talking to a girl he likes, he asks if it's because he's "worn the same outfit day in and day out for the past six years."
- When Marge was away, no-one was doing the washing. Lisa complains "I feel like I've been wearing these clothes for years!"
The Life And Times Of Juniper Lee parodies this in "Take My Life, Please": an angel compliments Ray Ray on his shirt (a red shirt with a picture of a fist on it).
Ray Ray: I am never taking off this shirt again.
Monroe: Hate to break it to ya lad, but you never do. You're like Charlie Brown.
- In another episode, Jody walks in, wearing her usual outfit, and says, "that new boy is so cute, I changed outfits for him!" Everybody stares at her, and she adds, "twice!"
Doug had a whole episode about this; everyone starts wearing the same outfit Doug usually does, because a TV star wore it on last week's episode. Doug gets increasingly frustrated when nobody remembers him wearing it before and everyone assumes he's just doing it to be cool. There was even the traditional reveal showing a closet full of the identical suit, but his friends just thought he was an obsessive fan and freaked out.
The boys of South Park are defined almost entirely by their clothes, and this is parodied in "How To Eat With Your Butt", which features the boys without their caps on Picture Day. In another episode, Kenny is unrecognizable without his orange coat. In the episode "Super Best Friends", all of the people of South Park had shaved their heads and were wearing the same clothes, which made it impossible to tell them apart (Stan had to find Kyle by using their Catch Phrase). Kenny also removed his coat in the SP movie, revealing he has blond hair. Cartman is probably the major exception because he's visibly fatter regardless of clothes.
- Exploited for an Un Reveal in "The Coon": when Mysterion takes off his mask, everyone gasps and comments on how they never thought it would be him — but the viewers have no idea who it is.
Elisa Maza from Gargoyles almost always wears a red bomber jacket, black shirt, blue jeans and black shoes.
- In the same series, multi-billionaire executive David Xanatos (yes, that Xanatos) wears his black Armani business suit in almost every appearance where he's not sporting the Steel Clan body armor.
  - Or his wedding. Or practicing martial arts.
  - If you had a black Armani suit, wouldn't you wear it every chance you get?
  - Not necessarily; a suit isn't the most comfortable thing to be wearing. On the other hand, he is an executive, and therefore wears suits. One Armani suit looks quite like another, and in fact it would hardly be strange for multi-billionaire executives to indeed have a wardrobe full of them.
American Dragon Jake Long: Virtually all the characters wear the same outfits from episode to episode, unless the episode specifically calls for something else (wearing a formal outfit to a dance, for example.) Jake Hangs a Lampshade about this in the episode "Breakout", when he inquires (on what to wear to his date with Rose), "Should I wear my red jacket, or mix things up, and wear my other red jacket?"
Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends, "Setting A President" features a bit of Lampshade Hanging. When Frankie runs against Mr. Herriman for president of the house, Herriman eventually resorts to a smear campaign in his efforts to win. One of the resulting ads counters Frankie's promises of "change" by pointing out that she wears the same green jacket every day.
Yet another Lampshade Hanging: in The Oblongs, conjoined twins Biff and Chip appear to wear green shirts that are specially designed to fit two people at once. Then their mother tries giving one shirt away as a hand-me-down. The bare-chested twins emerge and yell at their mom, "Hey! That's our only shirt!"
Spoofed in The Venture Brothers episode "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean", when Hank Venture complains to the Monarch that his clothes feel dirty because he had to sleep in them. The Monarch replies, "You're kidding, right? That's the only shirt I ever see you wear!" Hank's answer: "Doesn't mean I don't wash it." In a later episode, "Escape to the House of Mummies (Part 2)", Dr. Orpheus comments that he assumed his daughter Triana's wearing of the same shirt all the time was just a "phase" she was going through. In truth it was because his use of her closet as a portal to the netherworld made her scared of her own closet. Interestingly, the trope is averted by Brock, who is regularly seen in two or three different shirts.
The characters on O Grady each wear the same outfit every time (Abby is always in pink, Kevin in the same shirt and pants, etc.) and did the mandatory closet gag, plus one more. When Abby gets a (female) stalker, she's unsure how much she should worry — until she sees the stalker wearing one of her pink outfits.
Ben 10 is extremely guilty of this. Not only do the three main characters of Gwen, Ben, and Grandpa Max always wear the same outfit, but in a time travel episode, Grandpa Max still wears the same outfit 20 years later. (At least Ben and Gwen got new outfits after the Time Skip, and Ben at least takes his jacket off quite a bit). Lampshade Hanging did occur in the Live Action Adaptation.
- Although the lampshade hanging implies he only has one white shirt with black vertical stripe, but other episodes show him with lots of identical ones.
- For more on Ben's clothes, see Magic Pants.
In Xiaolin Showdown, the three male protagonists wear the same thing nearly every episode (especially Omi, who we almost never see out of his red and black robes). However, Kimiko has a new outfit and funky hairdo with each episode.
- ... Which reverts back to her usual ponytail (or is it pigtails? This troper's memory is fuzzy) when in "combat mode".
  - Gets a bit of cover when the team goes to meet Kimiko's father: she tells them to dress nicely, and Omi appears to be wearing the exact same robes. But, as he points out, "they have a slightly higher thread count!"
The main characters of Teen Titans are never seen in anything other than their superhero costumes. They even sleep in them.
- In fairness, Cyborg technically doesn't wear clothes.
- Robin did wear a tux to prom and Starfire wore a hot pink dress, but Robin's tux was custom made to be instantly removable, and Starfire was wearing her uniform underneath it and not wearing her dress at the end of the episode.
In The Spectacular Spider Man, nearly every character is guilty of this. The only time much of the cast changes out of their clothes is for a High School Dance.
Code Lyoko is guilty of this as well, but starting from the middle of the fourth season onward, the main characters all get different sets of clothes... which they continue to wear day in and day out.
- They do have some different outfits for specific situations, like sports clothes, party clothes, night clothes, etc.
- Lampshaded in episode "Ghost Channel", when a "bug" in the Matrix-like simulation makes Sissi wear a yellow shirt.
Apart from seasonal changes (winter, summer), nightwear, disguises, and other special occasions, the characters in Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers always wear the same. Chip always wears an aviator jacket and a fedora hat (with the exception of To the Rescue part 1 and half of part 2 before he finds the hat), Dale always wears a red Hawaiian shirt with yellow "flower" prints, Monterey Jack always wears a coat, a green turtleneck, an aviator cap, and a pair of matching goggles upon said cap (in one episode, he actually wears a second pair of goggles over his eyes in addition to the ones on his cap), Zipper always wears the red sweater, and Gadget always wears her trademark lavender coveralls with a purple belt, a pair of blue lab goggles, and a white shirt (which keeps disappearing, though). Apparently, Gadget also owns only one dress, namely the red one from Double 'O Dale and Mind Your Cheese & Q's.
Danny Phantom. Right down to the winter coat thing.
- Lampshaded when his sister Jazz borrows one of his mother's myriad of identical jumpsuits, and his father tries to get her to wear one of his jumpsuits instead (which is ridiculous as they have totally different body shapes).
Kevin in Captain N The Game Master always wears one outfit of a red varsity jacket and jeans. Partially justified in that he was sucked into Video Land and didn't have access to his real world wardrobe. Simon Belmont, meanwhile, is portrayed as such a vain peacock that one would think he'd have multiple outfits but we don't talk about that particular portrayal of the character much.
In GI Joe, Cobra Commander either has a metal face-guard helmet or a cloth mask, with no particular pattern to when he changes them. I've seen him flicker between the two in the space of a single CCTV transmission.
Een ''Soneec Ze 'Edge'og, "Ze Odd Coupling", it ees being discovered zat Antoine's wardrobe contains multiple copies of 'ees same outfit.
Parodied in the American Dad episode "Not A Particularly Desperate Housewife": Steve, locked in Hayley's closet, threatens, "Let me out, or I'll rip up all your clothes!", to which Hayley responds, "Go ahead! If you haven't noticed, I only wear this one outfit."
Goldie Gold is supposed to be the world's richest girl, and her outfits can be counted on one hand. Perhaps she's just really attached to her gold lame pants and white fur coat.
Rockos Modern Life: Rocko always wears the same blue shirt with purple triangles, Heffer always wears the same red overalls, Mr. Bighead always wear the same suit, etc.
Most Disney characters have an iconic outfit that they wear for most if not all of the movie. A main character will get a costume change with a change in circumstances, but rarely for any minor reason. A secondary character will never change clothes. Strangely, this applies both to poor characters and royalty.
Characteristic of Arthur. Arthur is almost always seen wearing a yellow shirt, blue jeans and the same pair of shoes. D.W. wears a pink vest over a white/pink-striped outfit (though the pink stripes are only present in the books.) All other characters generally have standard outfits as well.
Justified in Barbie And The Diamond Castle, as the main characters are likely too poor to afford more than one dress (and one of Alexa's wishes is to have more dresses than she could possibly wear), and no one else is seen for more than a day.
Lampshaded in The PJs when Thurgood and Muriel get approved for credit cards, bringing up the fact that Muriel is only ever seen in the outfit in question.
Sharique: The best part about having a credit card is that you can shop on line... now what do you like to wear?
Muriel: Oh my goodness so many things but mostly pink sweatshirts that say Paris.
Sharique: Hmmm... oh I know just the site!
Muriel: Ahh... "Pink sweatshirts that says Paris dot com"!
The titular character of Lucy The Daughter Of The Devil seemingly only has one outfit: a black t-shirt and a pair of hiphugger blue jeans.

Close Western Animation

Albert Einstein was rumored to have had a closet of 12 identical outfits so he wouldn't have to think about what he wore.
- He also refused to wear socks.
Likewise, fellow physicist Richard Feynman kept a wardrobe of very similar shirts and slacks for a large part of his career so he wouldn't have to waste time choosing clothes.
Fashion editor Carrie Donovan (aka the Old Navy lady) always wore black with pearls and glasses.
Author Tom Wolfe famously wears identical white suits for all public appearances.
Sir David Attenborough explained in an interview why he always wears the same light blue shirt and khaki chino trousers. Apparently it's to stop people focusing on what he is wearing and instead keep their attention on the animals themselves. It also allows his production team to mix footage of him from different series or combine separate shots filmed over a long period of time without major continuity issues.
Project Runway judge Michael Kors wears a black blazer, black shirt, and jeans in every single episode, despite being an extremely successful fashion designer. At the Season 4 reunion, he explained that in his younger days he constantly fell victim to every new fashion trend; now he sticks with one classic outfit.
Neil Gaiman, if not actually on a red carpet, always wears black jeans (R. M. Williams black jeans, if you're interested), a black T-shirt with a black sweater if it's cold, and a black leather jacket. He claims he has very poor fashion sense and this makes it easier. In photos of him in the 80s, the T-shirt is sometimes grey.
Steve Jobs and his trademark St Croix black long-sleeved mock turtleneck sweaters, Levi 501 blue jeans, and white New Balance 991 sneakers.
- Given that Steve Jobs is rumoured to have over 100 black turtlenecks and jeans it's a very large limited wardrobe...
Drew Carey often jokes that his entire wardrobe is made up of white shirts and ties.
In one of the audio commentaries to Spaced, Kevin Smith notes how this trope applies to the show (in the sense that they have a small number of outfits that they repeat) and proceeds to cite it as a point of the show's realism.
Dean Kamen (inventor of the Segway, among other things) is almost always seen in jeans and a long-sleeved flannel shirt, no matter how fancy the occasion. In fact, people have trouble recognizing him when he's wearing something else.
Steve Irwin seemed to wear his khaki shirt and shorts wherever he went. His entire family also dresses like this.
One-time BBC war correspondent and, later, independent MP Martin Bell is well-known for wearing white suits.

Close Real Life

In the 1990s Power of Shazam! comic, Billy Batson always wore a red shirt with a yellow collar (the same shirt he wore in the Filmation series mentioned above). In one issue he explains he bought twelve identical shirts, because they were cheap.
The question of whether Little Orphan Annie had only one red dress was raised long ago on Stan Freberg's radio show.
- Not that that would have been totally implausible in a Depression-era comic. Interestingly, though, this was lampshaded in a strip that showed Annie hanging a large number of nearly-identical dresses (some with short sleeves, some with long) out to dry. Possibly one of the earliest uses of the closet gag.
- Or it would be, if she didn't live with a multi-millionaire adoptive father...
All the main characters in Brazilian comic Monica's Gang (this image of the protagonist◊ sums it up).
In classic Superman comics, Clark Kent always wears a blue suit, white shirt and red tie.
Peanuts characters occasionally comment on their own unvarying clothing. How many yellow zigzag shirts does Charlie Brown own? And how would we know Rerun from Linus without the overalls?
The closet gag was explicitly used by Jughead Jones in the Archie comic book series, where he does the exact same thing as the cartoon up above: his closet has all clothes which are all the same.
- Katy Keene usually averts this trope, the main appeal of her comics is that her outfits are designed and sent in by readers, so she changes outfits very frequently.
Pete Wisdom in Excalibur once explained to Kitty Pryde that his entire closet contains nothing but black slacks, black suit jackets and white shirts, because he wrecks so many clothes on missions that if he didn't do that he'd have a garish nightmare of partial sets of clothes. He ended up giving one of his outfits to Douglock when Doug had no clothes of his own to wear, causing Douglock to note that Pete said he had "twenty-seven suits of clothing that are all exactly the same."
Dykes to Watch Out For: Only really afflicts the main character Mo, who constantly wears jeans and a black-and-white striped top. Repeatedly lampshaded ("just wear another striped T-shirt and indestructible jeans," "you could get management to pay you enough to buy another outfit," "here's a fetching striped one"). In one episode, she dresses up to look nice for another character she has a crush on: this involves wearing a black shirt with thinner white stripes.

Close Comics

Last Action Hero (live action).
An oddly serious movie example: Seth Brundle in Cronenberg's The Fly. When the love interest points out that he's been wearing the same clothes for the past few days, he shows her his wardrobe full of identical outfits. He doesn't like wasting time in the morning deciding what to wear.
- And cites Einstein as an example.
Lampshaded in the movie Spice World. "The little Gucci dress, the little Gucci dress, or the little Gucci dress?"
One of the Ernest movies has a scene where the title character opens his closet to specifically show the viewer two dozen copies of his iconic outfit.
In the comedy/spoof Fatal Instinct, the hero has an closet completely filled with identical blue suits. He asks his secretary which one he should wear.

Close Films

A live-action example/subversion: In the 1998 remake of Fantasy Island, we see a closet full of white suits, as worn by Ricardo Montalban's Mr. Roarke in the original. The "new" Mr. Roarke (Malcom MacDowell) chooses the only black suit, and orders the others burnt.
Similarly, one episode of The Avengers showed Steed with a closet full of identical suits, bowler hats, and umbrellas.
And this Latin American editor remembers one 90's Soap Opera starring Thalía very clearly, where the main female villain, supposedly a very rich heiress, constantly wore a very distinct and Stripperiffic shining blue dress. When Thalia's character (a very poor girl turned millionaire, who even in her poorest days had more costume variety than the villain) asked about it, the woman answered that she loved that specific model so much that she bought quite a few. In fact, we see the woman's closet... and it's filled with dozens of that specific dress.
Monk uses this for its DVD covers, but this is also justifed as it is very in character for Monk.
- This also becomes a plot point in one of the episodes, as Monk buys a new shirt identical to all his others, down to having been inspected by the same person. He stumbles onto the crime of the week by noticing the shirt's minor flaws, which never would have slipped by his preferred clothing inspector if she weren't distracted by her own problems. He solves the crime mainly so she'll get back to inspecting shirts.
In Jim Henson's Dinosaurs, this trope is Lampshaded by having the main character, Earl, be seen packing for a trip. Inside his closet and suitcase are the same red flannel shirt and undershirt he always wears.
This troper thinks he remembers an episode of Happy Days in which Fonzie, after examining his closet, announces "Number 53 is missing!"
Considering their level of income, it's no surprise that the characters in Reaper have an extremely limited wardrobe. Sock seems to own maybe three shirts, one of which is heavily stained.

Close Live Action TV

Peach, in Paper Mario, is revealed to have a wardrobe of identical dresses. When Twink points this out, Peach explains that they're actually all different. (When Mario enters the castle, it's possible to enter her room and have him check out her attire: he comes to the same conclusion as Twink.) The only times she's out of her dress are in The Thousand Year Door: when she's in disguise, hidden by a shower curtain, or invisible.
- How do you know she isn't wearing it when she's invisible?
  - Because the clothes didn't turn invisible, she had to take them off before going on.
Lampshaded in EarthBound, where an NPC says, "Every time I see you, you're wearing the same clothes. Do you wash them, or what?"
Persona 3: A look into Aegis's room reveals that contains little else besides innumerable boxes of ammo, her extraordinarily highly-advanced computerized "bed," and a closet with nothing but dozens of school uniforms in it.

Close Video Games

No closet involved, but in this spoilery Ctrl-Alt-Del strip, Ethan bemoans that "It feels like been wearing these clothes forever."
Lampshaded in this strip from The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob.
Lampshaded in Real Life Comics as part of a costume retrospective; when they get to the first costume change, Dave quips; "It's about time; that shirt was getting ripe."
Having a wardrobe that never changes can make things difficult where things like changes in character design are concerned. That's why in Fletcher Apts, when the characters underwent a change in appearance (most notably their clothing) they had to go purchase new clothes in this strip to explain the sudden change. The characters also permanently ditched shoes in the same strip.
In webcomic ScaryGoRound, the male characters wear outfits that don't vary much (Ryan appeared in the same T-shirt for several years, until the girls ganged up on him). Female characters have more varied outfits (though each has an identifiable style of dress). The difference is probably because John Allison enjoys drawing pretty girls in nice clothes, but is also fairly realistic.

Close Web Comics

Spider-Man the Animated Series, when Peter Parker opens his wardrobe, and it contains nothing but multiples of the same shirt and pants.
Lloyd In Space, with Lloyd.
As Told by Ginger, with Hoodsey.
Pepper Ann, with Pepper Ann in the opening sequence.
Dexter's Laboratory did it with both Dexter and DeeDee.
- Noticeably Lampshaded in the "Average" episode, where Dexter's only non-scientist clothes were his old baby clothes.
Similarly, everyone in Teen Titans; one episode had the other cast members dressing up in Robin's spare uniforms while he was out.
- Which, if you ask this troper, made Raven look even more sexy than usual.
  - Seen here.
In one episode of Invader Zim, Dib opens his closet to reveal a rack full of the same outfit. (A fairly common visual gag in cartoons in which the characters never change clothing.)
In Cats Don't Dance, Darla Dimple's closet contains the same outfit; this may be justified, though, in that it's her signature outfit.
In Doug, a famous TV star wears the title's character's outfit. Everyone thinks that Doug is copying the star. He shows them his closet, and they accuse him of "showing off".
In an episode of Dilbert, we can see Dilbert's wardrobe, which is all black pants, white shirts and ties. In the comic though, we can sometimes see him in track suits.
Another The Simpsons Lampshade Hanging: in "Tis The Fifteenth Season", Homer announces he's given his old clothes to the homeless. Cut to a group of homeless people, all wearing white shirts and blue pants.
For a completely e-word example, Smurfette from The Smurfs cartoon show had a closet gag... in the same episode as her origin story. To put things in perspective, she started out with ratty short black hair, a rather plain white dress, and standard Smurf shoes. But then Papa Smurf gives her a makeover into her current form, and after three scene fade transistions, the Smurfs are running out into the forest while Smurfette stays at home already having trouble choosing outfits completely identical to her own.
Smurfette: No, this one's too long. I wore that this morning. Oh, this one's too plain. I've see that for the night. This one? No. That one? Nah-uh.
In {{Magic School Bus]], everybody except Ms. Frizzle wears the same outfit every day. Even when the bus magically makes them clothes appropiate to whatever situation it is the kids are in, the outfits are all color-coordinated to what the kid would ordinally wear.

Close Western Animation

Cardcaptor Sakura beats even Totally Spies! in that: not only are there a multitude of unique outfits in addition to the summer and winter school uniforms, but the Transformation Sequences were reanimated for each exquisitely detailed outfit.
- Technically, only the outfits were reanimated. There was underlying Stock Footage of Sakura sans clothing.
  - ... That Came Out Wrong, didn't it?
In the first season of Sailor Moon we quickly see that (outside of their Senshi outfits and school uniforms) these 14-year-old girls actually have their own wardrobes, and they're quirky and individual. (Who would have expected that the Shinto shrine maiden would wear pink overalls and baseball caps when not on duty at the temple?)
- However, for teenage girls, they seem to have a limited selection of casual clothing.
- Hell, even Sailor Moon's little brother had a fairly varied wardrobe for someone who was Brother Chucked.
Utakata had a different manga-ka/character designer/figurine maker design the protagonist's Magical Girl outfit for each episode.
In Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, there is a reason why the gang all wear the same T-shirt (with their rank number) and jeans design all the time: the outfits are designed to become their bird costumes when they change, and they need to wear the whole outfit for it to work. Furthermore, it proved near-disastrous when Jun lost a shoe from the outfit. Galactor found it and stumbled onto its bird costume transformation function, thus giving them a vital clue as to one of the Science Ninjas' secret identities.
Although the Toei Animation version of Kanon gave the girls very limited wardrobes, and the game wasn't much better, the Kyoto Animation version gave them plenty more clothes — even Makoto, the amnesiac freeloader, who was suspected by fans of raiding Nayuki's closet.
Nami from One Piece originally starts off with wearing the same clothes, but after defeating Arlong, and thus ending her financial limitations she buys a pile of new clothes, and changes very often. Sanji, while mostly wearing his usual black suit, can be seen occasionally in more casual clothes.
- After the Strawhats hit the Grand Line, they usually get a new outfit early in the arc for reasons that make sense, and then maintain that look whether it makes sense or not until after they beat that island's Big Bad. You can tell the arc is over because they all change back.
Pokémon is an example of "it is, but it isn't". Even though they only have one change of clothes for each season, Ash and his traveling pals get (or show up in) new outfits for each region they journey through. Except for Tracey. Poor, poor Tracey.
Though Watanuki, Domeki, and Himawari generally wear their school uniforms day after day, Yuuko of xxxHoLic not only wears something new and incredibly elaborate every day, but sometimes changes mid-chapter.
- And in its sister series Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle while the characters each have a set of default clothing, they generally adopt the clothing of whatever world they land in, and then change outfits as appropriate. This is partly a form of fanservice for CLAMP's female fanbase. Note, however, that this is NOT Unlimited Wardrobe as they are shown bartering old clothes for new and they do not change clothes in situations where they would not realistically have had the opportunity. (Example: Kurogane remains in his outfit from the previous arc in Acid Tokyo, because their impoverished hosts don't have much clothing to spare.)
Dragon Ball subverts this trope as much as it uses it. The guys mentioned above generally wear different outfits when not in their fighting clothes (such as the infamous pink shirt worn by Vegeta). Then there's Bulma. Not only does she change clothes, but she also changes hairstyles more or less every appearance. In addition, the symbol on Goku's shirt usually changes every time he gets a new outfit.
Although Tsuna from Reborn! is usually in school uniform, he wears different boxers every day (the fact that we know this for a fact might give the wrong idea to people who haven't seen the show). Most characters on this show wear different outfits whenever they aren't in school.
- Reborn! is actually quite good when it comes to clothes. The characters wear different outfits every day, and the girls in particular get quite creative when it comes to fashion. The only exceptions are Hibari, who always wears his school uniform, and Mukuro, who only half exists anyway.
Becky, from Pani Poni Dash is often wearing different outfits, while everyone else has their uniforms. She's the teacher though, and is allowed. Even though she's twelve, and some of her outfits are... odd.◊
Averted in Read Or Die: The TV, where Michelle, Maggie and Anita have a vast variety of outfits; some of these they create themselves using their power to control paper, and then complain that paper clothes aren't comfortable. This is in contrast to Yomiko in the Read or Die OVA, who is a fine example of the trope, always in the same trenchcoat, skirt, blouse and vest.
In Suzumiya Haruhi, when not at school and thus in uniform all the characters are shown in casual outfits that change from episode to episode (and within an episode, if it spans more than a day).
Mahou Sensei Negima plays this as an "is and isn't". Sayo (resident Cute Ghost Girl) wears the same old style school uniform, however as a ghost I doubt she's got much in the way of options. Kotaro wears two outfits per arc, his normal gear which he always has, and an outfit for his 15-year-old disguised form (this second one changed from the mafia suit in the Festival arc, and the armored clothes in the Magic world arc). The rest of the cast has their uniforms (Negi has his suit) which they wear generally, giving a sense of this trope. They wear other outfits to provide clothed Fanservice, putting whatever Stripperific outfit they wish on the girls, and then replacing them with an equally stripperific outfit after whatever they are wearing suffers the inevitable Clothing Damage this series brings. However, in a case of actual limited wardrobe, Negi only has the one cloak, as he hasn't replaced/mended it since a fight in the latest arc which put a large hole in it.
- Before the start of the Magic World arc, the limited wardrobe aspect is commented on when both Negi and Kotaro are called out for not not "getting in the mood" since neither was wearing an eccentric battle costume or casual outfit. Negi insists he's still a teacher and must dress as one, and Kotaro insists his school uniform IS his battle costume.
- Pactio cards have an outfit programmed into it, so when they summon their artifact the clothes change to a limited wardrobe option.

Close Anime & Manga

Whilst everyone else in Calvin and Hobbes changed clothes regularly, Calvin always wore the same red stripy T-shirt and black jeans, unless the plot required a change (e.g. bedtime, snow, etc.).
- Lampshaded by Hobbes, when at one point he asks Calvin why he doesn't wear shorts in the summer. Calvin yells back that short pants touch his feet, but that doesn't explain why they're always the same pants.
The original Wasp, Janet van Dyne, was an important exception. She changed her costume all the time.

Close Comics

In Legally Blonde, Elle Woods is such a fashionista that she wears not only different outfits (though all on the theme of pink) but different hairstyles in EVERY SINGLE SCENE.
The animated movie Superman: Doomsday is an exception, as Lois Lane wears a different outfit everyday. Other characters most likely do too (Supes' classic costume notwithstanding), but Lois is the most noticeable.

Close Films

Justified live-action example: half the cast of Battlestar Galactica are military and wear uniforms, and the other half are pretty much stuck with whatever they happened to have in their suitcase when the Cylons attacked. (Which raises the question of exactly where Laura Roslin found that outfit, but this editor has yet to hear anyone complaining.)
- Given the grimness of the revamp, this troper is going for "the original owner died, leaving her clothing as valuable trade goods for her survivors and/or whoever managed to get hold of it".

Close Live Action TV

One of the things that makes the fictional band Gorillaz seem so life-like is each of the band members' vast wardrobe.

Close Music Video

Lampshaded in the Dating Sim portion of Thousand Arms, where one of the questions can be answered with "I've been wearing these same clothes since the start of the game."
The RPG Rogue Galaxy has several different outfits,that you get though playing the game,to put the characters in.
- This feature was shared by its predecessor Dark Cloud 2
Subverted in Tales of the Abyss in which characters wear the same clothing through most of the game, but at the end get a veritable wardrobe of clothes to choose from.
- Similarly subverted in Tales of Symphonia, in which all of the characters have default outfits, but you can earn new titles that allows you to change the character's outfit.
- Both Wild ARMs 5 and Dragon Quest VIII have pieces of armor which will change the character's model. The latter particularly focuses on Jessica, who has more model-changing armor than everybody else combined.
  - Which isn't saying much, really. The only other character with an alternate outfit is the hero, who has just ONE. And he can't even get it until the post-game. Jessica has about 7 or 8 outfits, and can get many of them fairly early (one can be acquired before she even joins you!).
Mass Effect has every suit of equippable armor be its own unique model, though while the crew is on the Normandy, they all revert back to their default wear. In Garrus and Wrex's case, its the default armor they wore when they're first recruited, and Liara wears a generic scientist labcoat. Ashley, Kaidan, and Shepard all wear standard Alliance Navy uniforms. Tali is justified in that she has to wear an environment suit to survive among the human crew, due to her weakened immune system.
Persona 3 plays this one weird: while most characters (including some secondary ones) change outfits seasonally and wear different ones on weekends or holidays, they seem to only have four outfits each to choose from and always wear the same outfit(s) every weekend (not counting costumes for special occasions).
- It gets a bit weirder when, even though you can equip the different outfits as armor, they only appear during battles or wandering around the dungeon; when a cutscene happens in the middle of the dungeon, the characters are somehow able to switch back into their school uniform, then switch back to whatever they were wearing before in time to fight...
In Escape From Monkey Island, Guybrush changes his clothes a few times — always to the outfits worn in the three earlier games.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed had the main character constantly changing outfits for every mission. Some of the outfits are progressively added upon, with "Light Training Gear," "Training Gear" and "Heavy Training Gear." On a second runthrough, you can change into whatever outfit you have unlocked.
Zanthia, the protagonist of the second The Legend Of Kyrandia game, changes outfits frequently by means of a handy wardrobe gem on her belt. Some are just palette swaps of her normal outfit, but she also has a flower-print wrap dress, a casual hiking outfit, snow gear, and even a bathrobe/towel/fuzzy slippers combo. (It isn't a case of Unlimited Wardrobe, though, since near the end of the game she mentions that the gem is almost empty.)

Close Video Games

In Gunnerkrigg Court, the students have to wear school uniforms, but they're shown in casual clothes on the weekends and in pajamas late at night. When Zimmy and Gamma are seen in their uniforms late at night, it's a hint that something is off about them.
Real Life Comics not only repeats the wardrobe (though it does change... every few years or so), but has lampshaded it via the closet-full-of-spares Lampshade Hanging on at least one occasion.
Questionable Content actually uses the characters' outfits to promote the merchandise sold by its author, Jeph Jaques.

Close Web Comics

Chapter 4 of Circumstances of the Revenant Braves reveals that not only do the characters have variable wardrobes outside of their school uniforms, but also that their school uniforms have alternate possibilities for cooler weather (ie, long sleeves).

Close Web Original

One of the biggest exceptions to this convention is Totally Spies!, in which the three central characters have a variety of unique outfits (when out of their uniforms).
On As Told by Ginger, the boys wear the same things, while the girls have an actual wardrobe: you can see the girls' varying fashions at the show's official website).
To some extent, All Grown Up!
As mentioned above, Kimiko from Xiaolin Showdown would wear a different outfit (and sometimes hairstyle) in every episode. The male characters got a slight costume change in the final season.
Kim Possible is in the middle ground.
- Kim and Ron have several situational clothes changes (mission wear [black shirt, black gloves, cargo pants; Kim's shirt shows her midriff], winter gear, cheer/mascot uniforms, default school/casual clothes [Kim: green tummy-baring top, blue pants; Ron: red shirt, brown cargoes]).
- The villains almost never change clothes, except Shego into swimwear.
- Starting in roughly the middle of the second season and continuing through almost all of season 3, Kim wore one or two different "civilian" outfits per episode. Even Ron wore a few new outfits. By the time season 3 ended, Kim's original outfit of green top/blue cargos hadn't been seen for so long it was viewed with a slight nostalgia.
- In season 4, an entire episode is dedicated to Kim's search for a new mission outfit. (After her usual outfit gets damaged, and Shego says, in a Lampshade Hanging, "you wear the same thing season after season after season.")
- KP did another Lampshade Hanging — in one episode, Kim is undecided about what outfit to wear for picture day.
  Kim: What do you think? (holds up the ubiquitous green/blue outfit)
  Ron: Seen it too much!
Avatar the Last Airbender is also in the middle ground. Prince Zuko in season 1 is shown in several outfits, but his uncle Iroh didn't start wearing different outfits — and both of them changed hairstyles — until they appeared in the second season due to a certain plot development in the first season's finale. Limited Wardrobe is practiced by Aang in the first two seasons, but then he gets a costume switch in the third, before changing to a considerably more badass version of his monkly gear he appearantly made out of a school uniform and torn up robes. Sokka and Katara change between heavy and light outfits, but for the first half of the third season have different clothing. Toph also spends the whole of the second season in one outfit, but gets the third season costume switch before switching back like the others. Zuko and Aang both had new clothes in the end (Fire Lord and head monk robes respectively), after suffering massive Clothing Damage during the Final Battle, and everyone had new clothes when they were in Iroh's tea shop.
- For some reason, Nickelodeon has a habit of using only the outfit the characters debuted in for promotional material.
- May be somewhat explained by the fact that during the greater part of the story, protagonists were on the run.
The kids on Recess—even the fashionable Ashleys — only change their clothes when it relates to the plot. Examples: picture day, Spinelli dressing up for the pageant, TJ and Vince dressing as boy detectives "The Barnaby Boys."
In Jem, the Holograms and the Misfits have a large number of outfits over the course of the series.
The Weekenders, where the main four characters change clothes often; not just from episode to episode, but day to day. Additionally, they seem to have a pre-determined wardrobe at home: if you pay attention, you can see them mix-and-match clothes from previous episodes. Neat.
Partially avoided in My Life as a Teenage Robot; the Crust Cousins (Brit and Tiff) wear different outfits in virtually every episode.
Lampshaded in Futurama, when Fry initially moved into Bender's apartment, which an area of roughly three square feet, not counting the closet. He asks where can he hang his clothes, and Bender responds, "Listen, you've only got one set of clothes, and you're not taking them off while I'm around." This is actually justified, since Fry is from the past/present, all he'd have coming out of the cryotube was the clothes currently on him.
In the An American Tail series this trope is for the most part followed, the only exceptions are in Fievel Goes West when Fievel's iconic blue hat is turned inside out and made into a cowboy hat, plus he later dons an off-white trenchcoat. And Tanya averts the trope in every movie, though only in Fievel Goes West does she change wardrobes mid-movie.

Close Western Animation

Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing Help

Tools

Toys

Examples

Lampshaded Closet Gag Examples

Exceptions