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troperville

Now the exact form of the dress doesn't matter. It can apply to grand, sweeping gowns, or mini dresses. What matters is the heavy use of fancy materials or decorations (which can be expensive, even today).

Some of the most common gown pimping options include:

Many, many yards of cloth, including layers of skirts, capes, trains, and long hanging sleeves
Puffs, including Giant Poofy Sleeves
Slashes, Puffs pulled through slashes, and Goring (folds of fabric sewn in between slashes)
Ribbons
- Giant Waist Ribbon
Frills, flounces, ruffles, and pleats
Lace and gauze.
Embroidery and Brocade
Tassles or Fringes
A corset or bustier (not visible though)
Several layers of petticoats, sleeves, or other parts of the dress.
A frame to hold the skirt in shape (most common were farthingales, panniers, crinolines, and bustles)
A Reticella collar or lace ruff
Bloomers worn underneath the dress (sometimes visible, sometimes not)
Flowers (real or fake)
Jewelry (or anything that makes sparkles)
- Jewels sewn into the dress
- Pearls
Gold or Silver Lam�
Fur (trimming the dress, or even lining it for warmth)
- Fake fur, if that's preferred
Feathers
- A peacock tail
A large, fancy design or symbol, or lots of smaller symbols
Gloves (long, especially Opera Gloves, or short depending on the sleeve length and/or neckline). Usually white, but can be worn in colors to match or contrast with the dress.
A matching Hand Muff, Cape, Stole, Hat and/or other accessories.
Fancy Hair Decorations
Veil (whether the large ones for weddings or the smaller ones attached to hats)
Bouquet (for wedding dresses, and other occasions depending on the culture)
A parasol (depending on the period)
If possible, incorporating some of the Requisite Royal Regalia (especially if the wearer is a queen or a princess)

Now there is no real objective line between this and a regular evening dress, so it's more a manner of how obvious it is the dress is pimped out. Say a lady has an evening dress with a fancy design embroidered onto a small part of the skirt. Fancy and stylish, but it's not that obvious, even when you see the skirt. So it wouldn't be this kind of dress. If most or all of the dress was instead almost covered in embroidered designs, it would be this trope.

Sometimes a character with a Clothes Make the Legend dress uses this trope to make her dress fancier, while still keeping its iconic look.

This trope might apply to guy's clothes (as in they aren't crossdressing), but in fiction, this type of outfit is reserved for either known historical uses, based off those uses, or else characters who are outright fops.

This will show up more often when combined with Princesses, especially Princess Classic. In any setting where elves are present, and clothes are described, about every other outfit is likely to be given loads of details. Pretty much all clothes female dark elves wear when not Badass in a Nice Suit. There are also quite a few games on the web which involve using sprites to make Virtual Paper Dolls, which allow mixing and matching to make pimped out dresses.

Real Life Fashion designers still love to make these, whether they are the impractical dresses on runways, or the slightly more practical dresses on red carpet events.

A Sub Trope of Costume Porn and Impractically Fancy Outfit.

A Super Trope to:

There are a lot of Sister Tropes, as this can overlap with them all: