Sexy Sweater Girl

aka: Sweater Girl

Frank: I can knit a sweater!
Annie: I can fill it better!

— "Anything You Can Do", Annie Get Your Gun

Tight sweaters are often worn by ladies as a form of Fanservice.

A lot of the appeal is that they just outline the figure ("sweater puppies" is a nickname for a shapely chest) while exposing almost nothing. That makes wearing a tight sweater some of the most tasteful and acceptable fanservice around (not to mention one of the few actually acknowledged in mainstream fiction). In the days of The Hays Code, once those sweaters caught on, they were almost up there with the heart-shaped neckline as a way of Getting Crap Past the Radar. Actresses who embraced this look were known as sweater girls, hence the trope name. This especially became a common form of fanservice for actresses who were playing wholesome, innocent characters that wouldn't be expected to wear revealing outfits.

Not that a sweater can never be tacky. It's just if ladies want to look sexy, and the choice is between a halter top or an angora sweater, the latter is far less likely to have the wearer be shamed for it. It's more the "I'm way out of your league" kind of sexy. Particularly fuzzy sweaters can emphasize this by subtly echoing the glamour of a fur coat.

A special note as there are cultural differences: in Asian countries, school girls (and even boys) wear a sweater to cover up their developing figure, especially when they are growing to be more mature and starting to show differences in their bodies. So it is not uncommon to see school girls and boys wear sweaters when it is 30 degrees Celsius or higher. This has nothing to do with sexiness, and the wearers actually want the opposite. It is the authors that draw them to be much more revealing (as fanservice, obviously), but the hidden meaning is still cultural. Most of the Anime and Manga examples are actually girls that are more introverted, traditional and shy. However, it's not unknown for young Muslim women from liberal backgrounds, in both Asia and the West, to wear sweaters in the Western sense, as it is quite alluring while conforming to the letter of Islamic dress requirements by not showing any skin between the neck and wrists.

Commonly worn by the Seemingly-Wholesome '50s Girl. And the Dork in a Sweater may be Endearingly Dorky if it flatters their figure.

Compare Fur Bikini, Happy Holidays Dress, Sexy Santa Dress, Homemade Sweater from Hell and Form-Fitting Wardrobe.

Please note that this is not about any woman who wears a sweater. To be a Sexy Sweater Girl, the sweater must obviously accentuate her figure or be considered attractive.

noreallife

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Examples:

Advertising

• Parodied by "Wanda the Weather Bunny", a Brainless Beauty in a tight white sweater, in this 1971 commercial for Channel 7 Eyewitness News in Chicago. It was one of the earliest commercial productions of legendary producer Joe Sedelmaier.
  I'm Wanda, your Weather Bunny. Here we have a sun, and over here we have a big black cloud, and over here we have an umbrella, and down here we have an arrow ...

Anime and Manga

• In A's: The Battle of Aces Reinforce (I/Eins) takes to this fashion, as can be seen here◊ (no, not the Lethal Chef with the flaming dish). It's less... perky than her usual outfit.
• Hitomi is one according to her younger sister Ai in Cat's Eye where she Ai herself fears she wouldn't be able to pull it off as well as her sister. The plot then goes to finding her a perfect sweater.
• Motoko from Change 123. Once it got her into trouble when she (as her Bokukko Split Personality Hibiki) got its thread hooked up on a fence when jumping onto the top of a truck. The consequence was that all her sweater got torn away, which was only one in the series of clothing damages she had in that chapter.
• In Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, this is one of the fashion styles that Miu frequently sports when being in public. (The other two are her school outfit and her training suit.) Of course, the Form-Fitting Wardrobe rule applies here as well.
• Shizuna of Negima! Magister Negi Magi is often shown with a sweater, which really accentuates her maternal figure.
• Miku in The Quintessential Quintuplets is always seen in her baby blue button up sweater as part of her uniform, even wearing it under her blazer.
• After being transferred to snowy Lyrias in Snow White with the Red Hair Shirayuki wears a number of sweaters that look quite good on her.

Comic Books

• The girls of Archie Comics are prone to wearing the occasional tight sweater, especially Veronica.
• Paula Peril from the independent pulp comic of the same name wears very tight red sweaters as her default outfit.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): Other than Etta's square necked tank tops pretty much all the Holliday Girls wear form fitting sweaters unless they're at a costume party. Then they tend to wear things that show off a lot of skin.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): Diana frequently wears red sweaters when not acting as Wonder Woman, and while they're not especially tight they do show off her chest.

Film

• Kim Novak was often dressed this way in the 1950s.
  • When playing Judy Norton, Novak has the tight sweater when she meets Scottie in Vertigo. This serves to contrast Judy's earthy sexuality with Madeline Elster (also played by Novak), the icy blonde that Stewart became obsessed with before her death. She also chose to go braless as Judy, which helped.
  • In The Man with the Golden Arm, evidently the tight sweater wasn't fanservice enough, so in one scene Novak's character has three of the five buttons of the sweater undone.
• Julie Andrews of all people pulls this one in The Americanization of Emily - Emily wears a tight sweater when on a romantic picnic with Charlie (who's got an Intimate Open Shirt to complete the image).
• The Barefoot Contessa: Vincenzo is instantly enchanted with Maria after seeing her perform a flamenco dance with Romani peasants, while clad in a very very tight yellow sweater.
• Denise (Denise Darcel), the Frenchwoman whom the men of the 327th bivouac with in Battleground (1949), puts some strain on her sweaters. This is played for a gag when Denise is busily slicing a loaf of bread for the men, knife repeatedly coming close to her prominent bosom, while Pfc. Holley winces nervously.
• As Corey in Empire Records, Liv Tyler wears a tight, midriff-baring cropped blue sweater, which is featured prominently on the poster◊.
• Kristen Bell's character in Fanboys refers to her breasts as "Sweater yams".
• Grease 2 features Paulette, who goes in for tight sweaters under her Pink Ladies jacket. Said jacket is usually worn open and folded back to reveal the sweater and the contents of the pointy bra worn beneath it. Paulette's sister tries more than once to moderate this display by flipping the jacket forwards, but Paulette immediately folds the flaps back again.
• In Lord Love a Duck, Barbara Ann (Tuesday Weld) wants sweaters so that she'll fit in with the 'in' crowd, and goes shopping for them with her father. The scene with her trying on the sweaters in front of him is rather disturbing.
• Our Miss Brooks: In the series' cinematic Grand Finale:
  • Harriet Conklin wears a tight sweater in class, and on her date with Walter Denton.
  • The Madison Express lonely hearts columnist wears a tight sweater as she walks around the office, to the accompaniment of saxophone music. She is a minor a character, the movie ends with Disposable Love Interest Mr. Nolan asking her for a date on his yacht. Meanwhile, in the main plot, Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton and lives Happily Ever After.
• In the film adaptations of the Paula Peril pulp comic, Paula (played by the busty Valerie Perez) wears sweaters during her investigations which accentuate her figure.
• Jennifer of Pleasantville once she gets Trapped in TV Land as "Mary Sue". She even comments on the effect of one such sweater in one scene.
• Angie Dickinson wears the standard tight sweater with pointy bra in Sex Comedy (and very Black Comedy) Pretty Maids All in a Row. The sexually frustrated student who's the protagonist of the movie can't stop staring at her breasts. She manages to accidentally hit him in the face with her breasts not once, but twice.
• Lana Turner in a bunch of movies starting with her film debut They Wont Forget. She was even called the Sweater Girl, which makes her the Trope Namer.
• At the end of TRON, Lora wore a tight white angora sweater.
• In Violent Saturday, Emily claims to hate golf, and says she only plays it because she looks good in a sweater. And she does.
• One of the first uses of the new powers gained in Zapped! (1982) was to make a girl's pink sweater pop open to reveal her (also pink) bra underneath.

Literature

• In Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. by Judy Blume, Laura Danker, the most physically mature girl in Margaret's class, wears a sweater and gets harassed. Freddie Barnett a.k.a. the Lobster asks Margaret why she doesn't look like that in a sweater, which Margaret does not think is funny.
• The seventh book in The Dresden Files introduces Sheila, an assistant at an antique book store, and one of the first things Harry Dresden notices is how well she fills out a sweater. Though it probably helped that she was a construct built by a fallen angel Lasciel who chose a form that Harry would find ultimately appealing.
• The original book How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying reads:
  "It must be remembered that the well-bred girl is always fully clothed in the office. The broken shoulder strap, the deeply split skirt, and the bare midriff are de trop in most businesses. The bright girl soon learns that these devices are not only in bad taste, but are not necessary.
  "It is not skin area but contour that counts.
  "A few simple experiments with sweaters, jerseys, and a slightly smaller dress size will bring pleasing and surprising results. One young lady who made a careful study of contour planning found that results were little short of breath-taking."
• In Piers Anthony's Mode series, Colleen uses a too small sweater to convince the 'mob boss' to give her an appointment to make a deal.
• In William Goldman's Magic, the narrator flashbacks about seeing his love interest in a sweater and being aroused for the first time in his life.
• The Onion's book Our Dumb Century had a headline about the "Growing bombshell gap between the US and Russia." The picture was Jayne Mansfield in a tight sweater.
• A Prayer for Owen Meany: Johnny Wheelwright's mother is describe as thus, making Owen very happy to cuddle with her.

Live-Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 Willow Rosenberg, marking a transition from her wallflower persona at the beginning of the series to more powerful, confident witch. Spike even admits to finding one of her sweaters "arousing".
  Vamp Willow (looking Willow over): Well, look at me. I'm all fuzzy.
• The attractive Annie in Community has a wardrobe that appears to mostly consist of cardigans, in keeping with her prim, type-A personality.
• In The Drew Carey Show, Oswald's mom (played by Adrienne Barbeau◊) remembers how when she used to hug other boys, they tended to breathe faster. Drew admits it was her tight angora sweater, with the plunging neckline.
• One of Frasier's girlfriends was said to really fill out a mohair sweater in high school (specifically, he said the sweater in question was tighter on her than the goat.)
• Rachel Berry (played by Lea Michele) tends to wear these a lot on Glee. The show even lampshades it.
  Jacob: Get those sweater puppies out of their cashmere cage!
• One episode of Growing Pains had teenage horndog Ben excited for his class field trip to the planetarium, which he intended to spend "picking fuzzballs off of Sasha Sorecki's sweater."
• In an episode of Happy Days Richie, Potsie, and Ralph break into another student's college dorm to get back an incriminating photo he took of Richie; they discover a nudist camp magazine and get Distracted by the Sexy.
  Potsie: "Wow. How'd you like to see a sweater on that!"
• In Healer Young Shin wears a number of very flattering sweaters and Jung Hoo pulls off a gender inverted version when he wears sweaters tight enough to show off his build.
• Friends has a plot where Joey has sexual tension with his co-star in a play, but briefly dates her younger understudy - who frequently wears tight sweaters. The co-star lampshades this at one point, mocking Joey's attraction to her.
• Christina Hendricks' character Joan Holloway on Mad Men deploys sweaters coupled with a variety of form-fitting but tasteful business skirts to devastating effect. Once she tells a cleavage-flaunting new secretary to button up, saying that less is more if you know what you're doing. Said secretary ends up getting company partner Roger Sterling, Joan's former lover, to leave his wife for her, which says something about Roger's tastes.
• Millennium (1996). A female friend of Katherine Black mentions that she was the "favourite student" of (male lecturer at college). Katherine replies: "I wore tight sweaters."
• Joanna Loudon in Newhart (played by Mary Frann) wore sweaters all the time, to the point where in the All Just a Dream finale, Bob tells Emily she should wear more sweaters.
• Police Woman: Sgt. Pepper Anderson fairly often wears tight sweaters, sometimes braless but usually with a bullet bra underneath.
• The Professionals. In "The Ojuka Situation", George Cowley barks at Bodie and Doyle to keep a low profile on their assignment. As they leave his office they see Cowley's Sexy Secretary in a tight sweater.
  Bodie: I don't know about "low profile", mate.
  Doyle: Who needs it?
• Spooks: In "Spiders", Zoe is undercover as a schoolteacher and needs to get close to a particular target who also works there.
  Tom: The kids' lives are in danger. (beat) So, wear a tight sweater tomorrow.
  Zoe: What?
  Tom: I've been watching him all day. He obviously fancies you. We need to build up on that connection.
  Zoe: (sarcastically) Any particular sweater in mind?
  Tom AND Danny: The blue one.
  (Cut to Zoe in a blue sweater, to the visible appreciation of her male students)
• Midge Pinciotti of That '70s Show is introduced to us in the first episode through the eyes of Eric clad in a sweater and quite... jiggly.
  • In a later episode, when Midge left Bob, the boys lament over losing "her sweet uptown rack".
    Fez: Oh, good God, man, what a marvelous set of kittens. Remember that sweater?
    Kelso: Oh. Remember the other sweater?
    Eric: Yeah. Remember that time she ran up to us in a sweater?
    Hyde: Remember the week she took up jump rope? In a sweater?
    This is followed by a montage of said sweaters.
  • Later in the same episode, after deciding they want to want to chase older women, Fez and Kelso decide that Kitty is hot and maybe they should buy her a sweater.
• Jack was often distracted by sweater girls on Three's Company, resulting in Freudian Slips on several occasions: "You need to separate the yolk from the sweater." "I just came to button up my coffee."
• Inverted on Will & Grace: Will's been deceived into thinking he's going to be a Barney's model, and explains to Jack's boss that his broad shoulders and slim waist (IIRC) are perfect for sweater modeling.

Music

• Country singer Jeannie Mack wore a white angora short-sleeved sweater in a performance of her song "Dirty Dishes".
• The J. Geils Band classic, "Centerfold"
  Those soft and fuzzy sweaters
  Too magical to touch
  To see her in that negligee is really just too much.
• The electro/pop duo Moloko's debut album is called Do You Like My Tight Sweater after a supposedly real-life pickup line used by singer Roisin Murphy.
• Dale Evans (third wife of Roy Rogers and a singer/songwriter in her own right)
• Referenced in The Strangeloves' song "I Want Candy" in its third verse, "Candy on the beach there's nothing better/But I like candy when it's wrapped in a sweater". Oddly enough the much-better-known cover by "Bow Wow Wow" is sung by a female about a boy but keeps this line, for a rare Gender Flip of this trope.

Other

• The rhyme many of us learn as tweens: "We must, we must, we must increase our bust. The bigger the better, the tighter the sweater, the boys depend on us!"
• The knitting book Big Girl Knits has sections on short-row shaping and how to wear a neckline, to enhance one's assets. A larger-busted woman should wear V-necks, because a higher neckline gives the impression of one large lump.
• Half of the reason why the Keyhole Sweater and Virgin-Killing/Virgin Killer Sweater got popular. The other half, well...

Radio

• Our Miss Brooks: Harriet Conklin often favors a tight sweater.

Theatre

• The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee: Marigold Coneybear
  Chip: Hey, Leaf, is that your sister in the fourth row wearing the fuzzy sweater?
• The number "Anything You Can Do" from the musical Annie Get Your Gun:
  Frank: I can knit a sweater.
  Annie: I can fill it better.
• One song in The Full Monty has the men objectifying women before realizing to their horror that they will soon be on the receiving end, and Jerry has this kind of girl in mind.
  Jerry: They gotta be C or D or better / they got to pose a threat to the sweater!

Video Games

• Arcueid appears in Fate/EXTRA as a Berserker, but still in this mode of dress (though a little stained and fraying at the edges). The overall effect is that of a suburban mother gone feral and eager to rip you apart with her bare hands.
• Naomi Hunter in the original Metal Gear Solid even had a fanservice photoshoot mode of her turtleneck, although ever since the fourth game, people associate her with a labcoat with a Navel-Deep Neckline.
• A recurring character in the WarioWare series is "Baroness Drip", a sweater girl drawn in a bishoujo anime style, whose beauty is a bit marred by the fact that her nose is always dripping with snot.

Visual Novels

• In Doki Doki Literature Club!, Yuri (the canonically largest-breasted character) wears a sweater outside of school, contrasting with the others who wear t-shirts. While her clothing style reflects her shy personality and gives her Cute Bookworm looks, she heavily insists on hiding her arms, and when you make the connection with her knife collection, you guess the darker implications behind this sexy outfit.
• VA 11 Hall A: Alma is noted to have an outrageously oversized chest, which she chooses to emphasize with tight turtleneck sweaters. This goes neither un-noticed nor unappreciated by the rest of the cast. Even Dana is not above Eating the Eye Candy, and ignores that Alma didn't dress up for the Mega-Christmas Party because "Ribbed sweaters get a free pass."

Web Comics

• A Nerf NOW!! comic mocks the Diablo II remaster censoring a character's outfit by suggesting other 'remasters', including Overwatch's Widowmaker in a sweater. Tentajo is shocked when it turns out fans love and want more of Sweater Girl Widowmaker.
  Anne: Are you telling me people asked for more covered up Widowmaker?
  Jo: I know, right?

Western Animation

• Archer has a male variant with Patrick "Crash" McCaren from Season 6. Both Lana and Ray, a straight woman and gay man, immediately fall for his good looks, including how his sweater accentuates his chest muscles.
• BoJack Horseman: In the 1944 flashbacks in "The Old Sugarman Place," Joseph Sugarman mentions complimenting his secretary on her "tight sweaters."
• In Yankee Doodle Daffy, Daffy Duck claims that his client, Sleepy Lagoon, is the biggest thing since the sweater girl.
• Term of endearment: Bat-Bat calls Mighty Mouse "you old sweater girl" in the Bakshi episode "Bat With A Golden Tongue."

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