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Theiss Titillation Theory
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In pulp fiction it is a rigid convention that the hero’s shoulders and the heroine’s balcon constantly threaten to burst their bonds, a possibility which keeps the audience in a state of tense expectancy. Unfortunately for the fans, however, recent tests reveal that the wisp of chiffon which stands between the publisher and the postal laws has the tensile strength of drop-forged steel.
—S.J. Perelman, "Captain Future, Block That Kick!" (The New Yorker, 1940)
The sexiness of an outfit is directly proportional to the possibility that some of it might fall off.
The basic theory which underwrites Stripperiffic clothing, Impossibly Cool Clothes, and pretty much anything else you stick female characters into: what makes clothing sexy is the notion of a catastrophic wardrobe malfunction. Named for William Ware Theiss (not that Theis), costume designer on Star Trek The Original Series, who first codified the concept.
The theory acknowledges that this possibility is entirely imaginary: the true magic of these outfits is that no matter what She Fu the wearer attempts, she is never ever going to expose a nipple. Not in this time slot. Having said that, the TTT takes advantage of an odd side effect: a particularily sexy outfit actually out-titillates a nude woman. Evidently, she whose clothes might fall off is more interesting than she whose clothes already have.
Particularly common in Science Fiction and related genres. However in Will And Grace, Debra Messing occasionally wore outfits that would not be anatomically feasible for a better-endowed woman.
Though Theiss was costume designer, according to Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, by Herb Solow and Robert Justman, most of the costumes following this theory were actually somewhat more modest before being " improved" by Gene Roddenberry. According to the "Art of Star Trek" book, Theiss preferred to design costumes that only appeared to show off more skin, through the use of strategically placed skintone patches.
Impossibly Low Neckline is a form of this.
Compare Wardrobe Malfunction. Contrast Erection Rejection.
Examples:
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- In One Piece there is nothing holding up Boa Hancock's robe except the sheer cruelty of the universe. This is MUCH more apparent in the animated version.
- And yet Rindou
 , her bazooka-wielding underling probably has her beat as far as this trope is concerned. Seriously, is her short jacket ducktaped to her nipples or something?
- Gaap in Umineko No Naku Koro Ni wears a dress that appears to have a pretty good-sized strip chopped out of it all the way down and very barely stitched back together with laces. It's been described as "a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen."
- Regarding the "odd side effect" mentioned above, The Other Wiki claims that the victim of the freezer room trap in Saw III was originally meant to have been barely clothed, but it was thought that making the shirt stick to the victim's body would have been too sexual, so they went with nudity instead.
- In his review of Showgirls, Roger Ebert said that "it contains so much nudity that the sexy parts are when the girls put on their clothes."
- Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Was there any more to Leia's dancing-girl costume beneath the panels of cloth hanging from front and back of the waistline? According to Carrie Fisher on the DVD commentary, there wasn't, and at times, crews standing behind her could see "all the way to Florida" as it were. Oola suffers a wardrobe malfunction as she is being dragged towards Jabba the Hutt, and again as she falls through the trap door. You can still see a short bit of the first malfunction in the current special edition. Older editions have longer scenes.
Live Action TV
- One of the best examples of it at work is Theiss' own creation in the Star Trek episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" In that episode, a female android named Andrea◊ has a costume the upper portion of which is merely two crossing strips of material. Off the set, public modeled displays of this costume never failed to get a dramatically appreciative reception from at least the men.
- In William Shatner's Get A Life, he tells a story about how Gene Roddenberry talked that same outfit into a fashion show at a Sci-Fi con. According to one of the people there, the model apparently had to spend the evening "beating men off with a stick". Notable is the fact that Star Trek hadn't even aired yet.
- According to Herb Solow and Robert Justman's book on Star Trek, William Shatner couldn't stop hitting on Sherry Jackson, the actress playing Andrea, once he saw her in the outfit. Further, the first public modeled display of the costume was in Desilu Studios' lunch room, where Ms. Jackson entered in said outfit — according to Herb, forks stopped midway to people's mouths.
- Similarly, the top part◊ of the Greco-Roman-style outfit worn by Leslie Parrish (playing Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas) in "Who Mourns For Adonais?" consisted of a single swath of cloth draped across her breasts and slung over her shoulder. Most people who were there believed that nothing held it in place except its own weight, and were absolutely certain it was going to fall off at any second. Parrish, on the other hand, knew that it was stuck to her skin via massive amounts of two-way tape which had torn off chunks of skin during the original fitting; this is why she instead wore a bathrobe during all rehearsals, even the dress rehearsal.
- In "Mudd's Women," Maggie Thrett, playing the character of Ruth◊, suffered repeated wardrobe malfunctions during shooting — apparently one of her, ahem, assets refused to remain covered. (Unsurprisingly, the final version of the costume was another of Roddenberry's "improvements.") The ruined shot was saved for a Gag Reel, however.
- NCIS provides a textbook example of this. Ziva's "Heart Attack Dress" from the season six opener is more attractive than the skimpy bikini she wore in the season five finale.
- Oh yeah, and her hair, makeup and attitude hand nothing to do with it as well.
- Hmm. Is the "hand" you just wrote a typo or a Freudian Slip?
- In a male example, one scene in an episode of White Collar had Neal Caffrey wearing nothing but some very low-riding sleep pants, with a waistband that looked very loose. You could practically hear the fangirls pleading for him to bend just a little further...
- Kylie Minogue. Can't Get You Out Of My Head. Full Stop.
Tabletop Games
- In the D&D 3.5 edition Player's Handbook, all of the female examples shown in the races chapter have clothing that looks almost exactly like the example pictured at the top of the page. Not to mention the Nymph in the Monster Manual, the Elemental Savant in Complete Arcane, for that matter just about any female character pictured in any D&D book will have an outfit like that.
Video Games
- Yoshino "Haru" Harusawa of Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor wears an outfit that would do Theiss proud. Looking at her sprites, it's a wonder she isn't having a wardrobe malfunction every few seconds. Needless to say she's a popular character.
- Specifically, she wears what would normally be a form-fitting dress, except that it's at least two cup sizes too big for her. This makes the top half hang off dangerously low.
- Gaia Online's Ruby is wearing what appears to be a strategically-tied bedsheet with no bra. The jury's out on whether it's being held up by her rack or by the sheer force of her hotness.
- Pretty much the entire cast of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, males included.
Western Animation
- This is parodied in an episode of The Simpsons, when it's Agnes Skinner who wears a skintight dress to Homer's award ceremony as "Man of the Hour". Homer's father, her co-host, asks, "What's holding that dress together?", to which Sideshow Mel stands and answers, "The collective will of everyone in this room!".
Real Life
- Simply put, Janet Jackson. Only for sufficiently small values of "sexy", mind you.
- Please note, that until the actual "incident" occured, her Superbowl outfit did in no way fit the Theory profile. In fact, the only part that might actually fit would be the sun nipple shield.
- Soooo many red-carpet dresses, it's not even funny. Whether it be see-through or the slow edging of a nipslip, you know that the more TTT a dress is, the more likely that's what's gonna be leading on TMZ that night.
- This trope is actually Older than Dirt. Early sculptures of the goddess Venus ( Aphrodite ) were often fully nude. The Venus de Milo, however, has a sash around her hips that looks like it's just about to slip off. This was actually an attempt by the sculptor to make her more erotic than the nude ones.
- A joke: Two men are sitting on a nude beach. A curvaceous young woman walks past them, her tan lines showing that she recently wore a tiny bikini with straps crossing over quite a bit of her back. One of the men says to the other, "I bet she looks great in that suit."
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