Wardrobe Wound

The Miz: A $5,000, custom-made suit, ruined! [points at a sprinkle] This ought to cover it! [grabs tip cup]
CM Punk: Woah, there. Hands off the tip jar.
The Miz: Really? Really? Well somebody's got to pay for my suit!
CM Punk: Well, in that case, I'm gonna get my money's worth. [grabs udder]

— WWE Slam City

For many people, fashion is a big part of their lives. Sometimes it's a love for the aesthetics of clothing that attracts them, other times it's a desire for a status symbol to advertise one's wealth and influence to others. Or maybe they just hold some piece of clothing in a higher sentimental light than expected. Whatever the reason for their obsession is, those who love fashion are bound to spend a great deal of time working on their wardrobe. Thus, it's not surprising that people often get frustrated and upset when their clothes get stained, wet, or otherwise damaged while they're in public. All that work just to get humiliated!

When this situation plays out in fiction, however, characters tend to react as if they'd been violently wounded, going way past mere frustration and embarrassment. They'll scream, cry, throw fits, sometimes even mourn the "death" of the garment. In more lighthearted uses of this trope, this reaction will be entirely Played for Laughs, the writers will expect the audience to find the idea of freaking out over clothes silly. Other times, the audience will be expected to agree with the character that getting one's clothes messy in front of people is horrible and the ultimate form of humiliation, in which case this trope will either be Played for Drama or for Cringe Comedy. Essentially, this trope is when Minor Injury Overreaction is applied to clothes. If the universe itself uses this trope, it might get treated as a "What the Hell, Hero?" moment. Understandable if the clothing is actually quite expensive.

Because such characters are defined by their love of fashion, The Fashionista is a likely victim of this trope. Non-Fashionista characters can react this way as well, however. After all, just because a character isn't defined by their love of fashion doesn't mean they don't care about it at all. Female characters tend to get wardrobe wounds a lot and female-targeted works frequently use this trope because of the stereotype that Vanity Is Feminine. Because the stereotype often goes double for them, teenage/tweenage girls and works targeted at them tend to provide examples of this trope.

There are two forms of Wardrobe Wounds:

Intentional

In this version, the character's outfit is ruined intentionally by another character as a form of non-violent "attack". Somebody wants to embarrass, humiliate, or show their contempt for someone else and they attempt to accomplish this via ruining the other person's clothes. This variant is usually done either by the Alpha Bitch to her victims or by the victims as a form of retaliation against the alpha bitch. Intentional Wardrobe Wounds often, though not always, double as examples of Contrived Clumsiness.

Accidental

In this version, the character's outfit is ruined accidentally: the poor character is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It may come up as a result of Giving Them the Strip if the surviving escapee complains about the garment's loss.

Either way, they will be devastated. A common way for the character to visually convey their "trauma" is to spread their arms out slightly to the side, open their mouth in shock, and slowly tilt their head downward as they "survey the damage".

Both forms are prime sources of Laser-Guided Karma and Humiliation Conga for antagonists and villains.

Also see My Favorite Shirt, a super-trope, and Hat Damage, a specific sub-trope. Compare Nobody Touches the Hair, when it's the hairdo damage that gets this reaction. The sister trope, Doomed New Clothes, may lead to a reaction about the loss of said new clothes, a.k.a this trope.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In the first ad (which portrays a staged, fictional event as opposed to using footage from the show proper) for My Super Sweet Sixteen featured in this video, a girl (played by a pre-fame Jennifer Lawrence!) is standing on stage in front of a cake at her sweet 16 birthday party. A disco ball falls and splatters cake onto her dress, embarrassing her in front of her friends. She's clearly mortified and definitely acts as if wounded!

Anime & Manga

• Loly Aiverrne in Bleach tears off the sleeves of the completely innocent and traumatised captive Orihime Inoue's dress in a fit of petty, jealous rage.
• In Boys over Flowers, Tsukushi's fellow students at the prestigious high school she attends use Produce Pelting to humiliate her in retaliation for the time she stood up to one of the beloved popular boys.
• In Highschool of the Dead, Saeko performs a forced Action Dress Rip on Shizuka, annoying her because it was a Prada skirt. Saeko replies "Which is more important, a brand or your life?" Saeko has something of a habit for tearing skirts, thinking it's just easier to move that way.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Jotaro's reaction to DIO's first attack on him was annoyance over the fact his ¥20,000 pants were torn.
• A less serious example happens in K-On!'s college arc when Ayame is using Mio as a dress-up doll. She finds out while getting Mio to on try her t-shirt, being a far curvier girl, that Mio stretched it out completely (particularly around the chest area). Mio apologizes about this immediately. Overlaps with A-Cup Angst.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016), during the battle against Zant, Link slashes through the usurper's helmet. Zant is so enraged that he breaks out of his usual cowardice and rushes at Link with a sword.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's: Nanoha's Divine Buster barely misses Vita, but the attack knocks Vita's hat off from her head. This pisses Vita off so much that she beats the living crap out of Nanoha. Vita's entire Knight Armor (read: her whole outfit) was a gift from her mistress Hayate whom she is very fond of.
• Omamori Himari: In Lizlet's first appearance, Himari attacks her due to thinking she was trying to poison Yuuto with her tea (she just was trying to make them leave the café, as she thought they had come to kill her). Given that her "human" body can't be harmed, she's more concerned over the fact that Himari pierced through her maid uniform with her sword and ruined it.
• One Piece:
  • One of Luffy's Berserk Buttons is harming his straw hat, as Buggy found the hard way.
  • King goes absolutely livid when Zoro accidently breaks part of his mask, to the point that King attacks foe and allies alike during his fit of rage and then almost throws Zoro out of Onigashima who narrowly avoids this fate.
• In Ranma ½, during Ranma and Ryōga's first battle in the series, Ryōga manages to tear a big hole in Ranma's shirt. Ranma complains about his favorite shirt getting wrecked, which causes Ryōga to comment that his whining makes him sound like a girl. Given Ranma's status, he doesn't take the comment well.
• Sailor Moon: Sailor Moon once declared in her In the Name of the Moon speech that she wouldn't forgive the enemy for ruining their Sailor outfits.

Comic Books

• In PS238, Julie freaks out when someone tears her almost-indestructible cape during a fight. Justified because apparently her parents had to save up a lot of money to buy it and it can't be replaced. At the end of the arc, the casino owner lets her have a new, more indestructible (and capeless) outfit to go with her new code name.
• In Super Mario Adventures, the Princess runs into Wendy's bedroom and threatens to shred Wendy's favorite sweater. Wendy takes this threat seriously enough to treat it as a standoff that requires negotiation.

Films — Animation

• Toy Story 3: Barbie tries to get Ken to give up the location of Lotso's secret meeting by ripping up some of his vintage outfits. He gives in as she starts to tear his purple Nehru jacket in half.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks: During the song "Shake Your Tails", Rarity's '60s-themed outfit with dangling metal shingles get caught by Photo Finish's magnets, and when Rarity gives a hard pull on it to get free, the sleeves are ripped. Rarity's horrified reaction is to burst into tears right on the scene.
  Rarity: Ruined! Absolutely ruined!

Films — Live-Action

• In 3 Idiots, Rancho inflicts this on Pia's fiance, Suhas, to show her how vain he is. Later uses it a second time by pretending Pia lost the watch he bought her.
• In 101 Dalmatians, Cruella Deville is defeated in part by dropping her through a trap door into a vat of molasses and flinging her into a pig pen, which, unsurprisingly considering her obsession with nice fur coats, she doesn't like.
• In a similar scene to the above in the film's sequel 102 Dalmatians, the puppies dump Cruella into cake batter and bake her into a cake among the machinery at a factory.
• Played for Drama in Batman (1989). When Bruce sees Joker for the first time, he's so caught up in his flashbacks that his coat gets grazed by a stray bullet and he doesn't even notice it.
• This trope is used twice in Bratz:
  • First, there's a Food Fight scene in which the title characters treat the mess made of their clothes and hair as Serious Business and the ultimate insult.
  • Second, as part of the Alpha Bitch's Humiliation Conga, she gets covered in cake then knocked into a pool, publicly humiliating her at her birthday party.
• In Carefree, Judge Travers is quite upset when Hypno Fool Amanda shoots the crown out of his best hat—"a real Tyrollean!"
• In Clockwise, Laura and Brian trick the Porsche driver into undressing, and they steal his clothes. When trying to snatch them back, he tears the sleeve off his suit.
  Porsche driver: Give me that suit! Three hundred quid that suit cost me. (Grabs it by the sleeve, and tears it off) You've torn it! Mate, mate, you've torn the sleeve off my 300-guinea suit.
• In Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen Carla, the Alpha Bitch, starts backing away in humiliation from a group at a party after famous rock star Stu Wolff's gift of a necklace to her rival, Lola, makes it obvious that she lied about Stu being there to see her. She gets an extra dose of embarrassment when she falls into a fountain due to walking backwards. Lola helps her up and reconciles with her rather than leaving her to be laughed at though, unlike the heroines of some other teen films on this page.
• In Descendants, a Disney Channel Original Movie about the Spin-Offspring of infamous Disney villains, When Lonnie rips her skirt to Show Some Leg, Jane attempts the same, only to immediately regret it, knowing her mom won't be happy with that.
• In Dogma, Metatron's outfits get ruined so many times it becomes a Running Gag.
  Metatron: It never ends!
• Faceless: Conducting Interrogation by Vandalism on the effeminate fashion photographer Maxence, Morgan gets answers out of him by ripping his designer shirt, which reduces Maxence to tears.
• Geek Charming combines this trope with Crash-Into Hello. Josh, the male lead, gets temporarily blinded by female lead Dylan's perfume spray as he walks through the school cafeteria, causing him to bump into her and get the food on the tray he was carrying all over her.
• In Go West, Young Lady, when Indians attack the stage, on their arrows knocks the stuffed bird off the top of Belinda's hat. This so infuriates her that she grabs one of Tex's gun, leans out of the window and picks off several of the braves.
• At the end of the number "Stick To The Status Quo" in High School Musical some chili cheese fries go flying up in the air as a result of a student slipping and land on Alpha Bitch Sharpay, causing her to scream.
• Invitation to a Gunfighter: After one of the town Gossipy Hens likens Jules to a dog in a garbage dump, Jules the hat off her head, frisbees it into the air, and uses it for target practice: shooting it twice while it is in the air.
• In a Deleted Scene from Mean Girls, Cady, the protagonist, has a friend rig the cafeteria table that Regina, the Alpha Bitch sits at so that when Regina puts down her tray, the table tilts towards her, causing the food to fall into her lap. At least, that's what Cady intends. Instead, Regina is distracted by her boyfriend and a member of her Girl Posse sits where Regina was supposed to, thus becoming the prank's victim.
  • In the sequel, Mandi, the Alpha Bitch, tries to ruin main character Jo's friend's party by spiking the pizza they order with a product called Easy Upchuck designed to make people throw up, hoping that all the guests would get sick. Instead, Jo catches on and stashes the pizza away. The only one who eats it is Mandi's boyfriend who vomits on her after she kisses him, causing her to scream and run away in humiliation.
• In Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, Celia shrieks more about her new clothes being dragged in the mud than during the ensuing beat-'em-up scene.
• Parodied in Not Another Teen Movie, where Janey (already soaked from jumping in the pool fully clothed) gets a bottle of water "accidentally" spilled on her by the Alpha Bitch, which leaves Janey in tears.
• In Pay Back, gangster Fairfax complains and acts visibly annoyed when Porter shoots through one of his expensive alligator hide suitcases containing his precious suits which, as he claims, cost more than the 70,000 dollars Porter is after.
• Fat Amy from Pitch Perfect gets a drive-by Wardrobe Wound when a guy in a passing bus intentionally throws a burrito at her.
• Mia in The Princess Diaries strikes back at Alpha Bitch Lana by getting chocolate ice cream all over Lana's cheerleader uniform during school lunch. This leads to all bystanders mocking Lana by chanting, "Lana got coned!"
• In Sleepover the Alpha Bitch loses a bet and has to sit at a table that's right next to a dumpster at lunch. The film ends with her running away screaming after some garbage that was being thrown in the dumpster spills onto her lap, ruining her clothes.
• In the movie Thoroughly Modern Millie, a well-meaning Millie tries an unconventional remedy for a spot on the white dress of a Rich Bitch at Muzzy's party. The guest's anguished howls of "SOY SAUCE!" can be heard throughout the whole mansion.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit: In his Establishing Character Moment, Marvin Acme greets Eddie by squirting his shirt with ink. Disappearing ink, at that.
• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: Mrs. Teavee threatens to send Wonka her cleaning bill when she gets Covered in Gunge while she's riding the Wonkamobile.
• The Wolf of Wall Street at the end when several senior employees are arrested, one of them loudly objects to being handcuffed because her sweater is a Chanel.
• In Zoom: Academy for Superheroes, a psychic highschool girl gets called a freak by Alpha Bitch cheerleaders, so she uses her powers to make a cafeteria food explosion that gets her bullies covered in the stuff.
• During the raid on Mathilda's home in The Professional, Mathilda's father manages to shoot Norman Stansfield in the shoulder. Stansfield is pretty subdued about this until he has the time to notice the damage done to his suit, whereupon he follows the injured suspect through the apartment, shooting him in the back. He does this until he's out of ammunition... and then starts to reload so he can continue shooting the guy's corpse.

Literature

• Adrian Mole:
  • In Secret Diary, Adrian is pleased when his mother's lover Lucas spills candle wax over his new suede shoes.
  • In Wilderness Years, a beetroot stain appears on Adrian's new white shirt when Bert Baxter flings a beetroot sandwich across the room.
  • In Cappuccino Years, Adrian decides not to tell someone who splashes urine onto his suede Gucci loafers, because it would spoil the evening for him.
• Cradle Series: Variant; Eithan does this on Lindon's behalf. Eithan gives Lindon new robes to replace ones that are covered in blood, scum, and worse. When Lindon faces a man four advancements above him (when fighting someone one above you is generally considered a death sentence), Eithan warns him not to ruin the robes, as they're expensive. When Lindon manages to win, Eithan sighs and gives him new robes to replace the ones he just ruined.
• Discworld:
  • In Reaper Man, the zombified Windle Poons scares off some would-be muggers, one of whom stabs him in the chest. Windle complains to the retreating thieves that it was his best robe they just damaged, and that it's very hard to darn silk.
  • In Carpe Jugulum, Vlad (a vampire) screams in agony when doused by holy water, then winks and complains that his attacker just ruined a lovely silk waistcoat.
  • Both Reg shoe (a zombie) and Detritus (a troll) complain about holes put in their armor by weapons that would have killed somebody who wasn't either already dead or basically made of stone. Detritus is annoyed he is going to have to pay for a new breastplate out of his own money.
  • In The Truth, vampire Otto Chriek is run through with a sword. His primary concern is that his fancy opera shirt is ruined yet again.
• In Lonely Werewolf Girl this is the sum totality of the plan of one of the book's Big Bad's, to destroy Fire Queen Malveria's reputation by destroying her wardrobe. Since The Fashionista is her race's Hat and Serious Business this would be the Fire Demon equivalent of a nuclear strike. Malveria does suffer through a variety of non-intentional wardrobe wounds in the series too.
• How To Be A Little Sod: When the baby discovers his ability to reach up with one hand while crawling, he destroys a good few of his mother's clothes, who "showed no admiration of his progress, but tearful annoyance at the mess he had made".
• James and the Giant Peach: The centipede takes great pride in his forty-two boots, and is most upset when they are "ruined" by his own falling into the ocean, and when a gallon of thick purple paint is tipped over him by an angry cloudman.
• Monster of the Month Club: Downplayed at one point in book 1, when Rilla discovers one of her shirts has been torn in half, but is more bemused when she figures out why. It turns out Icicle and Sweetie Pie had both wanted it because it matched their interests - it was pink (Sweetie Pie's favorite color), and decorated with tiny popsicles (one of Icicle's favorite foods).
• A Running Gag in Old Scores—the vampire Salem's Healing Factor helps him recover from even gruesome injuries, but a string of tee shirts are not so fortunate.
• The ice cream incident between Mia and Lana also happens in the novel version of The Princess Diaries (first in the series), although the circumstances are slightly different.
• In The Savannah Reid Mysteries, when Savannah gets shot, even though she rationalizes that she's dying, the thing she's most upset about is that the guy ruined her nightgown, which once belonged to her grandmother and has sentimental value to her.
• In the Georgette Heyer novel Sylvester a dandy goes into fits after a dog bites the tassels off his boots.
• In the Martin Beck police procedural novels, Detective Gunvald Larsson's expensive suits and shoes are frequently ruined as he works cases. Larsson may be in part the inspiration for Barney Miller's Detective Harris (see below).

Live-Action TV

• Barney Miller:
  • Happens in the episode "Vandalism". In the midst of all the considerable damage to the squad room (upturned trash cans, spray paint, files thrown across the floor), The Dandy Harris is most outraged that the vandal cut up his alpaca sweater.
    Harris: There was no need for this!
  • In another episode, Harris chases a suspect into the sewer and trips, falling into the waste.
    Harris: This will never come out!
    Yemana: It's not supposed to!
  • As often as it happened to him, you'd think he'd figure out not to dress to the nines while on the job.
• The Bill: Viv Martella wears a really nice suit to celebrate her first day in CID. When she tears the skirt while chasing a suspect, she is less than pleased.
• Glory on Buffy the Vampire Slayer often seems more upset about her outfit being ruined than say, the fact that a teleporting spell was being put on her.
  Glory: Look what you did to my dress!
• When Jeff from Community is finally getting overtaken by zombies, the only thing that bothers him is that a zombie version of his nemesis is wearing his jacket over a banana costume, and, due to this, stretching it.
• Doctor Who: In "Robot of Sherwood", during his duel with Robin Hood, a button on the Doctor's coat gets lopped off. He's not too pleased about that.
• In an episode of Edgemont, one of the girls thinks Laurel has spread rumors about her, so she confronts Laurel at the local hangout and dumps a basket of greasy fries on her, ruining Laurel's dress.
• In Grange Hill, Jackie Heron destroys almost the entire wardrobe of the school play by throwing silver paint over it, to spite Miss Summers, who is shocked and horrified.
• On How I Met Your Mother, Barney gets a stain on his tie and suddenly acts as if the tie was alive and had been mortally wounded, even going so far as to attempt CPR on it.
• The Latest Buzz: Amanda understandably freaks out when her designer dress gets a toner stain on it in "The Gala Issue". This leads to some creative Rip Tailoring.
• Lizzie Mcguire provides a few examples of this trope's use as a way to get back at the Alpha Bitch. Despite normally being an Annoying Younger Sibling, Lizzie's brother Matt sometimes defends his sister by playing wardrobe-ruining pranks on her tormentor, Kate.
  • One of these pranks occurs during the "Freaky Friday" Flip episode. While occupying Lizzie's body, Matt puts frogs in Kate's locker, scaring her and causing her to slip on a banana peel while running away. The banana peel causes her to slide into a door atop of which is balanced a bucket of chili that spills all over her outfit.
  • In another episode, Matt tricks Kate into opening a spring-loaded can of rubber snakes. Kate gets startled, causing her to lose her balance and fall backward into a pond.
• Lucifer: The title character is a hedonistic Man of Wealth and Taste who can't be harmed by earthly weapons, but he does get extremely peevish when people shoot him and damage his designer suits.
• Luke Cage the titular character remarks after being shot repeatedly that while bullets bounce off of him, it's getting tiring having to keep buying new clothes.
• Red Dwarf:
  • The Cat, a humanoid creature evolved from the common housecat, whose genes have elevated feline vanity and compulsive self-grooming. His reaction to damage to his clothing is sometimes a Berserk Button.
  • Ace Rimmer's reaction to being shot in the chest by parallel-dimension Nazis:
    Ace Rimmer: This is my best top, dammit!
• Shōkōjo Seira: Alpha Bitch Tekeda Maria tries to pull a Break the Cutie on the main character Seira by pelting her with tomatoes and coercing the other students to do the same. In another moment from the same series, Maria deliberately spills soup on Seira.
• On Will & Grace, Grace was trying to help Karen live more frugally when she was cut off from Stanley's money. This led to Grace threatening to damage Karen's clothes if she didn't budget.
  Grace: Maybe I'll just start with the label.
  Karen: No, honey! That's the best part! No!

Music

• Elvis Presley: "You can do anything, but stay off'a my ba-lue suede shoes!"

Tabletop Games

• The base rulebooks to the World of Darkness books have short vignettes illustrating each of the attributes, abilities, and powers a character can possess. For Mage: The Ascension and the Melee stat, we get a story about a mage named Vern fending off a drunk cowboy with a switchblade, using a pool cue.
  By the end, the man was face-down on the pool table, and Vern had suffered only a cut to his leather jacket. That hurt more than anything, of course. The jacket had sentimental value.

Video Games

• In Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, Lady shoots some holes in Dante's coat. He then gestures at them while looking annoyed at her.
• In Devil May Cry 4, the fire demon Berial catches Dante sitting on his tail and angrily shakes him off. Dante then mockingly complains "Wish you would've noticed me earlier... Now my coat's all charred."
• Dragon Age:
  • Varric occasionally grumbles about this in Dragon Age II.
    Varric: Ugh, I think I got blood on my coat.
    Varric: Oh, for the love of—! These are my new boots!
    Varric: Now that's just rude. What are they trying to do? Ruin my boots?
  • He does it again in Dragon Age: Inquisition, depending on the location.
    Varric: This shit is ruining my boots.
    Varric: My boots squelch when I lift my feet. Why did we spend time and effort opening a path?
• In Fallout 3, the first thing Mister Burke says if you shoot him is "I just had this suit tailored!".
• Left 4 Dead 2: Nick is constantly fretting over his suit, often to a further degree than his own well-being. Sometimes when shot by a fellow survivor he screams about how expensive his suit was, When forced to wade through swamp mud his main concern is that it'll be hard to get the mud stains out of his suit, along with several other examples.
• Ripto in Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! gets pretty ticked after the titular dragon sneaks up on him and singes his cape.
• Team Fortress 2:
  • The Spy class sometimes complains (during a taunt) when the opponent gets blood on his suit, and his reaction to getting Jarate or Mad Milk thrown on him sounds much more anguished than anyone else's.
  • The Sniper will also sometimes taunt after killing a Spy: "Aw, did I get blood on your suit?"

Visual Novels

• Downplayed example in Fate/stay night. In the Unlimited Blade Works route, Gilgamesh at one point declines to kill the main characters because, thanks to Lancer, the building they're all in is on fire and his clothes are getting soot on them.

Webcomics

• Darken: Shard the Body Surfer is considerably fonder of his favourite clothes than of his Meat Puppet of the moment, so when Elia stabs him in the gut, his only reaction is "Oi! New coat!"
• Girl Genius: Zeetha intentionally slices Bang's hat in half without cutting Bang while they're sparring to show off.
• In Hero Oh Hero, having his outfit damaged proves to be The Aristocrat's Berserk Button. Later, the first of a series of increasingly ridiculous rewards he demands is that it be repaired.
• In Rusty and Co. Level 6, Ezra the vampiress cares more for the damage done to her dress than to her body (which she can regenerate anyway).
  Ezra: This. dress. was. vintage.
• In The Wretched Ones, Jackson accidentally pours wine over Nicholas' head, staining his white shirt. Nicholas, in turn, climbs over the table, grabs Jackson by the shirt collar, and tries to do the same to him.

Web Videos

• Couette, the Noob female character who's the vainest about her appearance, has one or two scenes of making a big deal out of damage on her clothes in the middle of a battle.

Western Animation

• In the Hey Arnold! episode "Ms. Perfect", the girls in Arnold's class come to resent their new classmate Lila because she (unintentionally) upstages them at the things each of them is known for. For revenge, they pull a prank that results in Lila getting covered in spinach in front of a cafeteria's worth of students. She then runs out of the cafeteria in tears because the other kids laugh at her.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Rarity becomes a nervous wreck at the luncheon for Princess Celestia, afraid anything's going to spill on her pretty party dress, in "A Bird in the Hoof".
    Rarity: Nobody move and my dress won't get hurt!
  • Rarity becomes upset when giant Spike ruins her cape in "Secret of my Excess".
    Rarity: THIS IS A CRIME AGAINST FASHION!
  • And again, in "Keep Calm and Flutter On", when Discord animates a soup tureen who starts spitting on everypony.
    Rarity: Not the dress! NOT THE DRESS!
  • Yet again in "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" Ruining Rarity's couture is her worst nightmare, so when the Tantabus enters her dream it possesses several of her dresses and tears one to shreds.
    Rarity: [sobbing] It was such a pretty chiffon. WHO WOULD DO SUCH A THING??
• Daphne from A Pup Named Scooby-Doo often reacts with disgust if her clothes or her go-go boots get even the least bit dirty.
• In the Rugrats episode "Little Dude", as Tommy is unwittingly causing havoc in a high school cafeteria, he accidentally gets pudding on one student's football uniform. The student furiously assumes that resident bad boy Ramone is responsible and responds by flicking mashed potatoes onto his leather jacket, causing Ramone to very calmly walk over to him amidst gasps from other students and, very calmly, exchange food stains on clothes with him.
• Samurai Jack: In the episode "Jack and the Travelling Creatures", Jack comes across a time portal protected by a mysterious guardian in a nice black suit. The Guardian has Jack's number in combat, slowly overwhelming him with a variety of swords, sais, and guns. Jack appears to get an advantage when he kicks two missiles at the Guardian, but it turns out it just wrecked his suit. The Guardian does not take this well.
  The Guardian: That was my favorite suit you just ruined! [proceeds to beat Jack within an inch of his life]
• In the Teen Titans episode "A Date with Destiny", Starfire gets into a brawl with Kitten, the Bratty Teenage Daughter of a super-villain, because Kitten blackmailed Robin into being her prom date with threats of unleashing her father's giant killer moths on the city. This trope comes into play when Starfire throws Kitten into a cake, leading Kitten to furiously shout "You! Ruined! My! Dress!"
• In Totally Spies!, this trope seems to be Clover's greatest fear. In one episode, she was actually reluctant to rescue her two best friends because doing so would bring her into contact with a muddy river.
• Young Justice
  • Brick gets his extremely nice suit ruined during a fight with Speedy. He's rightly pissed; do you know how expensive it is to get a suit in his size?
  • Superboy isn't happy when he gets his feet scorched in a pit of lava...because while he's Nigh-Invulnerable, his favorite boots aren't.

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