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Custom Uniform of Sexy

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Look at the chick in purple, then look at the rest. Notice anything?

"Operative Lawson's uniform is very official. It always makes me stand at attention."
Donnelly, Mass Effect 2

This is where the most beautiful member of a group — who just so happens to be Always Female — wears a more revealing version of the standard uniform in order to ramp up the fanservice. This very often has little to do with the plot; the artist or costume designer is simply having fun dressing up the sexy one. Typically, the custom uniform will show more skin around the shoulders, cleavage, midriff or legs compared to the standard version. This often applies to The Vamp, even if other female characters in the group wear more standard clothing. If there's a Tomboy and Girly Girl dynamic in place, this serves as a fairly obvious visual cue. In extreme cases, this can get into what is usually Sexy Whatever Outfit territory.

A Sub-Trope of Rule of Sexy.

Despite this trope's name, it is more likely to be a Non-Uniform Uniform than a flat-out Custom Uniform, meaning it will still have elements of the standard outfit while showing more skin.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 
  • Ayakashi Triangle:
    • Although exorcist ninja don't have standardized battle suits, Matoi's is an elaborate Battle Ballgown variation of the style of Matsuri's. It's possible this is an inversion, where Matoi's suit came first, and Matsuri's was made to be a less sexualized version of his mother's.
    • Parodied and exaggerated by Reo's "Sexy Gear", which is so skimpy you can just barely see evidence it was based on Matsuri's gear. She also temporarily modified Matsuri's outfit into a different Sexy Gear as her idea of a birthday present.
  • Bleach:
    • Rangiku wears the standard shinigami black kimono, cut low to show her cleavage. Nemu Kurotsuchi is the only Shinigami in a skirt. Kenpachi shows off his chest, and Hisagi shows off his arms.
    • Pretty much all the female Arrancar customise their uniforms to be more and more stripperiffic. And then for the female viewers there's Grimmjow.
  • C.C. from Code Geass wears a sexy version of the Black Knights uniform in R2. Kallen could be said to have a custom uniform, since she gets a short skirt instead of pants, but this is a variation shared by all female members of the Black Knights. Sadly, those other female members don't get enough screentime to make this point.
  • In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Mitsuri Kanroji's uniform top is unbuttoned into a Cleavage Window and she wears a short pleated skirt instead of the Demon Slayer Corps' standard hakama. It's later revealed that the Corps official tailor tried to make other female Demon Slayers wear this uniform, but unlike the others who immediately burned it and wear more modest uniforms instead, Mitsuri wasn't able to burn hers and chose to keep wearing it anyway.
  • While those fitted jackets and short skirts and mini-shorts of D.Gray-Mans Lenalee Lee are sold as something added on account of her leg-heavy combat style, they certainly also fit this trope.
  • Whenever the main cast of Doraemon play dress up in a Sentai fashion, Shizuka Minamoto will end up wearing a different outfit - often more revealing one.
  • Kururi Orihara from Durarara!! completely ignores the standard Raira Academy uniform and wears the gym uniform instead. Which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't just a thin T-shirt and a pair of bloomers that gives the impression of a constant Panty Shot.
  • In Galaxy Angel, nobody's uniforms are really uniform, but the two grown ladies of the eponymous Angel Brigade wear notably fanservice-y ones. Forte's is designed to show off her ample cleavage, though that's gone from Z onward. Ranpha, meanwhile, always wears a red Qipao, "complete" until Z with a cleavage-hole, and almost never the outer part of her uniform (and when she does, it's just an unfastened vest). Both girls also wear high-heeled pumps as their shoes, and their dresses are high-slit, especially Ranpha's.
  • Gundam:
    • Lunamaria Hawke from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. Despite the fact that she floats around in zero gravity for much of the series, the girl has slapped a miniskirt onto her military uniform.
    • In the related Mobile Suit Gundam SEED CE.73: Stargazer, Mudie Holcroft's uniform (if it can be called that) consists of: no shirt, a jacket that is sleeveless, bares her midriff, and is open to reveal her ample cleavage, and a microskirt.
    • Secelia Dote in Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury has her shorts cut to the point of being short-shorts that fully expose her thighs, accentuates her legs further with white thigh-highs, and leaves the front of her jacket partially unzipped to expose a tight halter top.
    • All of them are descended from Chan Agi from Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack, who wore a mini-skirt with her uniform.
  • In Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, when Miu spars with Kenichi, instead of the full training gi (which Kenichi used to wear before the chapter 145), she always wears a combination of the normal training gi top and short and tight pants.
  • Although most of the cast in Kill la Kill wear sexy uniforms, with very short skirts, Ryuko goes one step farther by wearing a school uniform that bares her midriff.
  • Female plugsuits in Neon Genesis Evangelion. No one except the teenage girl pilots wear them and yet the designer seemingly didn't bother to make something that is NOT made of latex and vacuum-sealed to fit tightly. While male plugsuits have some armoring on the torso, the female version lacks it completely to show off the wearer's curves. Then came Rebuild of Evangelion where Asuka donned a custom plugsuit with a transparent torso where the upper half of her butt is now visible...
    Asuka: What sort of pervert designed this suit?
  • Other than thigh high socks and stiletto heeled boots, Meiko from Prison School wears her school's standard female uniform. The main difference is that most of her shirt is unbuttoned revealing her cleavage and then some and her skirt is so short that even slightly bending over reveals her panties.
  • Scheris Adjani's HOLY uniform in Scryed features a hip-hugging miniskirt and thigh-highs, a far cry from the Badass Longcoat and sensible slacks seen on the other (read "male") members.
  • Atasha from Time Patrol Tai Otasukeman wears a slightly different version of the Time Patrol uniform when compared to other female characters in the show: the shorts are replaced with a short skirt, allowing her to give Panty Shots in many occasions. She also doesn't wear the knee-high socks worn by other patrollers, so that she can Show Some Leg.
  • Elizabetta of Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun, who parades around in what can best be described as a stripper version of the school's normal uniform.

    Comic Books 
  • Think of any universe in which more than one superhero exists: Marvel Universe, The DCU, Ultimate Marvel, etc. More often than not, there'll be a dozen or more people wearing Underwear of Power or Leotards of Power or less and this will be totally irrelevant to the plot and may not even be acknowledged by anyone.
    • Lampshaded in Watchmen when the Silk Spectre complains about her Lycra suit's dehumanizing nature.
  • Fantastic Four:
    • Originally completely averted by Susan Storm/Richards, who wore first street clothes, then a uniform essentially identical to her teammates'. (Tailored to fit, but not to be skintight or anything.) Since then, there have been occasional exceptions. The most notable being the period in the Dark Age when she wore a thong and the "4" on her chest was cut into a Cleavage Window. The ludicrousness of the look was pointed out quite a bit. Even Reed chided her for "traipsing around half-naked in that ridiculous new costume!" It was later revealed that she was under subtle mind control by the villain Malice. Since then, there have been other, more tasteful attempts at feminizing her uniform by making it sleeveless or showing a tiny bit of chest (not both), but nothing as outlandish as that 90's outfit.
    • When She-Hulk joined the team, her uniform was a mild invocation of this trope. The only difference between it and the standard Fantastic Four uniform was the bare arms and legs.
      • Justified in that it's an FF version of her standard look. Also, she was replacing Ben Grim who usually only wears trunks and when he does wear a full costume, it also leaves his arms and legs bare.
  • In Guardians of the Galaxy (2008), the Guardians wear standard red-line outfits except for the two most fanservicey characters: Gamora used a cleavage-baring leotard with the same color scheme, and Moondragon used a customized version of the outfit that bared her legs. Mantis, the only other female of the group, dressed just like the men.
  • In Mercury Heat, Luiza is initially forced to modify her police uniform, which wasn't designed for Mercury, to a cropped shirt and shorts, as otherwise she'd pass out from heat exhaustion. She later adopts a less revealing adaptation.
  • The entire named cast of Tank Vixens.
  • The X-Men have some examples of this in the few instances where they wear matching uniforms:
    • The original New Mutants costumes were nearly identical for boys and girls, except that the "turtleneck" was yellow for the boys, and black for the girls, suggesting a mildly different neckline, while actually being just as modest.
    • Emma Frost is the most notable, even in her Generation X days. Her version of a standard uniform, until Marvel Now, is always white, always shows more skin, and usually comes with Combat Stilettos. This probably has the most in-character significance, since it shows her willingness to bend the rules and use sexuality as a weapon. As of Marvel NOW!, her uniforms are black, and slightly less overtly sexy.
    • When Storm briefly took to the X-Men's "street" look in the early 2000's, she wore the standard Xavier Institute sweater with a microskirt and thigh-high boots.
    • Jean Grey did it first, of course. When the original X-Men first revamped their looks, the biggest difference was Jean's feminized version of the standard uniform: the hood was replaced by a mask that let her hair flow free, and the neckline plunged to show a little cleavage (in case you're wondering, the green miniskirt came later, but all the X-Men had their own look then).

    Film — Animated 

    Film — Live-Action 
  • In Down Periscope, shipmates of Lt. Lake give her one by sabotaging her laundry and leaving her only with a uniform belonging to the Executive Officer played by the diminutive Rob Schneider.
    Dodge: Lt. Lake, you are almost out of uniform.
  • Lampshaded in Galaxy Quest by the actress who used to portray the Ms. Fanservice character on the Show Within a Show:
    Gwen: My TV Guide interview was six paragraphs about my boobs and how they fit into my suit!
  • Aayla Secura in Star Wars wears a midriff-baring top and jeans, at odds with the traditional Jedi robes. She's not breaking any rules, though — the robes aren't mandatory and the robes themselves aren't uniform from Jedi to Jedi. The main reason she is dressed that way is because she's a Twilek, who traditionally wear less clothing. Compared to other Twilek females, she's exceptionally modest.
    • This appears to be common among various-skinned alien space babes in the Order, given that Ahsoka also dresses like that.
  • In Spice World, the Girls wear full-body army camouflage for Mr Step's assault course, except Victoria, who wears a very short army camouflage dress.
  • In A View to a Kill, when Bond and Stacey infiltrate Max Zorin's mining operation and steal some uniforms to disguise themselves as workers, the latter somehow manages to find an unrevealing yet perfectly form-fitting set despite the miners all being men far taller than her. Bond still quips "Pity you couldn't find one that fits" prompting Stacey to give him a dirty look.note 

    Live-Action TV 
  • The famous one-piece red swimsuits worn by the female cast members of Baywatch were, surprisingly enough, modeled after the bathing suits worn by real-life California lifeguards, and designed to be functional. However, they were individually tailored, with the neckline, arm holes, and leg holes cut to best flatter the figure of each actress.
  • In Beastmaster, the Terrons wear black leather pants and vests. Except for Akili, who wears a very abbreviated loincloth.
  • Doctor Who:
    • "The Seeds of Death": All the male technicians wear hideous, shapeless jumpsuits. Miss Kelly, on the other hand, gets figure-hugging Future Spandex.
    • "The Doctor's Daughter": Title character Jenny is dressed in a tight shirt and trousers when she appears from the cloning machine (don't ask), as opposed to the baggy jumpsuits every other clone is wearing. Why? Because it's sexy.
  • Farscape: While the Peacekeeper uniforms have a lot of variation they're at least all relatively modest with the exception of Commandant Mele-on Grayza. Her typical outfit includes a jacket with beaded trim and a Navel-Deep Neckline that exposes a great deal of her chest. This is not just for the viewer; she uses artificial sex pheromones (from an implant in her chest) to weaponize her sexiness in a way gets called out as rape In-Universe.
  • Space: 1999:
    • Despite Barbara Bain's obvious star status, and her character, Dr. Russell, being not just the lead female character but the only woman of any consequence, she wears the same unisex jumpsuit as everybody else. But unlike the other women's uniforms (which according to the producers were designed to de-emphasize their bodies), hers is almost skintight, and unlike the other women, she also seems to be wearing a bra which emphasizes her breasts. The result is that she looks much curvier than her colleagues. Her uniform also lacks the zipper down one sleeve, but by word of God that was for comfort, not sex appeal.
    • In the second season Catherine Schell's character, Maya, also wears the standard uniform, but cut just enough to ramp up the sex appeal.
  • In Space Rangers (1993), the crew all wear boiler suits. Jojo Thorson's is the only one that's red, and includes a corset for no apparent reason.note 
  • Stargate:
    • De-enforced in Stargate SG-1: original character design for Samantha Carter (the only woman on her team) had her in a skimpier version of the standard military duds everyone else was wearing. Actress Amanda Tapping complained that the design was firstly very unrealistic and secondly pretty sexist, and even refused to play the character if she was going to be demoted to eye candy. The producers thought it over and agreed that enforcing the trope, at least for active combatants, was pretty stupid, and so Carter wears a typical uniform on the show, although they did make efforts to sexy her up whenever there was some excuse.
    • Stargate Atlantis episode "Critical Mass", not clothing, but hair. A recurring guest star playing a female Marine, Lieutenant Cadman, while in uniform on-duty, spends the entire episode with fairly-long hair hanging loose. Director audio commentary on the season set discs says this was done because it looked good; a real military female would never have her hair that way on-duty. Given they were frequently asked to cut Amanda Tapping's hair when it got too long on SG-1 one wonders why they didn't feel the need here.
      • It could be excused here as Cadman was 'off-duty' at the time. And being an explosives expert, she'd likely forgo any unnecessary procedure given that there was a bomb or so they thought at the time, about to go off.
    • Downplayed in Stargate Universe. TJ wears the same uniform as the other Air Force officers on the show but her zipper is always pulled halfway down her jacket to show off her cleavage.
  • Star Trek:
    • Star Trek: The Original Series:
      • In Star Trek the female crewman wear short miniskirts and tall boots while the men wear long pants. Lampshaded in the Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" when they go back in time to Star Trek: The Original Series and Dax makes a comment on the mini-skirt uniform.
      • In the episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" Dr. Corby and his android assistants wear two-tone overalls over black shirts — except the female android, who has no shirt, leaving her breasts covered only by the overall straps.
    • On Star Trek: Voyager, crewmembers wear Starfleet uniforms (even the Maquis, much to their initial displeasure) while Seven of Nine (who isn't even given a field commission like the Maquis) wears catsuits and high heels. They tried to justify it by saying the outfit was needed to hold her in shape after removing most of her Borg implants. There is never an in-show explanation of why she doesn't just wear a regular uniform over it though. (The closest we get to an explanation is a Hand Wave in one of the tie-in anthologies saying that she considered modesty irrelevant.) Seven got to wear a much more comfortable outfit and later the normal Starfleet uniform on Star Trek: Picard.
    • On Star Trek: Enterprise, T'Pol habitually wears a skintight, vaguely camo-pattern catsuit even though most Vulcans on the show wear loose robes. Even in the desert, she wears a skintight white jumpsuit, while everyone else wears robes. The custom uniform part has some justification before she joins Starfleet (she's technically a citizen and member of the military of another state attached to the Enterprise mission), but after she joins Starfleet, she still wears catsuits.
    • Kira Nerys from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine wore a more-or-less normal uniform in the earlier seasons of the show, similar to the uniforms worn by the Bajoran security and engineering personnel (including Odo). From season 4 onwards her uniform became more catsuit-like, with five-inch heeled boots.
    • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
      • Deanna Troi had her famous body-hugging "cleavage suits". It's lampshaded when Jellico briefly becomes the captain of the Enterprise and tells her to get into a uniform ... and by the actress herself, who said sometime later that she much preferred the uniform, and so the character "got in the habit" of it.
      • Subverted in the first season: both men and women had the option of wearing a "skant", a skirt-version of the familiar TNG uniform.
    • In every Mirror Universe episode of any Star Trek series, with the exception of Star Trek: Discovery, the female uniform is even more revealing, adding bared midriffs or thigh-high boots. Given that the women make no bones about using sex to advance their interests, you could say it was a Justified Trope.
  • Cited, although in not as few words, by the production team as the reason for the Cyber-kini in the Torchwood episode "Cyberwoman".
  • V (2009): Peace ambassadors' (and their V companions') uniforms usually have a T-shirt or something underneath. Lisa's... well, it doesn't. Also, her uniform's cleavage is a bit deeper than the others'.

    Theatre 
  • In Team StarKid's Starship, the sexiest of the starship rangers, Commander Up played by Joe Walker, gets a skintight, ab-showing-off uniform. This point could also be made for Taz, played by Lauren Lopez, who is the only starship ranger wearing a form-fitting tank top.

    Video Games 
  • Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: The men are more or less wearing complete (if stylized) military uniforms, but every uniform worn by the female soldiers sports some combination of low-cut tops, bared midriff, or improbably short skirts.
  • Devil May Cry 4: The Order of the Sword members (with the exception of Nero who wears a blue longcoat) tend to dress in white robes or standard office outfits. However, the only female Holy Knight in the Order, Gloria, stands out due to a extremely campy and revealing dress with a Navel-Deep Neckline that exposes a great deal out of her curves, which makes her stand against the Order's religious nature. Granted, that might be due to her actually being Trish in disguise infiltrating the Order.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • In The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, members of SOLDIER wear baggy trousers, knitted tank tops, paired shoulder guards and elaborate face-covering helmets. Zack's variation (and Angeal's) lacks a helmet; Cloud's variation has no helmet, only one shoulder guard with an edgier design and some other details to make it look a bit cooler; and the extremely hot Sephiroth's "SOLDIER uniform" consists of a black leather trenchcoat and a Walking Shirtless Scene with only the trousers and belt insignia having any similarity to what the other SOLDIERs wear at all. Early art of Sephiroth shows him wearing something much closer to Cloud's uniform, but this was presumably discarded for not revealing enough of his character (ahem).
    • It appears that female Knights and officers of the Gestahlian Empire in Final Fantasy VI have a Leotard of Power as their standard uniform (both Terra and Celes wear the same outfit), while male officers and rank-and-file privates wear (somewhat) regular uniforms.
  • Genshin Impact: Lisa's alternate outfit "A Sobriquet Under Shade" was tailored to resemble the uniform she wore when she attended the Akademiya. Needless to say, it's a lot more fanservice-heavy than those worn by NPC students, as it emphasizes her breasts and legs. See the comparison here.
  • In Hitman: Absolution, the team of female assassins known as the Saints all dress in nun-themed fetish wear, in contrast to the SWAT team-style uniforms of their male colleagues.
  • In Infernal, Barbara Mitchell and Elena Zubrov (the only female members of EtherLight we encounter) wear their own distinctive outfits — Barbara's bares her midriff, while Elena's is a skin-tight catsuit. Both outfits are EtherLight-branded, but they don't match other EtherLight personnel you see.
  • Mass Effect:
    • Mass Effect 2 provides the page quote above. Played with as Miranda is called out on her outfit during her loyalty mission:
      Enyala: I was waiting for you to finish getting dressed. Or does Cerberus really let you whore around in that outfit?
    • In Mass Effect 3, Ashley can typically sport either full armour, or a short blue tunic with a couple of metal doodads on the shoulders. She doesn't seem to have any problem with wearing it for the defense committee, either. Jack, when she shows up, is now an instructor at Grissom Academy but wears a midriff-bearing, cleavage-showing top under her coat instead of the jumpsuits the other instructors wear.
  • Metal Gear:
  • Shantae: The Ammo Army Soldiers Twitch and Vinegar wear custom uniforms that are much more revealing than what a normal Ammo Soldier would be issued. While Ammo Soldiers wear blue trenchcoats, and khaki fatigues pants as part of their uniform, Twitch wears a white crop-top with a frilly blue miniskirt, while Vinegar wears an orange bodysuit with blue pauldrons, and a blue miniskirt.
  • Valkyria Chronicles: Selvaria. The Empire doesn't exactly have a standardized uniform (unlike the good guys, emphasizing their lack of teamwork), but they are all Putting on the Reich, and Selvaria's outfit is the only one that has spike heels, skintight leggings, a mini-skirt with a hip-high slit up the side, and a backless halter top. She's also the only female villain.

    Visual Novels 

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • Whateley Universe:
    • Played with in Team Kimba. Fey, the most gorgeous girl on the team has a skintight uniform that even her teammates gawked at the first time she wore it. (But it's a superhero universe, so skintight uniforms, like Phase's, are the norm.) It's worse for Tennyo: she heals from any injury, while her costume doesn't, so she sometimes ends up half-naked or with a wardrobe malfunction.
    • Played with in Phase. Her outfit makes her figure look bigger...because of her body armor.

    Western Animation 
  • In Archer, when ISIS goes into outer space Lana still has Combat Stilettos and a spacesuit that only zips to mid-cleavage. And then she ends up stripped to underwear with no bra for the second half of the mission anyway.
  • In Teen Titans, the Titans don't share a uniform; however, in "The Quest" Robin is away, and the other Titans have fun dressing up in his outfit. However, Starfire's Robin outfit is noticeably tighter than the others and bares more midriff, since she's taller than he is; on Beast Boy, who is shorter than Robin, the uniform is loose, and Cyborg can't really wear it at all. It only fits properly on Raven.

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