French Maid Outfit

aka: Maid Of Sexy Outfit

Ooh-la-la.

"Yvette was not only a French maid; she was a fetishist’s dream of a French maid, and she had an outfit to match: a glossy black dress, cut high on the thigh and low on the bosom, so tight it whined when she walked. A starched white cap was perched absurdly atop her head, and a starched white apron was slung low across her waist, like a remembrance of chastity."

— Clue (the novel)

The French Maid Outfit is a form of fetish, a type of Fanservice or both, made (or perhaps maid?) to call to mind the French Maid character type (or, if in Japanese media such as Anime and Manga, the Meido character type). They are a favorite Halloween costume and often appear in sexual roleplaying. High-heeled shoes or boots and fishnet or black, back-seamed stockings are standard parts of this outfit, which may sometimes include fancy leather or lace gloves as well. As the page image shows, the dress always has a short skirt to show off the wearer's legs.

The Meido variant, while still very much a form of fanservice, tends to be more conservatively cut than the Western costume it was based on. The fantasy comes from the subservience and Moe-ness of the wearer rather than more blatant sexuality.

For the characters, rather than the costumes, see French Maid and Meido. Might find use in a Cosplay Café ("maid cafés" are a common variant, with the waitresses often donning French Maid Outfits).

Compare to Mini Dress Of Power and Sexy Santa Dress. See also Power Dynamics Kink, Unequal Pairing.

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Examples

Advertisement

• One Bud Light commercial had a woman phone her husband at work, "Guess who's going to be wearing a French maid outfit after work?" Cut to outside their apartment, where they both have the outfit on.
  "Oh, you meant...yeah"
• Another commercial for Dannon La Creme brand yogurt has a man and a French maid; then their kids come in and we discover they were role-playing. The kids were Squicked.
• A Verizon commercial for its NHL streaming services has a wife dressed up as a French maid preparing for a fantastic night with her husband. When her husband comes bursting into the bedroom in hockey gear, his excuse is, "You said 'fantasy'!"

Anime and Manga

• Mine in Fruits Basket wears one (made by Ayame presumably) as her uniform for working in the shop...but she wears it when she's not working too.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers
  • The French maid is just one of the examples of phrases used by the author in one strip to explain how the Anglo-Francais rivalry is expressed in their language (as in, in French, adding that 'anglais' means the item is dull, vulgar and tasteless, and in English, 'French' as a prefix means something is racy). However, the only real maid drawn is the English chambermaid - the 'French maid' is France in a French maid costume.
  • During the Hetalia Bloodbath 2010, Hong Kong was forced to wear one of these.
  • One April Fools' 2011 sketch shows Japan wearing one of these too. And managing to look completely badass while doing so.
  • The infamous instance where Russia forced Lithuania to dress like this. And then whipped him while he was working (at least, in Lithuania's flashback). There's a little basis for this, maid-inspired outfits were a common thing in the Soviet Union, such as girls' school uniforms. This is also shown with Russia's sister Belarus, who wears a maid-inspired Elegant Gothic Lolita dress Russia gave her even today, but her's is much more modest (though she's still quite the Ms. Fanservice)
• Maid costumes are one of the many strange "punishment games" Mion inflicts on the other club members in Higurashi: When They Cry. Dr. Irie gets a little too excited about seeing Satoko in one.
• In Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, Roxas disguises himself in this type of outfit while sneaking into the White Rabbit's home (looking for food to restore Luxord's original size). However, the Rabbit sees through the disguise and puts him on trial.
• In K-On! on a few occasions.
  • Especially their infamous first live performance. Azusa hates the part of herself that's started to think of it as normal.
  • Ritsu thought they should do a Maid Cafe for their first year festival, as Mio is really suited to the look. "The adorable power of cute compels you!"
• The Negima!? (second season) second anime has Chachamaru often appearing in a maid outfit most of the time she is on screen, except during school hours.
• The "Tanks for the Memories!" episode of Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl sees the gang helping out at a Maid Cafe because the joint was temporarily understaffed (Brock was training one of the maids working there). This results in Dawn, Ash (again!) and even some of their mons dressing up in these outfits.
• In the Martial Arts Dining storyarc of Ranma ½, Akane and Soun dress as French maids to infiltrate the Mansion Ranma is staying at.
• Two characters in SHUFFLE! end up in maid costumes: Nerine and Primula, the latter including Cat Girl accessories, when they're helping Rin out cleaning his new appartment.
• Himeko wears a maid outfit during the school festival in Sket Dance, since her class is doing, unsurprisingly, a Maid Cafe. The costume makes a reappearance in a later chapter, in which Himeko agrees to do anything Bossun says as an apology for breaking his hand. This includes dressing up as a maid, calling him 'master' and hand feeding him. Of course, Hilarity Ensues.

Asian Animation

• Happy Heroes: Played for Laughs in episode 48, where Big M. dons a French maid outfit while babysitting the Supermen. The joke seems to be that, since Big M. is a gonk, he doesn't make for a particularly cute maid.

Comic Books

• Deadpool: Worn mostly inexplicably by Deadpool in issue 20 of Way's run. He was on an assassin's hitlist at the time, so maybe he thought he needed a disguise?
• Empowered: The Goddamned Maidman is a subversion, being essentially Batman if Bats dressed as a French maid instead of a bat.
• Gen¹³: There is a picture by J. Scott Campbell featuring Caitlin Fairchild in a French maid uniform, feather duster and all.
• Spider-Man:
  • During the Spider-Man/Human Torch miniseries, the Torch and She-Hulk meet at his apartment to go to a costume party. Johnny dresses up as Spidey, while Jennifer shows up in a trenchcoat concealing one of these outfits. "Johnny-sense tingling..."
  • Mentioned as a gag during the Sins Remembered arc. Peter's looking for the kids from Sins Past in France. His thought process is basically, "This table is spotless" → "I've got to get one of those French maids...or maybe just Mary Jane in a French maid outfit. Why is that outfit so popular with guys? Must be the feather duster."
• Superman: According to at least one Silver Age story, the Daily Planet requires its top female reporters to dress like this and act as waitresses at staff parties.
• X-Men: In an old comic, Hellfire Club waitresses wore French Maid outfits.

Fan Works

• Fanfiction author Khaosomega repeatedly deploys this type of outfit on multiple characters, including:
  • Kazuya (who makes it his favorite feminine outfit partly after Lily's botched disguise remover followed by the fruit Anise consumes on Sprite bringing back Katherine as an actual girl sharing his body);
  • Lily (specifically set by Jet to only allow her signature black platform stiletto ankle boots);
  • Dawn (on at least three occasions, one of which is during The Shiranami Chronicles where her mystery quirk is activated because of Katherine);
  • Anise (tries to get out of it during Diamond Coordinator but is unsuccessful; despite the sadistically extreme high heels she goes surprisingly conservative);
  • Jet (uses this for his Striaton Gym battle in Chronogenisys Absalon, having kept his original outfit (paired with ballet flats) for the first four runs before it); and
  • Leaf (as Cyan Star Zenon's version of Ash, at the Maid Cafe in Sinnoh; Jet got lucky there wasn't a maid outfit in his size allowing him to spend more time on strategies for upcoming battles)
• In The Lonely Letters Fred, George and Fleur play a prank where Draco ends up in one. Every time Snape tries to return him to normal, the skirt flies up.
• Naru-Hina Chronicles Mini-sodes: When Hinata asks Sakura and Ino some advice on how to make Naruto tell her that he loves her, Sakura suggests to make some instant ramen for him. However, much to Sakura's annoyance, Ino suggests to Hinata to wear a sexy maid outfit and to act the part right while serving the ramen to Naruto.
• The New Look Series has both Shikamaru and Fuyuki in this costume while in their respective predicaments.

Film — Live-Action

• In Air Doll, the title character, upon acquiring sentience, looks around in her owner's flat for clothes to put on. All the female outfits she finds are fetish-oriented, and she settles on a maid uniform as the most wearable one for going out.
• In American Wedding, one of the strippers Stifler hires is dressed as a French Maid.
• In Barbie (2023), after Stereotypical Barbie returns to Barbieland from the Real World, it's revealed that most of the other Barbies have been brainwashed into becoming subservient eye candy for the Kens, and many of them wear French maid outfits. After Physicist Barbie is deprogrammed, the first thing she asks is why she's wearing such a ridiculous outfit.
• In Clue, Yvette is an exaggerated French Maid and wears one of these. The excessively sexy costume is justified, in fact: she's an American prostitute who has been hired to spy on the main characters.
• In Django Unchained, one of Candie's slave girls is made to wear this.
• Groundhog Day: Phil's date when he goes to the cinema is dressed up as one of these.
• Jennifer Aniston wears one in Friends with Money. Kind of a subversion in that she actually does housework for a while.
• The Island (2005): While helping the clones Lincoln and Jordan on the outside, James gives them some civilian clothes so they can blend in, their Future Spandex making them stand out like a sore thumb. Rummaging through James's closet, Jordan sees a French maid costume that presumably belongs to his girlfriend Suzie. James has to teach her that certain clothes aren't worn in public.
• The Man Who Knew Too Little: Lori, the femme fatale, dresses up like this when she's expecting a visit from her lover.
• Moulin Rouge!: Each of the Can-Can dancers at the titular club has a specific theme to her costume based on a Fanservice archetype. One of them is, fittingly for a story set in Paris, dressed as a French Maid.
• Magenta wears one of these in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
• In Scavenger Hunt (1979), Babbette is an actual French Maid who wears the outfit as her uniform. This is not too surprising given that the little we see of her late employer Mr. Parker indicates that he was something of a Dirty Old Man.
• In the 1934 short Soft Drinks and Sweet Music all the waitresses in a soda parlor are wearing French maid outfits and perform a musical number.

Literature

• David Wingrove's Chung Kuo has many of these; in every case a Chinese maid to one of the T'ang lords or the princes.
• In Ghost of a Dream, Melody comes on to Happy by reminding him of the French Maid Outfit she'd spotted in a shop window the other day. Happy adamantly objects, as he's already told her he won't wear the thing.
• In Sarah Caudwell's Hilary Tamar's The Shortest Way to Hades, Selena and Julia are invited to a party by a grateful client, who has utterly misunderstood the nature of their relationship - as has his, uh, friend, who answers the door in "a black dress, black stockings and a little white pinafore."
  "In brief, an old-fashioned parlour maid."
  "Your 'in brief' is appropriate; your 'old-fashioned' less so. When I say that she wore stockings rather than tights, I do not speak from surmise."

Live-Action TV

• Subverted when Lindsay Funke of Arrested Development needs an "I'll do anything" type favor from attorney Bob Loblaw. He tells her to come to his house in a maid's outfit. Cut to: a suburban street where Lindsay, in a French Maid outfit, is taking out the trash (alongside other maids in real maids outfits).
• A hilarious inversion took place on The Big Bang Theory when Howard got Sheldon to wear one.
• On Boy Meets World, Topanga in a French maid outfit is used for a brief sight gag.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In "Dead Things" Warren uses a Mind Control device on his ex-girlfriend, making her wait on them while wearing a sex-shop French maid outfit.
• The b-plot of CSI: NY's episode, "Murder Sings the Blues" involved the murder of a guy who required his live-in housekeepers to dress this way...and to have blonde hair and blue eyes. A blue contact lens found at the scene turns out to be a Red Herring.
• Doctor Who:
  • "Rise of the Cybermen"/"The Age of Steel": Rose spends a good chunk of the story dressed similarly to this after going undercover as a waitress at a fancy party.
  • "The Eleventh Hour": When we meet her as an adult, Amy Pond is dressed as a Fair Cop. When the Doctor questions her disguise, Amy tells him it was "this or a French maid".
• In the episode "Gold Fever" of The Dukes of Hazzard, Boss Hogg has Daisy dress up as a French maid (even though she's a waitress) in order to impress a rich Texan.
• Frasier:
  • Bulldog convinces Frasier to cast his girlfriend as the maid in the radio play Frasier is producing. After Frasier agrees Bulldog announces that he'll need to buy one of these costumes for her.
    Frasier: It's radio, Bulldog, she doesn't have to appear in costume.
    Bulldog: Maybe here she doesn't.
  • The fetish is also mentioned in an episode where Daphne startles Niles by speaking in an American accent. Once he's over the shock he asks her if she can do "a saucy French maid."
• For a school event, the students in the Japanese version of Hana-Kimi decide to have a Maid Cafe. With all the guys dressing up in maid costumes to gain more female customers.
• Have You Been Paying Attention?: In the episode first broadcast on 24 July 2023, the Running Gag of having Tom inserted into the ad for the sponsor Nissan Pajero had him dressed in a French maid outfit. Needless to say, this piece of Fan Disservice got callbacks from the panel for the rest of the night.
• On the first season of The Joe Schmo Show, a bit of Fan Disservice involved Hutch, one of the guys, being dressed up in one of these as a penalty outfit for losing a challenge.
• Definite Dad Service in the British Saturday morning kids' show Ministry Of Mayhem, with Holly Willoughby, a maid's outfit, and cream cakes being splattered about.
• Luckily, we're only told that Hetty of NCIS: Los Angeles has a French maid outfit.
• In Japanese drama Shōkōjo Seira, Seira is forced to wear one of these. It serves the purpose to increase her moeness.
• In the season eight premiere of Smallville, Lois uses one as a disguise.
• Swingtown: One scene has Trina Decker dress up in a French maid outfit to seduce her husband as he films her.

Magazines

• The magazine London Life (1920-1960) was "infamous for readers' letters about dress fetishes", including this trope.
  BAS DE SOIE: “I love the costume of a French maid above all other styles, and because I first met my own sporty little wife at a private fancy dress ball, where she was dressed in the most chic and daring French maid’s costume you could imagine.”

Manhua

• When Long Wei is told he's god of the alternative world in Infinity Game, he does a couple of tests to see if it's a very complicated trick. He decides that the obvious ones like making money fall from the ceiling could easily be organised so he makes D.D. change her clothes into a maid's outfit as it's something unpredictable. This eventually becomes a Chekhov's Gun as it's part of the world he created and becomes important at the end.

Professional Wrestling

• In WWE, Maryse's choice of costume for the 2008 Cyber Sunday's divas costume contest.

Tabletop Games

• Reaper Miniatures has a "Brigitte, Naughty French Maid" model in their Chronoscope line.

Video Games

• From the Dead or Alive series, Ayane, Helena, Hitomi, Honoka, Kasumi, Kokoro, Lei Fang, Mai, Marie, Mila, Momiji, Naotora, Nyotengu and Tina have this as a costume in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round.
• Every maid in the Neverwinter Nights module A Dance with Rogues. Then again, the entire world is perverted (including giant demonic dogs that want to have sex with human women and completely ordinary dogs that want to have sex with human women), so it is sort of justified.
• In Elsword, the Ice Burner costume set "Royal Maid/Servant" puts the girl characters in maid outfits (and the males in a tuxedo).
• Fire Emblem:
  • Fire Emblem Fates Felicia and Flora wear French Maid outfits, as their classes are specifically "Maid".
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses released "Servant Attire" for every student character in its third wave of DLC. For the boys, it was a butler's uniform. For the girls, it was maid this. In addition, an entire battalion of maids is able to be purchased about halfway through the game on any storyline if the DLC has been added.
• Galaxy Angel II:
  • The first game has a maid outfit show up as crossdressing for Kazuya Shiranami in what eventually becomes Natsume Izayoi's route (courtesy of Melba).
  • Anise dresses like a maid in her route, after eating a cursed fruit that makes her act girly.
• A French maid costume is unlockable for female characters in Guitar Hero: World Tour.
• Nidalee the Bestial Huntress from League of Legends has a French Maid skin (which also turns her cougar form into a black panther).
• One of the unlockable costumes in Lollipop Chainsaw is a French maid uniform.
• Persona:
  • Persona 3:
    • The Main Character's ever-original classmates decide to do a Maid Cafe for their School Festival. Yukari dreads it from the depths of her spirit because it means wearing a maid uniform; Junpei and the rest of the male schoolmates look forward to this cherished event. Alas, a typhoon rips through Iwatodai and the School Festival is canceled, to the endless grief of said schoolmates (and the Main Character is also asked if he mourns the loss.) In the Persona 3 FES release, the surveillance camera skits show Yukari in her dorm room; she had indeed procured an authentic maid uniform, not a costume, and gripes loudly about how everyone wanted to see her in it. Eventually, she gives in to curiosity and wears it, and pantomimes serving a costumer. When Fuuka catches her, Yukari cheerfully ropes her into the game and dresses her in a spare uniform.
    • There's also a series of "Maid Uniform" costumes for the female members of the party to wear during the Dark Hour, as rewards for Elizabeth's requests. Aigis will find it odd if you ask her to wear one, but Yukari and Mitsuru will chew you out considerably for it. And of course, you can get all three of them in the party at the same time, wearing those outfits. In the portable remake the female main character can wear one as well, so you can defeat the forces of evil with a party of maids. Additionally, if she wears the costume while dating Akihiko or Shinjiro, they have...interesting reactions.
  • Persona 5: The servers at the maid cafe you can visit in Akihabara all wear the standard frilly black and white maid outfits, as does NPC Sadayo Kawakami in her second job as a "health delivery girl."
• Piratez: One of the few ways for the protagonists to get into the Endless Mansion is to wear these.
• Some Rabbids wear them for comedic effect.
• Rumble Roses allows the player to make the human females dress like this.
• The Sims:
  • If your Sims hire a maid, she's dressed like this. Male maids wear funny pastel shirts open at the neck, possibly intended to be sexy. Or Camp Gay.
  • Kaylynn Langerak is the French maid in The Sims 2. She's having an affair with Daniel Pleasant. This may or may not be due to her costume.
  • In the original The Sims, there were third-party mods where you could create NPC's with French-maid costumes of varying degrees of risqueness.
• Iroha from the Samurai Shodown series is a Ninja Maid who literally dresses like a cross between a French maid and a kunoichi.
• Lynette the shopkeeper in Soulcalibur III dresses in the classic maid outfit; since she also represents the "Tambourine" fighting style, this makes her a Fighting Clown among the cast.
• In Super Paper Mario, the first time the player sees Mimi (outside of the first scene in Castle Bleck, where she only appears in the forms of other characters), she is dressed in a french maid outfit and claiming to be working as a maid for Merlee. Once the Final Boss is defeated and most of Count Bleck's minions did Heel Face Turns, Mimi can be found in the mansion again, this time as a legitimate maid.

Visual Novels

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations has Phoenix's assistant Maya Fey being briefly roped into working in a Cosplay Café called "Trés Bien" whose waitresses sport colorful French maid costumes. The restaurant's clientele (all one of them) don't think much of how she looks in it at first; it takes her channeling her sister Mia's spirit, which considerably alters her body shape to more fully fill out the outfit with her assets, turning the client into putty in her hands.

Webcomics

• Eerie Cuties has Eleanor, the housekeeper for Layla and Nina's family. She's a subversion, though— Eleanor wears the outfit, but as for sexy... she's anything but.
• In El Goonish Shive, during the explanation of Sarah's simulated time stop Catalina is depicted as wearing this at one point.
• Girl Genius: The Royal Princesses' maid Mary wears a more modest take on the black and white maid uniform, with a skirt that reaches mid-calf but an impractically short apron which calls to mind the more risque hemline associated with the costume in more fetish orientated works. Lady Steelgarter's maid Astarte wears a version with a short skirt to show off her stockinged legs.
• In Out There, Miriam decides the costume is ideal for cleaning Ari's condominium, and for seducing her.
• In Sluggy Freelance, Zoe wore one in her introduction arc to impress the guys. Unfortunately, it turned out Torg was wearing the same costume, prompting him to sulkingly change clothes.

Web Original

• CHAINSAW MAID, animated by Takena Nagao, is a Stop Motion short featuring an attractive maid saving her family from horrible zombies. One part fetish, one part horror, but 100% awesome.
• Gaia Online has a "Meido" set, consisting of headbands, two types of aprons, and poofy dresses, in several colours. The possibilities are endless. Interestingly, there's also an older set of "Maid" items, which are a bit more French Maid-style.
• French Maid TV. A series of self-help videos by... women in French Maid costumes?
• In the Whateley Universe, when Phase is hosting a party for the campus rich kids, he gets some of the sexiest girls on campus to play maid, and he buys them tailored French maid costumes complete with short skirts and high heels... in order to distract everyone from noticing that they are spying on them for him. Or so he says. There's even Fan Art of it now.

Western Animation

• In the 101 Dalmatian Street episode "Yappily Ever After", Dolly is made to wear one whilst serving Clarissa and her friends.
• Adventure Time: In "Root Beer Guy", Root Beer Guy's wife Cherry Cream Soda tries to get his attention by dressing in a French maid costume. He's too preoccupied with the fact Finn and Jake apparently kidnapped Princess Bubblegum to notice her.
• Francine of American Dad! wears one in "A Smith in the Hand". A blonde stripper wears a similar outfit to Francine's in "Stan Knows Best".
• Hello Nurse wore this costume in Animaniacs in order to teach the Warner siblings table manners. Given that she's the Trope Namer for the Trope she's named after, she really didn't need any other reason.
• Lana from Archer has worn this outfit a couple times while undercover.
• Timmy Turner from The Fairly OddParents! was forced to dress like this; one in "Power Pals!" and the other "Home Wrecker" (complete with fishnet stockings). Wanda donned such a disguise in "Channel Chasers" to match Cosmo's Alfred-esque appearance.
• Boog was forced to wear a maid outfit by Fanboy and Chum Chum in the episode "Chimp Chomp Chumps".
• The Great North: In Season 2 "You've Got Math Adventure", when a wild moose gets attached to the Tobins' family van, Wolf's plan for luring the moose away from the van is to dress as a female moose with a French maid dress. The song during the end credits is Wolf with said costume singing how he's a French lady moose.
• The Jetsons: When Jane goes shopping for a robot, in the first episode ("Rosey the Robot"), one of the models is a French maid robot in a metallic French maid outfit.
• Buck Strickland makes Luanne wear one for one of her boxing matches in the King of the Hill episode “Boxing Luanne”, Hank is not pleased and makes her change out of it.
• Discord wears one at the end of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Princess Twilight Sparkle". This is notably not played for fanservice, as Discord is a giant Mix-and-Match Critter (and male).
• SpongeBob SquarePants wore a maid outfit somewhere during the episode "Can You Spare a Dime" where Squidward had to stay at his house. It was completely backless and that he was wearing nothing but briefs.

Real Life

• Maid Cafes, similar to those found in Japan, have been tried a few times in North America, with varying degrees of success.
• In a massive case of Fan Disservice, Alice Cooper on the Top Gear show recalled having Keith Moon stay at his house while he was out of town - he came home to find Moon wearing a French Maid outfit. Cooper's wife: "Who is that guy?!"

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