She just "forgot" the rest of her clothes.
"But before I go, I want to show you my new blouse. [opens coat] Oops, I'm not wearing a blouse."
— Nikki, Just Shoot Me!
A woman (or occasionally a guy) is wearing a coat or similar covering, until she is talking to someone she wants to sleep with, or at least distract. Then she opens up and/or drops her covering to show that she's wearing nothing, or next to nothing, underneath. It doesn't matter what the cover is (a trenchcoat, a fur coat, or even a cardigan), or what is worn underneath (underwear, a swimsuit, or nothing at all), just so long as nothing else is being worn between them.
Now often this works, but just as often it can fall flat, especially if it's a guy trying this, in which it may be Played for Laughs.
Depending on the clothes, this can overlap with Of Corsets Sexy, Diamonds in the Buff, Naked in Mink, Going Fur a Swim, Sexy Discretion Shot, Distracted by the Sexy.
A Sub-Trope of Ready for Lovemaking.
A Sister Trope to Dress Hits Floor (although they don't overlap except in rare instances that she insists on calling her coat a dress).
Contrast Defeat by Modesty, Modesty Towel, Wardrobe Malfunction.
Not to be confused with just lifting your shirt or blouse, or with being a flasher in general — the one committing the act should be wearing a heavier outer garment to make a visual contrast between that and the fact that there's too little being worn beneath it.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Ayakashi Triangle: While throwing Matsuri a two-person birthday party, Suzu wears her usual hoodie, but makes it increasingly obvious there's no shorts underneath. After making a move on Matsuri, Suzu is slightly relieved it didn't get to the point of her disrobing. A peak out the bottom and background image imply she wasn't even wearing regular underwear beneath.
I did think wrapping a ribbon around my body was a bit too much.
- In episode 17 of in City Hunter Season 2 Saeko Nogami enlist Ryo Saeba's professional sniper skills in taking out terrorists holding a plane hostage on the tarmac. To prove she has no weapons, she boards the plane wearing nothing but her bra and panties under her trench coat.
- In Love Hina, Keitaro is acting oddly, so Kit goes in to test him using this trope. He doesn't notice.
- One Piece has the "Happiness PUNCH" of Nami.
Comic Books
- Evil Twin Madeline does this when seducing Harvey Dent, her sister's fiancee, in the story "Two of a Kind" in Batman: Black and White; removing her trenchcoat to reveal nothing but lingerie underneath.
- Omaha the Cat Dancer does this during her appearance in Munden's Bar Annual, opening her trenchcoat to reveal to the bar's patrons that she wasn't wearing anything under it.
Films — Live-Action
- In Bank Shot, Ballentine is sitting a steam cabinet when El comes in to show him several coats she's bought him. She starts with a trench coat which she takes off to show him a plaid coat underneath. She then takes off the plaid coat to show she is wearing nothing under it.
- Dr. Chase Meridian in Batman Forever.
- Big Daddy has this trope in reverse: Kristy Swanson gets out of bed with Adam Sandler, takes off an oversized T-shirt she has been wearing as pajamas, flashes a blood-red bra both to Adam and to millions of appreciative moviegoers, and then pulls on a gray jacket. That's right, no blouse - just the bra and the jacket.
- Angela (Robin Givens) does this for Marcus (Eddie Murphy) in Boomerang to apologize for being so late for their date.
- When Jill the Ripper has Nicole tied up in The Butchers, she throws off her opera cape to reveal some decidedly non-period lingerie.
- Don't Open Till Christmas: When outdoors with Cliff, Sharon opens her Santa coat to reveal she is wearing nothing but thigh boots and a leather thong under it.
- In Hairspray (2007), it's Played for Laughs in the song "Good Morning Baltimore." Describing the familiar sights of her neighborhood, Tracy cheerfully sings, "There's the flasher who lives next door!" The gent, wearing a large trench coat, tips her a wave and a smile, then turns around and opens his coat for three women. Judging from their horrified reaction, though, it's not sexy for anyone but him.note
- In Johnny Dangerously a tempting offer of a warm coat for cold winter nights is shown and then reveals a sparkly bikini for warm summer nights.
- In Killer Workout, Debbie leaves Chuck in the yard and goes inside to change out of her workout outfit. She comes back out wearing a long coat and, when Chuck says he has to get back to the cub, she persuades him to stay by shrugging off the coat to reveal a bikini.
- Weaponized by Oyuki in the Baby Cart In Peril installment of the Lone Wolf and Cub film series, who stuns her opponents by flashing her breasts - and more importantly, the shocking tattoos on them - at them.
- Used for Fan Disservice at the end of Lolita (1997) where middle-aged pervert Clare Quilty is wearing a bathrobe with nothing underneath.
- Invoked by Charly in The Long Kiss Goodnight. She flashes Mitch by opening her bathrobe to keep him distracted while she rips off his dressing.
- Anne Hathaway's character in Love & Other Drugs tries to do this to Jake Gyllenhaal, but his brother happens to be sleeping on the couch.
- Mannequin has a scene during a montage where Emy does this.
- In The Man with Two Brains, a prostitute reveals she has nothing but panties on under her coat.
- Men in Black II: the villain Serleena (a Shapeshifter who's assumed the form of an underwear model) does this just before taking over MIB headquarters.
- "Secretary" Ulla does this with her employer Max at one point in the original version of The Producers, shedding her long coat to reveal a bikini-like outfit: "We make love?" Max, stunned by some unrelated bad news, turns down the offer and absently tells her to "go to work". So she cheerfully turns on a record player and starts go-go dancing.
- Sam's mistress in Ruthless People shows up to his office in nothing but a teddy and dark mink coat.
- Early in Scary Movie 3, when Cindy is complaining to the news editor about how people want the facts instead of gratuitous boobage, she suddenly opens her blouse to show her bra-endowed boobs. Everyone in the newsroom stops what they're doing to watch her... and she keeps ranting without changing the subject.
- Shortcut to Happiness: While making her deal with Stone, the Devil strips off her orange leather trenchcoat to reveal a Little Black Dress with a Navel-Deep Neckline underneath.
- The 1932 Thelma Todd/ZaSu Pitts comedy short Show Business has an unusual variation: Through various complications, Todd's character winds up at a railroad station wearing only an overcoat over a skimpy black slip. Then another woman at the station mistakenly accuses Todd of having stolen her coat and summons a policeman who subsequently forces Todd to remove the coat in public.
- The title character in Silkwood.
- Hinted at but averted at the beginning of Stir Crazy. Gene Wilder's character, a house detective at a department store, accosts an attractive female customer (who also happens to be a prominent actress), telling her he knows that (a.) she's a shoplifter and (b.) she's got nothing on under her overcoat, both of which she angrily denies. One scene later we discover he's been fired, but we never do find out whether he was right.
- In Victor/Victoria, after King has Squash put Norma on a train out of town in order to get her to leave them alone, she does this in anger to him, declaring "You ain't seen the last of me yet!" She's got panties and no bra under her coat.
- Watchmen: While prowling the streets, Rorschach encounters a prostitute, who flashes him trying to seduce him for pay. He passes her by, and she hurls obscenities at him in anger.
- The pictures come from the Made-for-TV Movie Widow On The Hill.
Literature
- In 1632, Gretchen almost does this with a bathrobe to Jeff Higgins but decides to stop at the last moment. (It works anyway.)
- Dashti of Shannon Hale's Book of a Thousand Days does a variation on the distraction kind, the difference being that she's not trying to be kinky.
- Clodia in Lustrum (Conspirata in the United States) visits Cicero's house late at night to beg him to aid her brother Clodius, who was caught attempting to infiltrate a secret religious ritual meant only for women by disguising himself as a young girl. When he refuses, she strips off her cloak, revealing that she is naked underneath. That doesn't work either.
- A plot point in Split Second, the first novel in the King & Maxwell series by David Baldacci. Secret Service agent Sean King fails to protect a presidential candidate from assassination because he was distracted for a moment (the titular split second), but he refuses to describe what he was looking at during the investigation into the incident, leading to his dismissal from the Secret Service. The villain of the book arranged for Sean's then-wife to flash him at the crucial moment, allowing the assassin to shoot the candidate before Sean could react.
Live-Action TV
- Played with in an episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun, where Sally goes to work as a secretary for a boss majorly guilty of sexual harassment. Her boss at one point comments that he can't help wondering what she's wearing underneath her blouse. She opens it to show him an embroidered bra, smiling and oblivious.
- Autopsy The Last Hours Of's recreation of the last days of Chris Farley's life showed a prostitute he hired opening her fur coat to reveal sexy lingerie underneath (presumably the timeslot would not allow Naked in Mink).
- Banacek: Banacek's Girl of the Week does this in "Fly Me—If You Can Find Me," wearing a raincoat with nothing on underneath it.
- A downplayed example in The Big Bang Theory has Amy Farrah Fowler removing her coat to reveal a "Catholic schoolgirl" outfit. Needless to say, as usual, it doesn't work on Sheldon.
- In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2 episode "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered", a love spell-affected Buffy comes at Xander wearing a trenchcoat and (it's implied) nothing else (except high heels). She doesn't get the chance to do any actual flashing before Amy turns her into a rat.
- Cagney & Lacey: In the opening credits of the show there is a sequence of a man in a coat flashing the detectives as they arrest another criminal. Since this is set in The Big Rotten Apple, the reaction of the two female leads is just to roll their eyes and tell the guy to get lost.
- Castle: in "Murder, He Wrote," Castle and Beckett are going to enjoy a nightly bath in his Hamptons' pool when she takes off her robe, revealing that she "forgot" her bathing suit.
- in the Chicago Fire episode That Day, Paramedic Sylvie Brett uses this method to seduce Detective Antonio Dawson (brother of her ambulance partner Gabby) at his apartment after a few episodes of flirting and build up. Antonio drops his beer bottle trying to put it down, not having expected it at all.
- In Coupling, Jane decides to do this on a dinner-at-his-house date with a new guy. Unfortunately, she wasn't told that that the dinner was for her and a big group of his friends. After she eventually loses her coat to a little girl next door, she just walks out of his apartment naked.
- Hawkes' girlfriend Camille does it at the end of CSI: NY episode "Food for Thought."
- Grand theft Sexy happens in Dead Like Me using this trope when Daisy Adair acquires a particular hot and silver convertible from a man.
- Bree does this in the first season of Desperate Housewives.
- Drew does it to surprise Kate when the two are dating on The Drew Carey Show. Unfortunately, Kate has organised a surprise dinner with her grandparents.
- Friends: Joey shows up in his bathrobe claiming to be but the rest of the gang already know he's lying to hide that he's throwing a party. They demand he take his robe off assuming he's wearing his party clothes underneath because that's what Rachel was doing. Turns out Joey was actually naked underneath and just flashed Charlie who he ends up dating by the end of the episode.
- In Gossip Girl, Blair shows up at Chuck's office like this, wanting to have sex after the unbearable dry patch of five days. He doesn't oblige.
- In Grimm episode "Bears Will Be Bears," Gilda seduces her boyfriend by suggestively opening a fur coat she's wearing to reveal her lingerie-clad body.
- When Finch was dating a model (who turned out to be just a little loopy) in Just Shoot Me!, she shows up one day doing this.
- In another episode, Maya plans to try this on Elliot, but then Elliot's girlfriend invites her to dinner, and she has to go with nothing under her overcoat.
- The Last Detective. In "The Man from Montevideo" Mod's new girlfriend Katrina does this to Dangerous when he opens the door.
- Legends of Tomorrow. In "Tender is the Nate", to celebrate Ava Sharpe's birthday, Sara Lance saunters into her office wearing high heels and a longcoat that she opens to reveal black bra, panties and stockings. Humor happens before sex happens when Hank Heywood barges into the room and Sara has to use her ninja skills to remain out of sight.
- Mad About You once had Jamie doing this when wearing a Modesty Towel to convince a man to borrow his cellphone.
- In the Married... with Children episode "The Egg and I", Marcy does this twice to her ex-husband, Steve, just to show him what he'll never have again. Al sees it both times and needs Brain Bleach. This happens again with Jessica Hawn as a shoe groupie.
- The Mentalist: At the end of "Red Listed," Van Pelt shows up to collect Rigsby and opens her coat to real she is wearing nothing but black lingerie and high heels, before dragging him off to a hotel for their delayed honeymoon.
- In the Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, in the "Blood and Circuses" episode, Phryne reveals her circus costume to Inspector Robinson in this way.
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, of all series, has probably THE example of a Fan Disservice take on this trope. The See Monster from Season 3 was a grotesque, trench coat flasher-themed Monster of the Week who attacked by shooting beams from the eyes all over his body. His Super Sentai counterpart, Mokumokuren from Ninja Sentai Kakuranger, was a total creep who posed as a Prince Charming esque character to trick Tsuruhime into marrying him.
- Claire tries it on Modern Family while doing fantasy role-playing with Phil in a hotel. Then the coat gets caught on the escalator.
- Subverted in Monty Python's Flying Circus, where a Dirty Old Man, his back to the camera, opens his macintosh to passing women who react with horror. Then he turns and opens it to the camera, revealing he's fully-dressed and wearing a sign that reads "Boo!".
- My Name Is Earl: Joy's trying to get pregnant in order to keep from going to prison. She comes over to Earl's motel room dressed only in an overcoat, but Earl doesn't fall for it.
- One episode of MythBusters involved viral videos, one of which was fainting goats. Kari has the idea that flashing them would make them faint. It doesn't work - on the goats. Tory, on the other hand...
Tory: Wasn't ready for that one, Kari...
- The pilot for New Girl has the title character doing this...and discovering, at the worst possible time and in the worst possible manner, that her boyfriend is cheating on her.
- The Canadian sitcom Package Deal has a character's girlfriend doing this at his apartment door
, only to realize that his male roommates are also there.
- The Price Is Right: Subverted in a notorious 2008 episode featuring a cameo by Jack Wagner, who – in an episode-long running gag to promote The Young and the Restless – showed up several times during the show, claiming he was annoyed at the goings-on of the show. During a Showcase Showdown, the trope kicks into effect where Wagner, clad in a robe, "flashes" Carey. Wagner likely was dressed in shorts and a shirt, but the way the gag played out drew negative criticism for what was implied to have taken place.
- Nora Gracen attempting to seduce Jim Profit in Profit. She comes into his office in a trenchcoat, she drops it to the floor, and when she's about to kiss Profit, her husband appears in the outer office. Gail has to stall him so she can get her coat back on.
- Selfie: Eliza tries the "not wearing anything underneath" variation out on Henry, under the guise of giving back the coat he'd let her borrow her earlier in the episode. Henry is clearly tempted and says as much, but then resorts to an I Need to Go Iron My Dog type excuse to get out of there.
- Inverted in the Sherlock episode A Scandal in Belgravia. Irene Adler waltzes in to talk to the heroes completely naked and remains so until eventually a squicked Sherlock and an uncomfortable John decide to give her Sherlock's coat to cover up. She then spends the rest of the scene wearing only the coat, making camera shots easier. Ostensibly, she did this to remain mysterious by making the Sherlock Scan that much more difficult — and also to throw the boys off balance, giving her an advantage in the battle of wits. It worked.
- In South of Nowhere, Spencer shows up at Ashley's house in only a trenchcoat.
- Backfires in spectacular fashion on Still Standing. Judy tries the nothing underneath variant to surprise Bill at work. And gets stopped by a security guard. Naturally, he thinks she's stealing, but she can't show what's under the coat. He takes her to a security room and goes to find Bill. Bill arrives and she shows him. Then he reveals that the mirror is one-way.
- Fan Disservice example in a notorious skit on The Tonight Show in the 1970s. Two trousered young women walk along a street and (in a parody of a popular commercial from the era) brag about their no-panty-line hosiery, which makes them each feel "like I'm wearing nothing." Johnny Carson, dressed in a trench coat and fedora, overhears the girls and forces them to admit that they really are wearing underwear. Then he announces: "Well, I'm not!" and tears open his coat to reveal (implied) frontal nudity, chasing the two screaming girls off.
- On Ugly Betty, Amanda does this as she's leaving Daniel's apartment after hooking up with him.
- Whodunnit? (UK): In "Final Trumpet", Aerolita claims to have seen (accompanied by a flashback), Nola seducing the Repulsive Ringmaster by knocking on his caravan door wearing a plastic mac and then throwing it open to reveal her Lovely Assistant costume—a spangly bikini—underneath.
Music
- Aerosmith makes use of this trope in the song "Crazy."
But, I know you ain't wearin' nothin' underneath that overcoat. And it's all a show.
- The Dixie Chicks were known to do this to several of their fellow country music acts during (the other stars') live concerts, most notably Kenny Chesney.
- Fall Out Boy's music video for I Don't Care has this.
- KISS evoked this trope with their 1988 single "Let's Put the 'X' in 'Sex'."
Professional Wrestling
Theatre
- Not Now Darling, a farce by Ray Cooney and John Chapman involving shenanigans at an exclusive London fur store. A Running Gag involves a model in a fur coat who claims she's got nothing underneath. Whenever someone displays skepticism over this, she opens her coat so they can have an eyeful (she's always facing away from the audience of course).
Video Games
- Happens with Trent Coat's second appearance in Amateur Surgeon: he shows up in the Abandoned Hospital wearing only red underpants under his coat, and if the multiple stab wounds and scorpions he's afflicted with are any indication, it didn't exactly work out for him.
- Referenced in Psychonauts with the Clairvoyance Psi-power in the Black Velvetopia level: using it on any of the window maidens will reveal they see Raz as a Dirty Old Man about to do this if he's not holding a rose, explaining why you need one to hide from El Odio with them.
Webcomics
- Subverted and Lampshaded by the homosexual swordsman Szark Sturz in this Dominic Deegan comic.
- Subverted in El Goonish Shive, Tedd eagerly invites Grace in upon discovering she is wearing nothing but a trench coat but is disappointed when she says the reason for doing so it isn't sexual. It is only much later that it is revealed that she thought that the sexual nature of it was just because it involved wearing only a trench coat as opposed to an association of nudity with sex (this was just to cover the plot hole created by her being aware of such innuendo when her personality later developed into being more innocent than Dan Shive had originally imagined it).
- Grrl Power has an unusual accidental case in the form of Punch-Clock Villain Jabberwokky, whose coat falls open in the middle of a fight to reveal she's only wearing fishnet under it. Fortunately for Jabberwokky, her current opponent is the Dirty Old Man Math, who gets so Distracted by the Sexy that she is able to knock him out immediately. Unfortunately for Jabberwokky, her next opponent is Dabbler, the one opponent who can automatically outdo her in winning via sexiness.
- In Joe vs. Elan School, Joe's college music tutor warns Joe about a crazy girl that once tried to get the tutor to sleep with her by showing up to a lesson wearing a raincoat with nothing underneath.
- This is how Seraphim takes out Asmodeus in Megatokyo.
- Ménage à 3: Peggy finds herself accidentally flashing others of the cast when she has been so distracted by the need to prepare for an orgy that she forgot to dress properly. Weirdly enough, she and others treat turning up to an orgy under-dressed as an error.
- In the first chapter of Sunstone, Lisa visits Allison's place for her second night with her wearing nothing but heels, stockings and a garter belt under her coat, something she didn't really have the guts to do on the first night.
- Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic:
- Male drow Wolf is shown to assure a female of his, hum, best intentions and relevant adequacy, in this way. He gets yet another promotion.
- Lewie the Lich gets a mind-controlled drow queen to perform this for him because he always wanted to... too bad he can't remember why by now (being undead, his sex drive is nowhere what it was in life...).
Web Original
- In the Italian webseries Insopportabilmente Donna, Tess Masazza to get her ex-boyfriend back appears at his apartment's door dressed only with a black trenchcoat, hands him a red rose and strips to the music of Marilyn Monroe's "I wanna be loved by you". Unfortunately, her ex's new girlfriend is at home…
Western Animation
- A warped version on The Mask: The Animated Series episode "Flight as a Feather." When Cookie BaBoom (Mayor Tilton's ex-girlfriend — a strip — er, "exotic dancer") gets stopped from rushing the City Hall stairs by Mayor Tilton's assistant, Smedley, Cookie flashes Smedley by opening her trenchcoat. One would expect Smedley to be distracted by her naked body. Turns out she's not naked — or rather, she wouldn't be naked until later — what she had hidden under the trenchcoat was two megatons worth of explosions strapped across her hips and breasts like a makeshift bikini. And then the Mask gives her a Shameful Strip, leaving her naked and a failure.
- In the Tex Avery MGM cartoon, Who Killed Who?, the cop looks into a room with a flashlight. As a series of paintings seen from a left-to-right pan shot, a painting of a redhead lady in a coat is seen, holding it open to reveal a sexy yellow one-piece swimsuit. But when the flashlight goes back to it, the lady has her coat closed!
- The Fairly OddParents!: In the episode "Miss Dimmsdale", Mrs. Turner takes off her robe and shows off her swimsuit to her son much to his disgust.
