Follow TV Tropes

Following

Sexy Soaked Shirt

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/joe_manganiello.png
Learn to wash your clothes while still wearing them and look sexy while doing it!

On seeing that the fish had been cooked, the girls emerged from the pool, their fishing done, with their thin white dresses clinging to their flesh so as to conceal almost nothing of their dainty bodies.... The King, the Count, and the others who were waiting upon him had been eying the girls most attentively, and each of them had secretly much admired their beauty and shapeliness, as well as their charm and impeccable manners, but it was upon the King that they made the deepest impression. Indeed, he had studied every part of their bodies as they emerged from the water, that if anyone had pinched him at that moment he would not have noticed.
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, Day X, Story 6

Very common form of fanservice when characters' clothes get wet, and often clingy and see-through as well. It can be caused by rain, spilled drinks, throwing someone into a pool, playing in a fountain and so on.

With men, it's becoming quite popular to have this instead of a Walking Shirtless Scene when being entirely shirtless would be inappropriate. For women, a soaked shirt will often lead to either a Lingerie Scene or a case of Vapor Wear, depending on what is or isn't worn underneath it.

A common variant involves white swimsuits, in particular white school swimsuits.

This can be seen fairly often in Music Videos, when the artist performs in a "rain storm", or writhes around in a large water container (often some huge drinking glass).

A Super-Trope to Wet T-Shirt Contest and the Bollywood-specific Wet Sari Scene.

See also Romantic Rain, Caught in the Rain, Sexy Surfacing Shot, Underwater Kiss, Symbolic Serene Submersion, and Waterfall Shower.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • In the first season of Ah My Buddha, as the girls are meditating under a waterfall. In one episode of the second season, they wear translucent pearl-diver outfits.
  • Ayakashi Triangle:
    • After Matsuri is temporarily restored to male form, he takes Suzu with him as he's Meditating Under a Waterfall to cool himself off after being overexcited by a hug. This effort hits a snag when Suzu takes her sweater off and gets in the water, with Matsuri even noting to himself he can see her bra through her shirt.
    • This gets turned around when Suzu joins a female form Matsuri in another session. While Suzu wears a bikini, Matsuri wears a robe that clings so tight when wet, the mark on his abdomen becomes visible and Suzu gets a good, long look at Matsuri's nipples.
  • Happens to Seiri Fukiyose in A Certain Magical Index when she gets soaked from a busted garden hose. Touma immediately notices but wisely neglects to mention it.
  • Sakura in Code:Breaker gives this little number a few chapters after a restaurants sprinkler system goes off on her.
  • In episode 5 of Denki Gai No Honyasan, Fu Girl loses her umbrella and her Sailor Fuku gets soaked. Sommelier quickly lends her his shirt so she can cover up.
  • Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro: A chapter has Nagatoro and Senpai getting caught in the rain and as they seek shelter, she notices her own wet clothes and tries to tease Senpai into taking a look at her, thinking that he won't because he's too shy. However, given that earlier she pretended she was going to model nude for him, only to reveal a School Swimsuit under her uniform, he thinks she's doing it again... only to realize that no, she's wearing her normal undies underneath, much to her embarrassment.
  • Happens early on in Elfen Lied when Nyu gets soaked in the rain.
  • Full Metal Panic!: Second Raid has a scene where Kaname is soaking wet, wearing nothing save for a bathrobe and panties as she is trying to outwit whoever is spying on her.
  • Gunslinger Girl. Petra and her handler Sandro have to jump into the water to avoid getting shot during the Venice belltower siege. When they climb out of the canal, Sandro has to tell his cyborg to Please Put Some Clothes On because her wet clothes are distracting. She calls him on the fact that he'd earlier claimed to be Not Distracted by the Sexy because he'd already seen her Naked on Arrival.
  • Hanasaku Iroha: Home Sweet Home. Satsuki meets her future husband when he takes her photograph after she jumps in the pool still wearing her school uniform. She offers to let him rent her for the night so she can have the money to run away from home, but he punctures her adult pretensions by pointing out how her wet clothes have revealed she's wearing a training bra. An embarrassed Satsuki promptly vanishes completely underwater.
  • Saeko gets this twice in one episode of High School Of The Dead (though only the first time is see-through). The second time she asks "Do you enjoy getting girls wet?!". While waiting on an isolated sandbar, she changes into a tank top, leading to a Vapor Wear moment.
  • In Chapter 11 of I Want Your Mother To Be With Me!, Ryo and Yuzuki get Caught in the Rain, and Ryo sees through her shirt when it stops. He quickly turns away blushing.
  • In Jikanme 2 for the PlayStation 2, there's an option to see any of the girls in their sports wear while soaked.
  • Lovelorn bi dude Kouta gets a scene like this after standing out in the rain dramatically early on in the Midori Days manga.
  • Lampshaded in Moriarty the Patriot when Sherlock pushes John into getting his shirt soaked specifically to attract the attention of the women at Milverton's manor so he has a distraction to sneak around.
  • In Nagasarete Airantou, Suzu sleepwalks into a barrel of water. Ikuto wakes up and tries to help her out of the barrel, but when he lifts her out he utters "It's translucent" and then passes out from a massive nosebleed.
  • Although it's not seen, it happens early in Negima! to Makie while walking through a body of water. Makie suddenly complains that her panties are soaked.
  • Kyouko Okita, the lovely and busty housewife from Okusan in chapter 12 tries to eat a very spicy and hot bowl of soba. Because of her huge breasts getting in the way between her and the bowl she gets a case of this (the soup literally soaks her top, and she was going braless), coupled with Erotic Eating (she was panting and moaning all the time because the soup was hot and spicy). Later in the same chapter, the other wives with her get soaked in the rain by passing cars.
  • Strawberry 100%:
    • Girls's shirts and blouses regularly get wet and see-through, either as a result of falling into oceans, fountains and pools or having drinks spilled on them.
    • In an occasion, the pervy gym teacher forces his schoolgirls to continue the training lesson in a soft rain to create this effect on their gym uniforms and make their bras visible. Amachi, a student who has a compulsive necessity in helping women in need, doesn't take this well.
  • Zoku Touken Ranbu - Hanamaru with Juzumaru combining this with Meditating Under a Waterfall and Workout Fanservice in a flimsy bathing robe.
  • Yui Kamio Lets Loose: In Chapter 7, both Nao and Yui in White have their white uniforms get wet during pool cleaning, and Nao is sent to the nurse's office after Nosebleeding.
  • Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko: In "VS. Summer", the protagonist notices this situation is bound to happen due to sudden summer showers, and how it is prime for enticing a romance between guys, so he makes sure to wear clothes that aren't see-through, like a bright-colored hawaiian shirt.

    Comic Books 
  • Prince of Persia: The Graphic Novel: With Sweet Polly Oliver Shirin/Guilan when Accidental Misnaming happens as the latter:
    Shirin: My name isn't Guilan, it's Shapur.
    Ferdos: But that's a boy's name.
    Shirin: I am a boy.
    Ferdos: Not when your clothes are wet.
  • Danger Girl, as much as it's possible to convey this trope in a comic. When Abbey, in a white t-shirt, goes swimming, subsequent panels seem to indicate she's not wearing anything underneath, with the heavy implication her shirt is now see through.
  • De Kiekeboes: Fanny's shirt becomes this after swimming to an island in Villa Delfia.
  • The Mighty Thor: In one issue, Kelda is shown floating in midair in a downpour outside Doctor Doom's castle, in a filmy white dress. The art conveys quite well how see-through it is.

    Fanfiction 
  • Child of the Storm has one of the Undines appears in this form in the sequel. Considering that Undines like luring people to their deaths by drowning, Harry is careful not to be taken in — though he doesn't miss that the entity in question at least appears to be an attractive young woman in a wet dress that's implied to be Vapor Wear.
  • Dungeon Keeper Ami: In "Urgent Decisions":
    Ami shuffled her feet under his inspection. "Glamoured ice golem," she explained.
    "Oh, so that's why you are covered in water droplets," Jered said, his gaze pointed straight at her chest. "Nice dress, by the way."
    The black garment with golden decorations resembled her Keeper uniform and gathered tiny droplets as if it was ice-cold. Keeping in theme with its wet appearance, it clung to her skin.
    Blushing, Ami pulled her cloak shut tight. "No, that's actually the corruption's fault," she explained with a grimace. "The fabric is neither cold nor wet."
  • A Thing of Vikings: After Astrid throws Hiccup in the pond and he pulls her in after him, they have to remove their soaked clothing to get warm. Astrid's linen undershirt, clinging to her body, doesn't leave much to the imagination.
  • In the Zelda fanfic All the Trashy Novels, Zelda prays in sacred pools while wearing a white dress. Link has to explain that this has some side effects the one time she doesn't get wet.
    Link: Your dress is dry.
    Zelda: I doubt anyone will notice.
    Link: Everyone will notice.
    Zelda: [blinks in surprise]
    Link: When it's wet, it's... clingy. You can't really see through it, but since it's already missing shoulders, it's like... welp, that's how Zelda's shaped.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Aquaman (2018) might as well be called Sexy Soaked Shirt: The Movie as Arthur Curry and Mera spend a lot of time jumping in and out of the ocean.
  • Mary Astor gets soaked when caught in a monsoon in Red Dust. Kissing with Clark Gable ensues.
  • This happens twice in to Cecilia (Keira Knightley) in adaptation of Atonement in the same manner over a span of about twenty minutes. Since the film is an example of The Rashomon, it's not entirely out of place. She partly strips and dives for a vase that fell into a fountain.
  • In Dirty Dancing, we have the 'lift' scene. Johnny and Baby practiced their number in water.
  • James Bond:
  • Someone commented that the first Spider-Man movie featured two elements of teenage boy wish fulfillment: A) Being a superhero, and B) Kirsten Dunst being rained on. She got soaked in the climax of the second movie as well and since she didn't wear a bra in either scene, the effect was quite striking.
  • In Les Misérables (2012), during the On My Own number, Eponine is singing in the rain and gets completely soaked.
  • The Eddie Murphy film The Golden Child has Charlotte Lewis kick a houseful of thugs' asses without getting mussed — and then gratuitously walk through a spray from a broken pipe so her white shirt can get sheer and clingy.
  • Winona Ryder's shower scene in Heathers.
  • The female lead in the last half hour of Jumper.
  • The Deep (1977), with Jacqueline Bisset going swimming in only a T-shirt, is a notable early example and probably a trope maker here. The producer would comment that it made him rich.
  • Katie Holmes' shirt gets wet at the end of Batman Begins.
  • In the fourth Police Academy movie, Callahan is training the new cadets on pool safety, so she jumps into the pool in a white shirt, with no bra underneath. All the guys jump in to "rescue" her.
    Callahan: Now, who wants to save me?
    Everyone else: Oh, yeah! [all dive in]
  • Black Cat have an example that is actually played for Fan Disservice, when Catherine, the protagonist, is detained in a prison cell and being tortured by her warden by having a water hose turned at her on full blast. She is wearing a T-shirt, no pants or bra, and she is clearly suffering every moment of it.
  • Bottoms: Parodied. The cheerleaders' routine at the big homecoming game mainly consists of dumping water on the hot Stella-Rebecca.
  • In Coyote Ugly, the showy bar-dancers pour water over their fronts and over the main character's head as part of their act.
  • The Quiet Man has John Wayne getting soaked in the rain while wearing a silk shirt.
  • 17 Again (2009) features Zac Efron in a wet suit.
  • In The Housemaid, said housemaid winds up getting stuck outside in the rain. She comes back in with a now form-fitting dress, and proceeds to seduce her boss.
  • The Sound of Music has Liesl (Charmian Carr) going into this trope in the "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" scene; particularly afterward when she climbs in Maria's window.
  • Barbara Hancock in the Finian's Rainbow "Rain Dance Ballet" scene.
  • The Garden of the Finzi-Continis: Micol's white blouse hides nothing after she and Giorgio are caught in the rain. Sex almost follows, but she stops it for reasons that later become clear.
  • The Washing Women in O Brother, Where Art Thou? sing seductively while dousing the clothes on their bodies with river water, before stalking down the twitterpated protagonists.
  • Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time features a scene where both our male and female lead jump into a fountain and end up soaked head to toe while making an escape, a rare instance of a unisex application of this trope.
  • Interesting case in The Mummy: After the boat sequence, everyone crawls out of the river. Evie (Rachel Weisz) is in a nightgown and is soaking wet, but it seems oddly opaque. It turns out that this is because the scene was digitally altered - in the footage as shot, the nightgown had gone completely transparent, which would have made getting a PG-13 rating difficult. So director Stephen Sommers had the effects team alter every frame. He described it as "the least popular special effect in the movie."
  • The climax of Yesterday Was a Lie features the two female leads soaking wet in a rainstorm (see also Lingerie Scene).
  • The elevator scene in P2. Angela is forced out of the elevator when the villain floods it with a hose. She runs around in an already-revealing soaked dress.
  • Colin Firth example involves his character in St Trinians.
  • Mean Girls features Karen "predicting" when it's going to rain.
  • In the 1997 Lolita, Humbert falls in lust at first sight with underage Dolores Haze after seeing her lying in the garden on a hot day with the lawn sprinklers playing over her dress.
  • In Bad Teacher, Elizabeth (the bad teacher from the title) quite enjoys herself while washing cars during the kids' car-wash fundraiser. She pours water and soap bubbles on herself, or sprays herself with water while wearing shorts and a sexy plaid shirt.
  • Mad Max: Fury Road. Max is sneaking up on the War Rig, only to encounter the Five Wives (the Big Bad's harem, whom Furiosa has rescued) washing themselves down with a fire hose after being hidden in the War Rig's fuel tank. Given that they're in the Thirsty Desert, the sight of the water is more lust-inducing to Max than their wet clothes.
  • Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has its Mr Darcy jump in a lake in a deliberate Shout-Out to the 1995 miniseries listed below. Though we don't see him get out of the lake, there are multiple scenes of him practicing with his katana in the rain.
  • Roman Holiday has a straight-up example- both of the leads (Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck- WOW, Gregory Peck) have just emerged from an accidental swim in the Tiber River and almost immediately kiss.
  • San Andreas, Blake spends the last portion of the film in a form-fitting tank top, which gets soaking wet after the building she's at gets flooded.
  • After nearly being drowned in the lake in Frankenstein 1970, Caroline emerges wear a wet, clinging costume.
  • Siren (2010): When Rachel faints after getting a psychic flash when she touches the tree, she falls into the lagoon. When she emerges, her long white shirt is plastered to her bikini-clad body.
  • The Ribald Tales of Robin Hood: Two wenches are practicing quarterstaff fighting on a log over a stream in Robin's camp. The both end up in the water and emerge in clinging clothing (and one of them is wearing white, so her outfit is almost see-through). Later, Marian gets out of a bath and puts on a wrap that immediately plasters itself to wet body.
  • The five heroines of Chai Lai Angels: Dangerous Flowers have to dive into a swimming pool and swim out through a secret tunnel while dressed in white sleepwear.
  • In Detention, Hot Teacher Mr. Kendall is wearing a white linen shirt that gets plastered to his body and goes see-through when Clapton sets of the sprinklers.
  • St. Trinian's: Geoffrey, played by Colin Firth, gets knocked out of a window into a pond. The next time we see him he's walking across the school grounds in a wet, clingy shirt much to the delight of Ms. Fritton. Doubles as an Actor Allusion to Colin Firth doing the same thing as Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.
  • In Satan's Cheerleaders, the cheerleaders get in a water balloon fight with the girls from the rival Baker high and everyone ends up in soaking, clingy clothing.
  • Embrace of the Vampire (2013): In one of her waking dreams, Charlotte steps into the shower, only for the water to turn to blood as it sprays over her. This causes her white tank top to become plastered to her body.
  • White Wolves III: Cry of the White Wolf: Pamela (played by Buffy the Vampire Slayer alumni Mercedes McNab) has a scene where her shirt is briefly shown clinging to her body as she swims in the river.
  • Raining In The Mountain. Master Wu Wai, a lay Buddhist scholar who claims to be impervious to temptations of the flesh, is shown leading the monks in prayer while his female servants bathe in their white robes under a nearby waterfall, casting a Disapproving Look every time one of the monks is Distracted by the Sexy. General Wang finds this amusing and invites Esquire Wen to join him in Eating the Eye Candy, so neither are happy when they're informed at that moment that the Abbot is finally ready to have a word with them.
  • In The Island at the Top of the World, Sir Anthony, Professor Ivarrson and Donald are sentenced to executed by means of a Viking Funeral. As the burning longship drifts out into the harbour, swims out to it, climbs onboard and cuts their bonds, freeing them. she is wearing a brown minidress that, although it does not become see-through, does cling to her Sexy Scandinavian body.

    Literature 
  • Older Than Dirt: An Ancient Egyptian love song/poem dating from the 19th Dynasty (most likely from the reign of Ramses II, i.e. around 1250 BCE plus or minus 30 years), "Love, how I'd love to slip down to the pond," addressed by a woman to her lover, has these lines, which make this point rather, erm, suggestively:
    Love, how I'd love to slip down to the pond, bathe with you close by on the bank.
    Just for you I'd wear my new Memphis dress, made of sheer linen, fit for a queen—Come see how it looks in the water!
    Couldn't I coax you to wade in with me? Let the cool creep slowly around us?
    Then I'd dive deep down and come up for you dripping,
    Let you fill your eyes with the little red fish that I'd catch.
    And I'd say, standing there tall in the shallows:
    "Look at my fish, love, how it lies in my hand,
    How my fingers caress it, slip down its sides..."
    But then I'd say softer, eyes bright with your seeing:
    "A gift, love. No words.
    Come close and look, it's all me."
  • Black Tide Rising: In the short story "Spectrum," the first (and fortunately benevolent) Technically-Living Zombie Enoch meets is a girl wearing nothing but a white tank top that keeps getting wet as she drinks from a well, which Enoch tries not to pay attention to.
  • Story 6 of Day Ten of The Decameron has a central scene in which the twin daughters of Messer Neri degli Uberti, dressed demurely in white dresses, go fully clothed into their father's fishing pool to catch fish for a banquet her father is hosting for King Charles I the Oldnote  of Naples and his court. The king and his courtiersnote  were charmed by the girls when they walked in from the house, but absolutely captivated once they emerged from the water. The relevant scene provides the page quote.
  • Temple has one, though since the narrator for the relevant part is a monk, he's more embarrassed than turned on.
  • Pride and Prejudice has Elizabeth walking a distance in the rain to visit her ill sister at Netherfield, and given Darcy's somewhat pleased reaction, that scene qualifies as an example of this.
  • An Invoked Trope in Rip Tide by D. Cheatham, when a Sexy Secretary twists the back of her blouse so as to tighten it at the front, hoping her boss will admire the effect of the air conditioning being shut down. Unfortunately he's too stressed out by the approaching hurricane to notice.
  • The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons. Tatiana falls in the river, soaking her dress. Thanks to the hot Russian summer, she's not wearing underwear either. On seeing her husband staring at her, she's embarrassed as she looks down and gets an appreciation of exactly what he sees in her.
  • Played for Laughs in the Mercy Thompson novel, Iron Kissed. After taking a shower at Adam's house, Mercy needed a change of clothes as she left her own behind on the road after shifting to her coyote form to escape a monster fae. She borrows Jesse's clothes, which happen to be smaller and more form fitting. When Mercy puts on the shirt with her own skin still damp and with no bra, it soaks right through. In Mercy's own words she looked "like a refugee from a wet T-shirt contest."
  • World of the Five Gods: In The Curse of Chalion, Iselle, Betriz, and Cazaril combine this with a historical version of Underwear Swimsuit. To cope with the summer heat, they go up to a sheltered pool to swim; to maintain modesty, the girls wear linen shifts and Cazaril wears a linen shirt and trews, which do not actually leave much to the imagination when wet. Cazaril realizes he's recovering from his trauma when he starts getting aroused at the view.
  • The Green-Eyed Lama: "Her wet cotton garments concealed nothing" after Sendmaa runs through the rain to the monastery, to protect the tapestry she left near an open window. Baasan the lama, who was already there and who was already thinking some very impure thoughts about Sendmaa, is very turned on by this.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Brazilian comedy show Casseta & Planeta Urgente did a sexy parody of TV news, in which the anchors present innuendo-laced news, then call reporter "Babe In A Wet Shirt" to give her well-pondered analysis of the situation (that is, simply dancing and moaning lewdly).
  • Mr Darcy diving into a pond Pride and Prejudice (1995). Elizabeth Bennet is awed, and the scene became memetic among Jane Austen's fans.
  • The BBC (and screenwriter Andrew Davies) later tried to recreate the effect in their adaptation of Sense and Sensibility with a scene showing Edward Ferrars chopping wood in the rain. However, lightning didn't strike twice.
  • The Colin Firth scene (and the fangirling) is so well known that it was referred to in Lost in Austen: Mr Darcy asks the heroine, a fan of Pride and Prejudice who is Trapped in Book Land, if there's anything he can do for her... Cue him getting out of the pond.
  • In the second part of the 'In The Shadow of Two Gunmen' episode of The West Wing, during a flashback C.J., who has lost both her contact lenses and her glasses, accidentally stumbles into a swimming pool, much to the amusement of Toby, who has witnessed it. While the floral dress is not see-through, she peevishly orders him to turn around so that she can attempt to un-cling it before realizing it's a lost cause.
    "Avert your eyes!"
  • CSI: NY:
    • Lindsay goes for a walk in the rain for some reason. Not see-through in this case.
    • Mac, in a tight black t-shirt fighting with the Big Bad after the lab's sprinklers are set off in "Snow Day."
  • NCIS:
    • Kate, whose image is that of a rather prim-and-proper federal agent, won a wet T-shirt contest back in the '90s. When word of this reaches her colleagues, there is a lot of speculation and discussion. Especially Tony seems fascinated by the thought.
    • Subverted when finally a copy of Kate's "Wet T-Shirt Hall of Fame" picture is produced: it turns out to be Nipple and Dimed. You can see that she is wearing a white tank top, and that people are pouring water over her, but the photo is cropped just above nipple height.
  • Justified on NCIS: Los Angeles when a spy asks a woman he's meeting to take a dunk in the water to prove she doesn't have any concealed weapons. It manages to short out the wire she's wearing as well.
  • In the TV adaptation of Johnny and the Bomb, Kirsty ends up in a fountain, which gets her frock wet.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • In the episode "Surprise", Buffy ends up soaking wet after her escape from the Judge because it's pouring outside. Her shirt isn't see-through, but the scene ends with Buffy making love with Angel. The soaking aspect is used to underline Buffy's terror and vulnerability.
    • In "What's My Line" Cordelia gets covered in maggots. Xander sprays her with a garden hose to wash them off, partially aiming at the wrong places.
  • The opening credits of Friends had all six characters playing in a Central Park fountain.
  • Doctor Who:
    • In "Cold War", Clara arrives on the sub wearing a silver cocktail dress and immediately gets drenched.
    • "The Deadly Assassin" has the Fourth Doctor, in a white pirate shirt, getting dunked underwater while fighting the titular assassin.
    • In "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", Leela, who normally wears a leather minidress, wears a white Victorian-style dress in a sewer scene, which naturally gets drenched. You can clearly see her nipples - how the BBC got away with this is a mystery.
  • Horatio Hornblower: Many sailors on this show manage to get wet, either when someone spills a bucket of water on them (Styles does it to Oldroyd in "The Frogs and the Lobsters") or when they have to dive and swim. There is nothing like eye-candy officers in wet uniforms or wet shirts. Especially series 1 and 2 are full of this trope.
  • In The Big Bang Theory, Penny who is a waitress and hates her job, says she spilled a drink on herself at work. Leonard pities her, but she says it was the best day ever as she got her greatest tips.
  • Lost Girl: The season 4 episode "Groundhog Fae" starts with the famous car wash scene, where our friendly neighborhood succubus, Bo, is washing her car, wearing a skimpy white tank top over a black push-up bra. She even squeezes the sponge against her chest to make sure her top gets really wet and transparent (not that it concealed very much to start with). Bo is consciously putting on a show for two of her (former) lovers, Dyson and Lauren, so it's Fanservice In-Universe as well. Lauren, in particular, is so fascinated that she forgets that her ice cream cone is melting and dripping all over her hand.
  • Scorpion: In "Cuba Libre" the team is dropped out of a plane just off the coast of Cuba for the week's mission. While they're all soaked through, it's only Paige's shirt which gets truly transparent, and only she who gets the slow-motion treatment (from Walter's point of view). Given Scorpion airs at 8pm on CBS, she is wearing a bra underneath.
  • Vera: Happens to Joe in "Silent Voices" when he dives into a reservoir fully-clothed to save a woman Trapped in a Sinking Car. His shirt is noticeably clingy and see-through when he emerges.
  • Castle: In the season six episode "In the Belly of the Beast", det. Beckett is waterboarded by criminals after her cover is blown. The water makes her already tight, black sweater so clingy that she might as well be wearing body paint (though she's wearing a bra underneath).
  • Tru Calling: In "Reunion", Candance gets pushed into a pool as a prank, but she can't swim, so Tru jumps into the water to rescue her. They both get shot of them getting out of the pool in their wet clothes, with Tru having a soaked white shirt.
  • The Wheel of Time (2021): Egwene is wearing a very sheer outfit through much of the first episode, and it becomes even sheerer after she climbs out of a river that she was pushed into.
  • Bridgerton: One of the infamous scenes of season 2. Anthony emerges from the lake with his shirt goes transparent after his failed attempt to outshine Thomas Dorset in courting Kate. Cue, the Sharma sisters can't help but stare at him. Even some audiences view this as a homage to Mr. Darcy's scene in BBC's famous adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: On the ship to Valinor, the Elves have their armour and garments ceremonially removed, leaving them in plain white gowns, including Galadriel. The material becomes virtually transparent when she leaps into the ocean. The scene becomes prolonged as she swims and treads water, interspersed with underwater shots. A very brief glimpse of the wet gown clinging against her buttocks is shown when she is pulled onto the raft. Then she is shoved back into the ocean, pulled back up by Halbrand, who is then treated to a scene with the sunlight shining through her damp gown revealing her silhouette. Which becomes soaked again when a storm hits them, throws her back underwater, and she is pulled back up.

    Music Videos 
  • The Backstreet Boys video for "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)" is an example. What starts with all five members sitting around on an abandoned basketball court ends up with the group in wet button-down shirts singing in the middle of a sudden downpour.
  • The above video is parodied, like lots of other boyband videos, in blink-182's infamous "All the Small Things". You think they're in the rain? No, they're wet because of a well-placed hose!
  • Pretty much the entire point of Alizée's "J'en ai marre!" video. She's singing and dancing inside a large plexiglass cube, on an otherwise empty set, and the cube is gradually filled with water. Her clothes remain opaque, but become quite clingy from the water.
  • Katy Perry in the video for 3OH!3's "Starstruck".
  • The Beach Boys' promo video for "Sloop John B" shows them all trying to climb, fully clothed, into an inflatable raft in a swimming pool, naturally falling all over each other and into the water in the process.
  • The classic video for Duran Duran's "Girls on Film" involves wet T-shirts and cat-fighting in a wrestling ring. MTV shied away from showing the full version, but this is freely available out on the Net.
  • The middle of Inna's "In Your Eyes" video has the singer and her backup dancers writhing in the rain, and the one in the nude leotard has her nipples show through at one point.
  • Lady Gaga is briefly seen taking a bath in the video for "Bad Romance". She is fully clothed while taking said bath, complete with shoes.
  • Eminem in the music video for "Cleanin' Out My Closet"... while digging his mother's grave.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • It famously rained on the open air baseball field IWA Jucio Final IV took place in and April Hunter just so happened to be wearing a white shirt during her match with La Tigresa.

    Theater 
  • In Once Upon a Mattress, Princess Winnifred makes her entrance having swum the moat. Then she falls right back in. After she changes into a dry dressing gown, Lady Larken tears her still-wet dress up into rags for cleaning.
  • The BBC's productions of Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2 seem intent on keeping Prince Hal as wet as possible, dousing him with wine and then putting him in a sauna. Since he's played by Tom Hiddleston, no one complains.
  • The poster for Jasper in Deadland has Jasper drenched from falling in the river Lethe.
  • The Male Animal discusses this trope:
    Tommy: You and Joe were dancing out on the terrace when it started. You both got soaked, but you kept right on dancing.
    Ellen: Oh, yes, I remember. My dress was ruined.
    Tommy: You were shining wet—like Venus and Triton.

    Video Games 
  • Uncharted takes many, many opportunities to douse Nathan Drake in realistically-rendered water. Lampshaded in Among Thieves, when Chloe declines Nathan's invitation to join him in the pool.
  • Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel, Soma the professional assassin always dresses this way under her heavy and uncomfortable clown suit, which makes her sweat a lot.
  • If My Heart Had Wings: Ageha and Aoi's attraction to each other is first kicked off when they're caught in the rain one time and both can't stop staring at each other's wet, half-naked bodies. Though the audience only sees Ageha's, naturally.
  • The water/sweat effects introduced in Dead or Alive 5 allow characters' skin and/or underwear (and bandages and blood, in Bayman's case) to be visible through their clothes when they get wet.
  • In Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, there is a game mechanic that measures how Wet a character has gotten. Taking damage from enemies, or being exposed to rain or other water sources fills the gauge up. When it's maxed out, the characters' clothing becomes sheer and clingy because they're completely soaked. This lowers Defense and increases the chances of a Random Encounter, but also provides a bit of fanservice. Several Ghosts also have soaked clothing, which clings to their bodies. Whether this is fanservice or not is probably debatable.
  • Tomb Raider: Legend. Lara has a costume, called "Classic, Gray" which consists of a white shirt and plaid shorts. In the remastered version for the PS3, the shirt becomes see-through when wet (she wears a bra, of course).
  • In Fate/Grand Order, Tamamo-no-Mae's Swimsuit incarnation gets this during her first ascension.
  • Implied to happen in Terraria should the player talk to the Nurse NPC while it is raining. Her sprite is unchanged, but her dialogue makes it clear that her white outfit is clingy and/or see-through.
    Nurse: Great! Now my uniform is all wet. Stop staring!
  • Love Plus: One of Nene's dream sequences has her at a beach wearing a white T-Shirt over her bikini, until the player character splashes her too much, forcing her to remove it. In retaliation she pulls out a water gun.
  • Because the Ryza subseries is Hotter and Sexier than most other Atelier Series games, these games' heroine's clothes visibly get wet and clingy when it rains or she comes out of a body of water.

    Visual Novel 

    Web Original 
  • Although it's tricky in a written medium, Survival of the Fittest manages this by describing the effects a gout of rain has on Maxie's shirt.
  • Gaia Online's 2007 Summer Festival and Water Balloon Fight featured a picture of NPC Jinx in a white t-shirt and a bikini bottom. There was also a picture in which she'd been nailed with a water balloon, and was covering her chest with one arm.
  • The Nostalgia Critic has a Running Gag of throwing water on himself in response to... something crappy happening in the movie he's watching. Doug actually had to sell the suit jacket because he was doing it too much.
  • On The Lizzie Bennet Diaries':
    • Mrs. Bennet plans to stage one between Jane and Bing. Jane is absolutely horrified and Lizzie has to help her get out of it.
    • Lydia invokes one when she deliberately spills her drink on George Wickham. She then asks him to take his shirt off, which he does.

    Webcomics 
  • Grrl Power has a moment when the supervillain Glowbug finds out her white costume becomes see-though when wet. She notes that's something she should have tested before going into battle.
  • In Cinema Snob Reviews Frozen (a fan comic where The Cinema Snob reviews Frozen (2013)), Snob says that Anna could have entered a wet petticoat contest after her dress got soaked.
  • When Agatha first meets her Queen appointed lab assistant in Girl Genius he's wearing a soaked white shirt that's been left transparent and clingy. She, Violeta and Zeetha are all quite appreciative of his attire.
  • In the Pokémon parody, "Grace-A-Monsters" arc of El Goonish Shive, Pokemon trainer Nanase gets drenched by her Squirtle counterpart who mistakes her arousal for overheating. The author jokingly referred to the scene as an "impromptu wet t-shirt contest."
  • Siren's Lament: Shon gets his white t-shirt soaked through so that it clings to him and becomes semi-transparent.

    Western Animation 
  • In Central Park, Season 1 "Live It Up Tonight", after getting out from the rain, Paige's blouse is drenched and she asks Owen if he can see her bra, which he reluctantly admits yes he can.
  • King of the Hill:
    • Episode "Luanne: Virgin 2.0" had Luanne getting baptized in a lake as part of her born-again virgin initiation. She was wearing white and had on underwear. Hilarity Ensues when she runs out of the lake, wet robe clinging to her as she screams "I'm a virgin!", causing a nearby guy to get smacked in the head with a Frisbee.
    • Later that same episode, Peggy goes through the same initiation. Hank is mad at her for having slept with someone else before they met, but his anger quickly fades away as her robe gets clingy and transparent, and he carries her off to the car for de-virginizing.
      Hank: Dang it, Peggy. I can see your whatnots.

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Top

Anthony in the Lake

The Sharma sisters can't help but eye the way Anthony's white shirt clings to his body as he pulls himself out of the lake.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (10 votes)

Example of:

Main / SexySoakedShirt

Media sources:

Report