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"Can you not solve anything without blowing people's clothes off?!"
Asuna (to Negi), Negima! Magister Negi Magi

This is a device, whether magical or advanced technology, which exists with the sole purpose of getting rid of clothes. Mostly because Naked People Are Funny and for Fanservice, although it's also the Logical Weakness to Superpower Costumes, Clingy Costumes, and armor in general.

May result in a Naked Freak-Out. If deliberately used in a fight, it's Defeat by Modesty. Compare Clothing Damage and Wardrobe Malfunction, when clothes are ripped or torn off as an incidental side-effect, often in an action scene. Note particularly that if something breaks bones, tears skin, and/or destroys the surrounding area it is not this trope; it's just damaging clothing along with everything else.

Moths often serve this function in comics and cartoons. While there is a real-life clothing moth whose caterpillar-like larvae will sometimes eat through sweaters and other woolen items over time, the cartoon version will swarm and strip their unwary victim in mere seconds (usually just down to their underwear in kid-friendly shows). Also, the cartoon version is highly likely to show adult moths eating clothing, whereas in Real Life, it's the caterpillars that eat clothing while the adults stick to eating nectar and pollen like other moths and butterflies.

Compare Can't Take Anything with You, where clothing destruction is a side-effect of time travel.

Contrast Gorgeous Garment Generation and Empty Piles of Clothing (in which attacks harm people without affecting their clothing).


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Kusuri offers a "get sexier" drug. When Hakari drinks it, she learns what it does is make the drinker sweat excessively, and the sweat has a chemical that makes her clothes dissolve in a matter of seconds.
  • Agent Aika: Aika's gold bustier removes all of her regular clothes when it activates before transforming her into her superpowered form.
  • Ayakashi Triangle: When Suzu and her brother are attacked in a dream by a nightmare of Matsuri, Suzu takes over the dream to make its weapon and clothes disintegrate, putting it in just a skimpy bikini.
  • Bastard!! features Dark Schneider's girlfriend Tia Noto Yoko being subjected to an evil forbidding slime. You can guess what it turns out to do.
  • Bikini Warriors:
    • In the first episode, a slime monster dissolves Paladin's clothes. Slime tends to dissolve clothes in other episodes as well.
    • An OVA has a deity "reward" the girls by erasing their clothes and claiming he gave them special armor that idiots cannot see. They are fooled and strut around naked until they realize the deception, humiliating them.
    • Another OVA has Black Knight reminisce on her past. She was a schoolgirl from Earth who fell into a portal to the fantasy world. Falling through the portal completely destroyed her clothes and she arrived naked. The demons who found her quickly gave her armor.
  • Blame! Academy introduces the "Women's Clothing Disintegrating Beam Emitter", a parody of the main character's weapon and running gag.
  • Bungo Stray Dogs: When Atushi and Lucy get wet, Atushi suggests that Lucy use her powers to teleport them but leave the water behind to dry them. When she tries it, it leaves their clothes behind, causing her to get a Naked Freak-Out and knock him out.
  • In A Certain Scientific Railgun, Kuroko can teleport someone's clothes off them. It stands to reason that Awaki, a teleporter even more powerful than Kuroko, would be able to do the same thing.
  • Cross Ange: In the final episode, Embryo snaps his fingers and makes Ange's clothes disappear before trying to rape her.
  • Brita in Darker than Black has the ability to teleport herself and others... but not their clothing. So, she and anyone else she teleports effectively gets hit with this trope.
  • In season 3 of Dog Days, after the heroes defeat the demon in episode 3, the rain that falls subsequently removes all the clothing from the characters, though interesting only the female characters are shown. Couvert put an umbrella up first. But then she subverts it by touching one of the raindrops, which then slides down her wrist and removes her clothing as well.
  • EDENS ZERO: The crime boss Illega kidnaps Rebecca and several other girls, keeps them in a large cell, and sprays them with a soap sud-like substance that dissolves their clothes. The girls wonder about the substance, finding it tasteless yet edible. They notice the suds don't affect the metal walls, but they did dissolve a few girls' glass ornaments. They work together to form a human pyramid and Rebecca is able to reach a glass window and apply the suds to them, dissolving them and allowing her to escape and eventually free the others.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • In the first OVA, Lucy's clothes disappear because they were from heaven and were revoked.
    • When Hades tries to kill Wendy, Horologium teleports her out of the way... without her clothes, much to the shock and embarrassment of everybody present, especially poor Wendy. Horologium makes up for it by providing Wendy another outfit.
    • The dragon Zirconis has a Breath Weapon that does not harm living beings but disintegrates inorganic matter like clothing. He uses this on humans he wants to eat since he doesn't like the taste of clothing, but he also admits that he likes to rob humans of their dignity.
    • Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest: When the group gets sent to Edolas, a realm where magic doesn't work, Lucy's magically generated clothes disappear.
  • Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA: In an omake, Chloe uses her powers to make clothes for Illya to try on. Illya excitedly runs out of the room to show Shirou her outfit, ignoring Chloe trying to warn her that anything she makes can only exist within a certain distance to her. Chloe sighs and doesn't follow her. By the time Illya reaches Shirou, her clothes have disappeared, shocking him and humiliating her.
  • Food Wars!: Members of the Nakiri family have this effect when they eat delicious food. This has two variants: "bursting" and the higher-level "blessing/bestowing" (depending on the translation). With "bursting", the eater's clothes disappear, supposedly because their willpower causes their clothes to explosively disintegrate. With "blessing", the clothes of nearby people disappear as well.
  • Freezing:
    • If a Pandora's powers are negated, anything they created with Volt Texture, including weapons and clothing, vanishes.
      Ganessa: [after Satellizer is rendered nude] That's what you get for using Volt Texture to make your underwear too!
      Satellizer: I-I didn't have time to do laundry!
    • In an OVA, Julia Munberk wrote a fanfiction based on Cinderella, casting Cassie Lockheart as Cinderella and herself as the fairy godmother, and asks Satellizer and Rana to critique it. It starts out normal at first, but when the fairy godmother appears to help Cinderella, instead of giving her a dress, she erases her clothes, then forcibly gives her a bath while groping her. Then the story abruptly ends. Satellizer and Rana realize Julia let her lesbian fantasies go out of control.
  • Frieren: Beyond Journey's End: Frieren buys a potion that dissolves clothing. Later, she hands it to Fern and tells her to give it to Stark as a birthday present, saying she heard men are fond of such things. Annoyed, especially since she told Frieren not to waste money on such vulgar things, Fern pours it on her.
  • Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu has the "Full Monty Bacteria", a nylon- and other petroleum-based product-eating bacteria. Of course, none of the infectees or the audience get to learn about this until the end of the episode, everyone thinking up to that point that it's a highly virulent and lethal bioweapon.
  • In the High School D×D anime season 2 OVA, the gang fights a perverted being who can make girls' clothes disappear. He could probably do it to a man too, but doesn't because he doesn't want to see a man naked.
  • Since Kill la Kill is based around clothes that grant superpowers, this trope naturally crops up.
    • The main character's finishing attack, Seni-Soshitsu, involves slicing the clothes off with a giant scissor blade specially made for that task; it leaves the opponent naked or, rarely, in non-empowering underwear.
    • When evil suits start eating people, a special machine is developed to suck the victims back out, with similar results.
  • The Legendary Hero Is Dead!: One monster sprays acid that can normally strip flesh to bone. However, it is a pervert so if it attacks women, it will adjust the acid to not harm their skin and only destroy their clothes.
  • The first Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Sound Stage, having been made during the Fanservice-filled early episodes of the first season, features a Jewel Seed Water Monster that is created to swallow up every girl it encounters and spit them out naked.
  • Matoi the Sacred Slayer: The girl's transformations into their Magical Girl forms destroy their previous clothing, so when they power down, they are left naked.
  • In Miss Machiko, Kenta often comes up with very elaborate schemes to get her teacher Machicko's clothes off, which often reach near Rube Goldberg Device levels of absurdity — and always work.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
    • "Flans Exarmatio", the series' primary disarming... and fanservice spell. Or magic in general, really. Almost anything that appears in the series has probably been used to destroy clothes on at least one occasion.
      Asuna: [to Negi] Can you not solve anything without blowing people's clothes off!?
    • It is worth noting that for the first few chapters, the eponymous Negi casts "Flans Exarmatio" whenever he sneezes. The idea behind this is that he's still young and doesn't have full control of his magic yet. Also, he's a specialist in Wind-based magic. Put them together...
    • By the time of UQ Holder!, Negi's Sneeze of Doom vaporizes the clothes of any living thing not protected by Anti-Magic within a mile radius.
    • There are other spells that destroy clothes using different elements. "Calefaciens Exarmatio" burns the clothes off, while "Frigerans Exarmatio" freezes the clothes and shatters them and neither spell does any harm to the naked target.
    • Negi once miscasts a memory erasure spell as a panty erasure spell.
    • He also has an unfortunate tendency to end up in combat with Takane D. Goodman, who has the unfortunate habit of making her clothes out of magic. If she's knocked out, they vanish. And if she fights Asuna...
    • The spell that allows you to travel into another person's memories inexplicably gives you a naked avatar.
    • The "Martian Army" is armed with rays that only destroy clothing.
    • It later also features the Cerberus Cloth Eater, a clothes-eating octopus. Its mucus and/or saliva dissolves clothing.
  • Melona from Queen's Blade squirts acid from her breasts that dissolves clothing (and buildings and weapons) quite readily but has no effect on flesh. It doesn't work on Leina's Chainmail Bikini because it is treated with wax.
  • In Ranma ½, Ranma demonstrates the martial art of the Umi-Senken (the Way of the Sneaky Thief) by removing Ryū Kumon and Sōun Tendō's clothes in a blink, leaving them in their underwear. Good thing Ranma refuses to follow Master Happōsai's teaching and never attempts it on a female.
  • In the third episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena, Nanami arranges for Anthy to go to a party wearing a dress made from material that dissolves when wet, and then arranges for her to get splashed. Utena ends up coming to her rescue and makes a new dress for her out of a tablecloth before Anthy's dress completely falls apart.
  • Seven Heavenly Virtues: In an OVA, Michael tells the other angels to train their aim and dodging ability by fighting with water guns. When they don't take it seriously and just playfully spray each other, Michael enchants the water to dissolve clothing to motivate them.
  • Seven Mortal Sins: The Demon Lords have various methods of removing clothing. Leviathan can produce water that dissolves clothing, Asmodeus' plant monsters have secretions that dissolve clothing, Mammon has potions that dissolve clothing, Belphagor can make anything, including clothing disappear when in her video game world that she can control, etc.
  • Show by Rock!!: When Cyan is pulled through the portal into Midi City, all of her clothing is left behind, including her glasses. A few seconds after her arrival, her transformation into a Cat Girl comes with clothing.
  • Suehirogari's ero-manga TAG combines this trope with Hypno Fool. The main character makes fun of a gypsy fortune teller, which turns out to be a bigger mistake than usual: She's given a post-hypnotic suggestion to compulsively stay naked whenever certain (also naked) women kiss her. Of course, she's not told about this suggestion until her best friend ambushes her at her college campus and plants a wet one on her, leaving her trapped with an overwhelming urge to stay naked against her will. (Her friend wasn't even told that much — just smooched by a stranger and left with a note and a paper bag to put her clothing in.) Of course, since this is "TAG", you can see where he's going with this — the only way (outside of years of hypnotherapy) to bring herself to put clothing back on is to kiss someone else (thus passing on the urge to stay naked to the new victim), with the ever-present danger of looking up and discovering another scared-looking nude woman running at her later on. Since it's Suehirogari, she (and her entire cadre of friends) discover an exhibitionism fetish after the "game" (and the subsequent blackmailing by the Gypsy and her friends).
  • In the Director's Cut of episode 6 of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, all of the female members of the cast up to that point (including the roughly 4-year-old Darry) are wearing towels. The villain has a device that can tighten or loosen them. At first, this is used to slowly suffocate them, but then little Gimmy takes the controller and releases the tension. But, under the direction of Kamina, Gimmy turns the dial even further, causing the towels to fall off. Ends up subverted as the girls were all wearing swimsuits underneath.
  • In chapter 1 of the manga The Testament of Sister New Devil: Storm!, the succubus Maria mischievously enchants Mio's clothes to dissolve in water to embarrass and try to arouse her.
  • Those Who Hunt Elves: The potion which will make any elf naked. A useful way of dealing with cursed armor, in fact.
  • Time Stop Hero:
    • Kuzuno Sekai can stop time and often takes advantage of this to strip girls naked. Since he keeps his ability secret, he pretends he does this via a spell called Disarmament.
    • Played straight by the monster Dark Shoggoth, which secretes a slime that dissolves clothing on contact. It is pointed out the slime will eventually dissolve flesh as well, but it takes so long that people are in no danger as long as they clean it off in time.
  • The Tokyo Pig episode "Summer! Pool! Principal!/Pigtoven vs. Principal" has a scene where Pigtoven uses his conductor's baton to turn the swimming trunks of two boys and the swimsuits of two women into pigs, leaving them naked. The scene was cut in the English dub.
  • In To Love Ru, weird alien technology leaving people naked is a running gag in the series.
    • For example, Lala's clothes are created on her by her sentient robot helper, which she wears in the form of a hairclip, and if it ever gets knocked off, distracted, or dizzy, her clothing vanishes in a poof.
    • Lala's personal teleporter has this as a side effect since for some reason, it will only teleport the person. Any items they may be carrying, including clothes, are left behind. Later, Lala's attempt to fix this flaw in her teleporter fall rather short: it now allows some of the person's clothes to be teleported with them. As Rito notes, this isn't actually an improvement over being naked.
    • There's also a gas with the specific purpose of dissolving clothing, which Run uses occasionally (pictured). It always backfires on her, and fanservice ensues.
    • Lacospo owns a giant frog called Gama-Tan, whose saliva and secretions dissolve clothing.
  • In Transformers: Kiss Players, the titular girls can do a Fusion Dance with Transformers to boost their powers, but the process somehow destroys their clothes.
  • Trinity Seven: Arata Kasuga can release Anti-Magic that deactivates a magus' transformation, disintegrating their magically generated clothes in the process.

    Comic Books 
  • A ray that destroys fabric features in a Shadow Lady story in Big Bang Comics.
  • There is a Danish Disney Ducks Comic Universe comic story titled "A Stitch in Time" in which Donald and his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie discover a meteorite that turns out to contain alien moths. The creatures proceed to devour the clothes of everyone in Duckburg, forcing the denizens to wear barrels and figure out a way to get rid of the alien moths.
  • In "The Mind Molder" arc in the Doc Savage series published by DC Comics in the late 1980s, "Monk" Mayfair was tasked with coming up with a way of rendering their foes' gasmasks inoperative. He concocted a gas that dissolved polymers, forgetting that he was wearing a polyester suit.
  • In some Fantastic Four comics, Susan Storm can turn people's clothes completely invisible, giving the effect that they appear naked.
  • Firestorm (DC Comics): Firestorm does this to Plastique during her first appearance. He vaporized her costume, leaving her naked and humiliated in public, while he took the bombs that had been attached to her costume away to explode in a safer area.
  • In Green Lantern, when a power ring puts you in a uniform, you'll be back in your own clothes when the ring is deactivated. This initially wasn't the case with Star Sapphires, as the "Mystery of the Star Sapphire" arc of Geoff Johns' run showed Carol Ferris and Jillian "Cowgirl" Pearlman having their clothes destroyed when the rings came into contact with them and were left naked after the rings were removed. This was disregarded by The New 52, where Carol Ferris was simply left in ordinary clothes after her ring was removed or ran out of power.
  • Flare: Damian Pomegranate hits Teresa with a green liquid in "Flare's Lost Costume", which leaves her stark naked.
  • Two unpublished The Powerpuff Girls comics feature instances of characters being left naked after the destruction of their clothes.
    • "Mojo's Day Off" (drawn by Christopher Cook) has a segment in which Townsville's citizens have their clothes evaporate from a mysterious ray. (It isn't Mojo Jojo — he spends the better part of the story trying to relax.) The girls help the people cover themselves with ponchos.
    • "Powerbuff Girl" (also illustrated by Christopher Cook) is about Bubbles going through a nudist phase. Part of the story has everyone in Townsville ending up naked because the city is overrun by moths that eat clothes.
  • A particular Richie Rich comic book story involved Richie being repeatedly caught and packed into various boxes and shrink-wrap (only up to the neck) by his prankster cousin, Reggie van Dough, using complicated machines. When the usually good-tempered Richie finally has enough and starts chasing Reggie, Reggie bumps a lever and is caught in a machine that spits out two packages. Richie is extremely alarmed until he discovers that the smaller package only contains all of Reggie's clothes.....
  • In Steampunk Swimsuit #1, Dr. Frankensteam creates an auto-tailor to help her model change into and out of swimsuits quickly. The device goes berserk and starts stripping members of the audience.
  • In the eighth issue of Teen Titans Go!, Mad Mod makes clothes that control people. When Cyborg uses a sonic device to destroy these clothes, everyone who wore them becomes naked (including Beast Boy and Starfire).
  • Skein, a character who joined the original Thunderbolts shortly before the title was ended, has the ability to telekinetically control cloth and defeats a villain whose powers come from her outfit by stripping her naked.

    Comic Strips 
  • The off-continuity print version of The Order of the Stick that appeared in Dragon Magazine has a strip featuring Belkar's Wand of Dispel Clothing, which he aimed at Haley, but which hit Elan instead.
    Roy: You know, all this time, I assumed you were a halfling, but it turns out your lack of height is apparently on account of being a prepubescent boy with hairy feet.
  • A popular G-rated version in Peanuts has Charlie Brown repeatedly getting stripped down to nothing but his shorts after getting hit with a line drive while on the pitcher's mound. It's never explained exactly how getting hit by a baseball could remove your clothes, which arguably adds to the humor. Lampshaded in The Movie A Boy Named Charlie Brown when another player complains that they're going to be there all day if Charlie Brown has to get dressed again after every pitch. Also lampshaded in a strip where Lucy suggests that he should pitch night games; that way, when it happens, all he'd have to do is put on his pajamas and go to bed. (Needless to say, he doesn't like the suggestion.)
  • In one of the early Spy vs. Spy strips from MAD (and reprinted in the first collection) the Black spy creates an invisibility "potion", and envisions himself being able to attack the White spy unseen. The White spy, however, see him testing it on a mouse and dilutes the mixture with seltzer water. When the Black spy drinks the concoction on a street corner, where he hopes to ambush the White spy, the diluted potion makes only his clothing disappear (although it appears that his clothing simply instantly disintegrates), and he is arrested (and given a nightstick to the head) by a police officer who is nearby.

    Fan Works 
  • Adoption Nightmare: Just how many times have we seen Brina naked because of her invisibility accidents?
  • Dungeon Keeper Ami has a spell that gives the caster the main weapon and armor of a Horned Reaper. While this is fitting for goblins, Keeper Mercury and Commander Cathy are not exactly pleased about the lack of armor in the chest area.
  • In From Fake Dreams, Rin develops a ritual spell to destroy Bazett's clothes in order to remove the massive amount of enchantments woven into them.
  • Harry Potter fanfiction has naturally made up spells which can remove clothing.
    • "Divesto" is the most common choice for the incantation, almost to the point of it being Fanon.
    • It should come as no surprise at all that "Nullus Vestis" is frequently cast in Hogwarts Exposed.
    • The Power of Seven features at least three;
      • Hermione knows a spell ("Vestimenta pertransibo") that removes a person's clothes into a heap at their feet. How she learned it is unexplained, though Ginny comments it's a good thing that she's probably the only one at Hogwarts who knows it.
      • Harry also knows one ("Exui vestes") that's slower and easier to counter, featuring the clothing gradually removing itself.
      • To quickly gain access to layered Hermione to help her with the effects of an experimental potion that has left her feeling extremely horny, Harry simply vanishes her clothes.
    • It has also not escaped fans' notice that you could make someone naked through creative use of canon spells. "Accio clothing!"
    • Why bother making up spells? There are fics that use Diffindo (disassemble) and Evanesco (vanish). Though the latter has the problem that you can't get the clothes back.
    • At one point in Harry Potter Becomes a Communist, the spell "Divesto Maxima" is cast on Dolores Umbridge.
  • New Look Series: Ash's New Look has Meowth use his Fury Swipes to stripe all of Ash's clothes with the exception of his briefs.
  • OSMU: Fanfiction Friction: Four of the showers in Precinct 13579's Shower Room has "teleporting naked agents to random public places" as an unfortunate side effect, which Oren, Oswald, Oscar, and Owen experience firsthand.
  • The Lightning Strike has Wanda Maximoff do this to Harry's clothes at least once.
  • Lost in Camelot doesn't feature an explicit Nudifier, but at least once Morgana has used magic to loosen the ties on her and Bo's dresses so that they can more easily strip before having sex.
  • In A Protector's Pride, Yoruichi knows a spell that can destroy clothing. She puts it to good use by using it to get rid of the King of Hell's seemingly indestructible armor.
  • In the Spidercest series of porn fan comics by Tracy Scops, Kitty Pryde uses her phasing power to make all of a girl's clothes fall to the floor with a touch.
  • Vignette's Hot Phone (NSFW) is an Equestria Girls fan comic where Vignette Valencia uses her magic phone to teleport girls' clothes away.
  • Vow of Nudity: Due to being the daughter of two murderous thieves, Spectra was court ordered ever since she was a newborn to wear a cursed necklace that cannot be removed and automatically destroys anything else she tries to wear. This means she has spent her entire life naked. This allows her to be identified even if she uses her Changeling powers.

    Films — Animation 
  • Animals United has a scene near the end where several people are left naked after their clothes are destroyed by locusts.
  • At the end of A Certain Magical Index: Miracle of Endymion, when Arisa Meigo returns to Shutaura Sequenzia's body, Shutaura's clothes disappear in the process.
  • From Interstella 5555, the process of turning the kidnapped aliens into humans (during "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger") includes lasers reducing their clothes to shreds — while not grazing their skin at all.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • From the Dean Martin Matt Helm series of James Bond spoofs, 1967's The Ambushers features the villain, Jose Ortega (Albert Salmi), using a magnetic gun (or anti-gravity ray gun in reverse) to strip the film's heroine, Sheila Sommers (Janice Rule) by unzipping her top and her skirt, leaving her wearing only her slip and her thigh high boots. Sheila for her part goes from Reluctant Fanservice Girl to Shameless Fan Service Girl. Ironically, this was a few years before the first Roger Moore Bond film, Live and Let Die, featured a similar trick (performed by Bond on one of his lovers, no less).
  • The orgasm piano device in Barbarella strips the subject first.
  • Bruce Almighty:
    • The powers of God fill the role in the first film when the title character makes his clothes (minus his underwear) fall to the floor with a single gesture.
    • And again in the spin-off, Evan Almighty; Evan walks out of the house, only to find that God has caused his clothes to vanish because he's wearing a suit instead of the robes God wanted him to wear. He tries to get around it by stuffing the robes under his suit, but when he stands up to address Congress the suit vanishes again.
  • In Dark Angel: The Ascent, a few minutes after the demoness Veronica arrives on Earth, she is inexplicably turned human and her clothes vanish. She later switches between human and demon form several times and nothing happens to her clothes.
  • In Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, when Johnny and Sue swap powers, Sue is engulfed in flames, which completely burns off her clothes, leaving her naked on the sidewalk in front of paparazzi (fortunately, her own powers are restored by that point).
  • The Nude Bomb from the Get Smart movie titled, well, The Nude Bomb was an explosive designed to vaporize people's clothes upon detonation.
  • Hong Kong film Hex After Hex (Che yuen joi che) features a bizarre scene where a ghost girl turns into Darth Vader, carrying a lightsaber that removes peoples' clothes.
  • The Italian Job (2003) has a character expressing his desire to purchase a stereo system powerful enough to blow people's clothes off. He finally gets it, and during the end credits, we see him try it out on an attractive girl. A pity that she is offscreen when her clothes are blown off.
  • Several of the ninja techniques Kaede demonstrates in Lady Ninja Kaede result in her clothing disappearing, regardless of whether this was the intended effect or not.
  • In Loose Screws, one of the students comes up with a chemical to put into the girl's swimming pool that dissolves all fabric.
  • In The Malibu Bikini Shop, the guys wind up with a bunch of left-over green scrubs from a hospital that they make into camo-themed bikinis. The thread, however, was suturing thread (the kind that dissolved when left in the body). Cue extreme Fanservice under the closing credits when the wearers are running in the surf.
  • The Man in the White Suit involves an inventor who creates a miracle fabric that is indestructible and never needs washing — he considers it a boon to mankind, but everyone from clothing manufacturers to laundresses are threatened with obsolescence and get up in arms... until they find the fabric is chemically unstable and literally falls apart on the inventor when he's cornered by the angry mob.
  • The string factory from MouseHunt turns into this if you push the wrong button.
  • Invisible Boy's Invisible Streaker powers in Mystery Men seem to make his clothes fall off automatically when he uses them rather than him having to take them off.
  • A number of dangerous items in The Return of Captain Invincible prove only able to do any real damage to female outer garments. Usually shirts.
  • Dr. Frank-N-Furter's Medusa Machine in The Rocky Horror Picture Show not only turns people to stone, but causes any clothes they're wearing at the moment to fall off their (now-marble) bodies. Presumably this is because Greco-Roman statues wearing clothes would look ridiculous, even though Frank does redress them in the same clothes that he wears, with the exception of Dr. Scott, who is redressed in much of his old clothes, with only his pants and shoes replaced by fishnets and heels.
  • Appears in Scary Movie 4 when the polarity is reversed on the body-disintegrator that leaves Empty Piles of Clothing, ending with mass weaponized Fan Disservice to the characters (which we are not privy to, fortunately). For reference, the representatives are so disgusted that the Japanese ambassador commits seppuku on the spot.
  • Thor: Love and Thunder: Zeus telekinetically removes Thor's disguise, but goes too far and accidentally leaves him naked — though considering that it's Zeus, it's not so surprising.
  • Weird Science: When all of the furniture starts being pulled up the chimney, the blonde girl playing the piano has first her dress, and then her underwear ripped off her by the same force, before being sucked up the chimney and dumped in the water herself.
  • In Zapped! (1982), Scott Baio undresses women using telekinetic powers. In the sequel, Zapped Again, a new actor gains the same ability and uses it to the same ends. Both movies are not available due to Willie Aames later finding religion and becoming Bibleman. He can't stop those clips from appearing on YouTube, though. And anyway, Baio's character uses his magic power for other things too, such as humiliating bullies and winning at roulette.

    Jokes 
  • Old joke: A woman is having an affair. One day, her husband comes home early, so she hides her still-naked lover in the closet. However, her husband looks in the closet. The lover claims that he's an exterminator taking care of a moth infestation. You can probably guess the punchline:
    Husband: But you're naked.
    Lover: [looks down] Those little bastards!

    Literature 
  • One Free Kingdom weapon in the Alcatraz Series is a grenade that only destroys non-organic matter. It's supposed to destroy other weapons, but it can destroy clothing as well.
  • In Cat Planet Cuties, the Cat Girl aliens fight with weapons that destroy only non-living matter, including clothes.
  • A Certain Magical Index: Touma's Anti-Magic right hand, Imagine Breaker, does this if he touches someone wearing magical clothing.
  • Sandry from the Circle of Magic universe is an ambient thread mage or "stitch witch", and repeatedly overpowers difficult people by either threatening to embarrass them, actually embarrassing them, or creating problems for them that make embarrassment a secondary consideration, such as causing their armor and their horses' tack to fall apart by pulling out the stitching (or doing the opposite, causing their clothes to bind together cocoon-like so they can't move).
  • In Date A Live, when a Spirit's powers are sealed, her Astral Dress disappears.
  • Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?: Mamako and her son Misato both get hit by a Slime monster's attacks. Her clothes instantly dissolve, while nothing happens to his clothes.
  • In the Dying Earth story "Ulan Dhor", the two factions of a village (the Greens and Grays, named for the colors they wear) literally cannot see each other. After this curse is lifted, the two proceed to slaughter each other, and it is only after they are forcibly stripped by a magical/technological device that the problem is solved.
  • The Eminence in Shadow: If someone enters an Anti-Magic zone or a zone that drains magical energy, magically created clothes tend to fall apart. People can repair their clothes by concentrating and exerting their power, but this obviously will take a toll on them, while people like Cid and Alpha are so powerful that their clothes stay intact.
  • The Mad Scientist prankster in "The Exalted" by L. Sprague de Camp builds a device that nullifies friction and makes clothes crumble to threads.
  • Farming Life In Another World: Ru and Flora make their clothes out of magic, so if they are low on energy, their clothes disappear.
  • John Brunner's short story "Galactic Consumer Report No. 2: Automatic Twin-Tube Wishing Machines" mentions a related problem with one of tested household matter replicators. Women's clothing created with it becomes transparent in an hour. The company apologizes and states that the responsible employee has been institutionalized because of voyeurism.
  • In Reginald Bretnor's story "The Gnurrs Come from the Voodvork Out", this is what the gnurrs do. The US uses Papa Schimmelhorn's invention to bring "Bobovia" to its knees by releasing gnurrs there.
  • Played for neither Laughs nor Fanservice in The Healing Wars when Nya flashes Geveg's Healing Slab, assuming it will kill her as well as her enemies. The blast disintegrates Zertanik and the Luminary into Pink Mist, and while Nya's immunity to flashed pain protects her from most of the damage, her clothes aren't so lucky and she's left naked and horrified. Luckily, Jeatar finds her first and hands over his shirt without comment.
  • High School D×D:
    • When Chivalrous Pervert Issei is instructed to channel Mana into a potato to determine his elemental affinity, it results in every potato in the room spontaneously peeling itself. He successfully refines this into a spell called "Dress Break", which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. It doesn't affect things from the neck up like hair clips, ribbons, or even masks. Since Issei is a pervert, he will only ever use Dress Break on women because he doesn't ever want to see a man naked. At the beginning of the series, he needs to touch the woman to use it, but as he improves his powers and skills, he eventually learns how to fire it to strip women from a distance. Dress Break takes a turn for the serious later in the series when Issei manages to break a supposedly unbreakable death curse by entering his Balance Breaker form and channeling so much power into the spell that even the soul is stripped of anything that would cling to it. He's also able to use it to defeat a woman who's wearing seemingly indestructible armor. In another scene, Issei is able to use Dress Break to save Asia when the bad guys strap her to a bomb by imagining that she's wearing the straps, allowing the spell to destroy them along with her clothes.
    • When the group tries to find a Familiar for Issei and Asia, they find a slime creature that dissolves the girls' clothes on contact. Issei immediately wants to make it his familiar, but the girls angrily kill it by incinerating it.
  • In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a popular party prank using the finite improbability generator is to make all the molecules in the undergarments of one's hostess move three feet to the left. This could presumably be done to her outergarments as well, provided it's the right sort of party.
  • How Not to Summon a Demon Lord: The insane prince Keera captures his sister Shera and wants to impregnate her. To prepare her, he unleashes a slime creature on her. He comments that normally, slime creatures dissolve and consume living things, but he found a variant that only dissolves and consumes inorganic material like clothes. The creature destroys her clothes, but fortunately, Diablo and the others show up before he can have his way with her.
  • The girls from In Another World with My Smartphone land in a group of green slimes that start dissolving their clothes.
  • In Is This A Zombie?, if a Magical Garment Girl loses her powers, her clothes disappear.
  • In the My Teacher Is an Alien series, Peter has been (voluntarily) abducted by aliens and has to be "disinfected" before going on their space station. He refuses to undress for this, so the aliens freeze him in place and slice a laser across his body; once he can move again, his clothes fall in tatters to the floor. He has a momentary Naked Freak-Out before deciding that hey, he's been naked at the doctor before, and at least the aliens won't be snapping towels at him like the kids in the middle-school locker room.
  • In the fifth Myth Adventures book, Aahz tells a story involving a spell that apparently teleports the targets' clothes away. Thanks to the other characters ignoring him and talking over him, we never get the specifics.
  • In Esther Friesner's New York by Knight, a dragon magically removes his victim's clothing with just a glance, instantly making her the image of a chained and helpless maiden.
  • In No Game No Life, Sora and Jibril play a game where you take turns declaring a word or phrase, and then that term is erased or materialized. Naturally, Sora declares "girls' clothing". Being a good sport, he also erases the girls' naughty bits, saying seeing their bare bodies is enough for him and he'll keep everything "family-friendly".
  • Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot: Fargo Wells once put fabric dissolver into the air conditioning of Neil Armstrong High School. Despite this being many years later, Albany Jones still remembers that day and the guy who did it to her.
  • Overlord (2012) has Fiber-eating slimes that eat clothes but are otherwise harmless.
  • In Parry Hotter and the Seamy Side of Magic, Parry realizes he's magical after he accidentally makes his teacher's clothes fall off. He later does this to a troll that's chasing him because he doesn't know any other magic.
  • In the first Song of the Lioness book, Alanna: The First Adventure, the evil Ysandir cast a spell that removes Alanna's clothing. This is very embarrassing to her since it also reveals the fact that she is a girl to Prince Jonathan.
  • After "grokking" human sexuality in Stranger in a Strange Land, Valentine Smith quickly works out the Power Perversion Potential inherent in his mental abilities. Lots of levitation and clothing evaporation follows.
  • Sword Art Online: In the virtual world, characters can make their clothes disappear by selecting a menu option, and often do this rather than undress manually.
  • In The Testament of Sister New Devil, while punishing Kurumi for eavesdropping, Rukia uses magic to make her clothes except her underwear disappear.
  • In Unseen Academicals, Mr. Nutt ghost-writes a love poem for Trev Likely and recalls his mentor Lady Margalotta joking that love poetry is just another way of getting a young woman to take all her clothes off. Given his Literal-Mindedness and lack of experience with romance, Nutt wonders if speaking poetry will literally cause the recipient's clothes to fall off. This is a Shout-Out to Illuminatus! author Robert Anton Wilson, who, in The Historical Illuminatus series, has his unworldly adventurer Sigismundo Celine conclude that the purpose of poetry is to charm, implore, morally blackmail, or otherwise persuade impressionable young ladies to take their clothes off.
  • Appears in at least two forms in Whateley Universe: once as a spell cast by Fey to humiliate a guy for hitting on her, the second time as Compiler's contribution to the Order of the Worn Wrench's campaign of retribution against Alpha Bitch Solange.

    Live-Action TV 
  • This was built in as a feature of certain garments on Baywatch. A wandering peddler was selling bikinis on the beach and ends up being chased by an angry mob as his wares soon fall apart on contact with seawater.
  • In an episode of Bewitched, Aunt Clara magics up clothes for Samantha and Darrin to wear to a party, but because she is an Inept Mage, the clothes disappear a few hours later, leading to Darrin getting arrested for indecent exposure (he was left in his underwear). Luckily for Sam, when she noticed that her clothes were dissolving, she was able to magic up replacement clothes before anyone noticed her.
  • The Boys (2019):
    • Hughie Campbell gains the ability to teleport himself or others, but their clothes don't come with them.
    • Golden Boy in the Gen V spin-off, Golden Boy burns his clothes off every time he plays with fire. An expensive unburnable costume is being designed as part of his admission into The Seven.
  • In Charmed (1998), mermaids can take human form, but magically revert back if they get wet. Any clothes they were wearing disappear, and don't come back when they return to human form after drying off.
  • Dans Une Galaxie Près De Chez Vous: A temporal rift is created after an incident when Pétrolia is working on a "fusil tout-nuisant" (nudifying gun) at the beginning of the episode which is finally used on Brad when he comes back from time to avoid the incident and nobody believes him. The gun is used another time in the series on Brad.
  • Doctor Who: "Bad Wolf" has the Defabricator, a ray gun that disintegrates only the target's clothes.
    Captain Jack: Defabricator. Does Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Am I naked in front of millions of viewers?
    Trin-E & Zu-Zana: Absolutely!
    Captain Jack: Ladies, your viewing figures just went up.
  • Eerie, Indiana: In "Who's Who", Sara Bob uses her ability to manipulate reality using her art to make her younger brother Bob Bob's clothes disappear after he is rude to her.
  • In Extras, Patrick Stewart (Adam Westing as a Dirty Old Man) describes a script he's written where he plays a character with awesome psychic powers, which he uses solely to cause women's clothes to fall off.
    Stewart: Oh, they try to cover up, but I've already seen everything.
  • In her appearance in The Flash (2014), Plastique causes the Flash's costume to be Made of Explodium, forcing him to take it off. Luckily, Cisco has backups.
  • The Goodies: In "The Lost Tribe", the Goodies enter their quick-change cupboard and leave the cupboard in the correct type of clothing for their coming adventure. When Hazel enters the cupboard, she thinks that it is not working properly because, when she emerges from the cupboard, she is only dressed in a large-size bath towel.
  • In the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys episode "One Fowl Day", Ares humiliated Iolaus and Autolycus by chaining their wrists together, zapping their clothes away, and stranding them in the middle of nowhere. He also enchanted them so anybody they met would see them as monsters and be unable to understand them.
  • A Just for Laughs: Gags prank involves an actress asking unsuspecting bystanders help her to fix a television that seems to be magically able to see through her clothes.
  • Loki (2021): While being processed in the TVA headquarters, Loki is shoved into a chamber with a robot that tries to remove his outfit with claw-like arms. When Loki protests, the robot switches to a laser that vaporizes the outfit straight off his body. He's then dumped through a trapdoor which gives him an Instant Costume Change into a prison jumpsuit.
  • Dr. K in Power Rangers RPM makes an experimental sonic cannon that ends up being one of these. (But only while in the experimental phase; she later perfects it into a standard weapon.) Being Power Rangers, the boxers get to stay.
  • Red Dwarf series 8 features Lister and Rimmer trying to use a genetically altered microbe to take the skins off a mountain of potatoes they've been ordered to peel. The microbe does its job, but it also eats away their clothes and hair.
  • Star Trek:
    • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
      • In "The Most Toys", having abducted Data and unsuccessfully ordered him to wear something other than his uniform, Kivas Fajo splashes a solvent on him which dissolves his uniform. He then explains Data's choice to go naked or follow his programmed sense of modesty and wear the other clothing.
      • In "Ménage à Troi", the Ferengi who've kidnapped Deanna, Lwaxana, and Riker use their transporter to teleport the women out of their clothes. In their society, women aren't allowed to wear clothes. Which is two reasons we've never seen much of actual Ferengi society. Of course, as Betazoids regularly go naked to formal functions, the Trois are more annoyed than embarrassed.
        Lwaxana: I should have known. Even their transporters can't be trusted!
    • Star Trek: Voyager:
      • In "In the Flesh", Chakotay claims to have been in a transporter malfunction where his clothes got stuck in the pattern buffer and he materialized on the transporter pad wearing only his comm badge.
      • In "Q2", Q's mischievous son uses his Reality Warper powers to make Seven of Nine's clothes disappear. He's rather disappointed when this doesn't faze her. Having spent most of her life among the Borg, the idea of modesty is somewhat mystifying to her.

    Magazines 
  • One of the joke items featured in an April issue of Dragon was the "Snazzy Ring", a magical ring that would make the wearer's armor take on the appearance of an elegant gown or suit, while still providing the same level of protection. Unless it went wrong, in which case it left you genuinely naked and destroyed your outfit, making it a Nudifier as well if you roll a 1.

    Music 
  • The Eagles of Death Metal are able to make people's clothes fly off with The Power of Rock in the video for "I Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News)".
  • Kid Cudi hallucinates that he can strip women down to their underwear and put their clothes back on by clicking a pen in after smoking MARIJUANA ISLAND in the video for "Day 'n' Night".

    Pinballs 

    Radio 
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978): The most popular use of the early finite improbability generators involved teleporting people's underwear three feet to the left (in accordance with the Theory of Indeterminacy).

    Tabletop Games 
  • The Dark Eye:
    • A spell reserved for fae and the humans raised by them will have all clothing slip off the target and tangle around its feet. The GM is advised to penalize use as combat preparation since that'd be bad roleplaying for the character type.
    • Another spell disintegrates dead matter, but not living bodies, so it can be used for this effect.
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • The disrobe spell from the non-official supplement Book of Erotic Fantasy. Although it doesn't affect magical items, it's still a good way to score a Defeat by Modesty.
    • A few core spells can be diverted from their normal usage to this effect. Notably, a baleful polymorph spell leaves items and clothing unaffected, thus even if dispelled, temporarily suppressed by Anti-Magic, or reverted by a natural shapechanger, the subject will end up stark naked. Even a disintegrate spell can be aimed toward clothes instead of the one wearing them, although it's overkill. The invisibility spell can also be directed at objects, in which case the clothing isn't removed, but the visual effect is the same. The spell telekinesis (and the psionic power telekinetic maneuver) can perform a distant grapple, and among the options of grappling is removing items worn, thus telekinesis can be used to strip a subject.
    • In earlier editions, one of the possible effects of reading a cursed scroll is the destruction of all clothing.
    • The original Tomb of Horrors has a lot of traps that do this. The idea of the Tomb was to lure suckers to it and rob them of their most valuable gear; of course, many would be lucky to escape with their lives.
    • Magic of Incarnum introduces soulmelds, which have the appearance of various clothing or pieces of equipment, but are entirely made of soul energy. Although those are solid (and nigh-invulnerable), it wouldn't be a good idea to be wearing nothing but shaped soulmelds, as they can still be "unshaped" by a specialized form of Dispel Magic, or cease to exist in an Anti-Magic zone.
  • In the Third Edition GURPS Supers supplement Mixed Doubles, a superhuman called the Liquidator can liquefy matter... including another super's costume. The background stated that he hadn't used this ability on a female metahuman yet, and that the likely result would be a) outrage from her and b) considerable coverage from the media.
  • Old World of Darkness:
    • In Changeling: The Dreaming, it is often easier to target spells at someone's clothes than at the wearer. This can go very wrong, or very right depending on your intentions. A popular example is to keep someone out of a battle by making their clothes (and hopefully them) superjump away from it.
    • One of the sample Talismans in the Mage: The Ascension sourcebook Forged by Dragon's Fire is the "Rod of Holy Cleansing": touch someone with a magic stick, and everything they are wearing, holding or carrying disintegrates. It's presented as a legitimate weapon for an Actual Pacifist to use against anyone who relies a lot on their equipment (such as the gameline's main antagonists), but it does dissolve clothing as a side effect. The funniest part is that this is mechanically a Prime effect, and so the faction best able to make this Talisman is the Celestial Chorus.
  • Shadowrun: The Physical God Harlequin has an absolute Door Stopper of a spell list comprising almost every spell possible.note  Said spell list includes the spell Destroy Pants.
  • The "Ecchi Moth Swarm" card from the Tank Vixens collectible card game destroys all Tops and Tails containing the keywords Cotton, Denim, Lace, or Silk.

    Theatre 

    Video Games 
  • Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening can cause your imported character save from the previous game to start the game in their underwear if they are wearing certain DLC armor.
  • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion:
    • The Daedric Prince Sanguine's quest requires the Player Character to cast the spell "Stark Reality" at a Fancy Dinner party to liven things up. The spell strips everyone in the vicinity to their undergarments, including the player. This is pretty appropriate for Sanguine, who's pretty much a Captain Ersatz of the Greek Dionysus.
    • The Shivering Isles expansion adds the Ring of Disrobing, which unequips all the wearer's clothes when put on. It has no other purpose and is only useful for trade to the Museum of Oddities.
  • In Russian adventure game Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, there's a prank spell. It looks like a cure for petrification, but actually just disrobes the caster. Used by the protagonist for tricking the Big Bad into removing her magical protections.
  • Final Fantasy XI features Lamia generals in the sieges of Aht'Urghan who, among other annoying AoE spells, can strip you of all your visible armour and weapons leaving you punching the air in your skivvies. Strangely, the spell does not remove your rings and earrings; one should still accessorize when their pants are dropped, shouldn't they?
  • Fire Emblem Fates:
    • The Raidernote  weapons all have the special property of stripping victims to their underwear if their weapon has a disadvantage against the attacker.
    • Sophie's Personal Skill, Mischievous note , can potentially have the same effect. In one of the DLC's, Sophie's talk with her potential mother Oboro implies that for all of her clumsiness, she has specifically trained to pull this:
      In-game description: Enemy Defense -3 and may lose their clothing if the user initiates and damages them in combat.
    • The magical tome named Disrobing Gale doesn't make lots of damage, but removes the enemy's armor if the user has a weapon advantage.
  • When you think about it, every enemy in Ghosts 'n Goblins is this. Getting hit while armored will nudify Arthur, leaving him with only the boxer shorts. If hit while naked, the logical nudification will happen again — he will lose his skin and remain a skeleton, killing him.
  • Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-: Jack-O' remerges with Justice to recreate Aria. However, Jack-O's clothes and Justice's Powered Armor vanish in the process, leaving Aria completely naked after the fusion.
  • Kingdom of Loathing has several examples. Due to the minimalist stick-figure art, all are depicted only in text.
    • The "Depantsing Bomb" works on anything, even enemies that aren't wearing pants.
    • The naughty paper shuriken, on the other hand, only affects the pants of enemies that can drop pants-type items. Its description actually specifies that "it seeks out whatever's holding up an opponent's pants and severs it". The effect is also more useful because it makes the pants drop more likely and stuns the enemy by getting it all tangled up in said pants.
    • The high-level boss Zombo can make a face so scary that "you're scared right out of your pants" the first time he lands a hit. On the second hit your hat flies off, and with the third "you jump right out of your shirt".
    • The final boss of the Heavy Rains challenge path starts the fight by creating a tsunami that removes all your equipment except your weapon and off-hand.
  • According to Huey Emmerich in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, this is all the prototype Stealth Camouflage is able to do at this point. Oh well.
  • Metal Slug III:
    • The maggots and giant snails. While they simply melt any male characters they manage to spit on, they have a rather more... specific... effect on the females. Which still kills them, for whatever reason.
    • Also monster-clones of female characters dissolve in the same way when they are killed with conventional weapons.
  • NetHack:
    • The Scroll of Destroy Armor.
    • The Succubus is a creature that removes armor and clothes before she gives you a "Very Educational Experience", which gives you +1 level and increases your wisdom (other, often detrimental effects are also possible, mind you). Of course, low-level characters may simply just go Out with a Bang, so the technique should only be attempted by higher leveled characters. Either way, the Succubus is a very useful way to remove cursed armor.
    • Disintegration Blasts first destroy your armor. Then they instant-kill you.
  • The Sentimental Graffiti fangame Sentimental Shooting puts you on the helm of a ship equipped with one.
  • Zenka from Super Cosplay War Ultra, being one who cosplays Sanger Zonvolt, has the Unyou no Tachi move (just like the original) and what does it do when it hits male characters? Cuts down their clothes. When used on Ogi it goes one step further and rips the metal plating off of his body to expose the muscle underneath.
  • The Bartolls from Super Robot Wars. A requirement for you to be put as its pilot is to be stripped naked first. If you get caught by it, get ready to strip. However, instead of funny, this is usually played for Nightmare Fuel and Fan Disservice.
  • Ultima VII has the "Vas Nudi" spell, which causes people's clothes to disappear. You cannot learn it yourself though, it's only used by one NPC seductress.
  • The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings has a sex scene where Triss uses a spell to cause her clothes to disappear before diving into an Elven pool. Geralt has to take off his clothes the old-fashioned way before following suit. Naturally it's become the most popular scene in the game.
  • World of Warcraft has the boss abilities "Pillage" from Subetai the Swift and "Naked and Afraid" from Sha of Fear, both greatly reducing your stats while making your character appear naked.
  • In X-COM: Apocalypse, the Entropy Gun. It's a homing bio missile that on hit starts to dissolve all your armour and weapons. On its own it doesn't do any damage, however, dissolved ammunition tends to fire. Including grenades.

    Visual Novels 
  • Fate/stay night: In the Heaven's Feel route (and its subsequent adaptation Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel), when Sakura Matou becomes Dark Sakura, she only wears a dress made of shadow magic with no shoes or underwear. In the end, when Shirou Emiya brings her back to normal by poking her with the Anti-Magic dagger Rule Breaker, her dress disappears, leaving her naked.

    Web Animation 
  • Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad Email "senior prom", Strong Bad tries to prank the Entrapment All Up On the Moon Dance by bringing in a device that makes everyone's pants "poof away". There's just one small problem... he's the only one at the prom indisputably wearing pants.

    Webcomics 
  • In Accursed Dragon, Coven tells Rawn to cast a levitation spell on him. She accidentally only levitates his clothes. Fortunately, he kept his underwear, but his primary concern was that everyone could now see he was a dragon.
  • The Adventures of Fifine:
    • An unusual variant: Naked Island. Just arriving on the island by whatever means will obliterate clothes.
    • Professor Proton once tests a compound to "refresh and demagnetize clothes" on Fifine and Little Moon. It doesn't destroy the clothes, but they later suddenly turn invisible at a very inconvenient time.
  • Banished (2006): In strip 8, Rak finds a Strix automated mining colony's teleporter and tries to use it to escape Strix 13 by hiding amongst the ore being transported. Too bad the teleporter is set to "Inorganic Material Only", so all that gets transported are the ore and his prison jumpsuit. Good thing the Strix gave him a spare!
  • Chief O'Brien at Work:
    • Episode 264 has O'Brien accidentally beam his clothes off after leaning on the transporter console. When he calls Keiko to beam a replacement, she sends him Commander Riker's uniform smelling of massage oil and baby powder.
    • Episode 294 has Wesley describing his god-like powers and asking if he mentioned that he can stop time. A now naked O'Brien says he did.
  • College Roomies from Hell!!! has fast-acting clothes-eating moths.
  • In Commander Kitty, Ace sabotages the transporterizer to do this to Mittens.
  • The Dragon Doctors:
    • One of the heroes fires an "Equipment Failure" ray at a pair of assassins, one of which is a guy. The two suddenly naked killers flee, and almost get arrested for public nudity.
    • Again used by Sarin the wizard a couple of times: once as punishment for a very nosy magic user, and another to solve a hostage situation by blowing away all the equipment held by both the hostage taker and the hostage.
  • Dr. Germahn of El Goonish Shive once invented a potion that caused your sweat to dissolve clothes. It has not been seen in action, but the "shrink soda" has, and it's just as effective.
  • Evon attempted to teleport herself and Herodotus to a distant city, but only teleported their clothes. There's an entire bonus chapter devoted to them getting new clothes.
  • North Wind, the enchanted longsword unassuming in both appearance and power, wielded by Typhan-Knee in Exiern, does this to foes that its wielder really shouldn't kill. Instead of letting blood, it instead cuts all the claddings off. If wielded against a foe that really does deserve harm, it presumably would cut flesh.
  • The Ax-Crazy rapist Voulger in Flipside uses a sword called "Thread-Reaper", which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. It's particularly effective on Maytag since her self-confidence is directly linked to her jester outfit. Later, a magic sticker does the same thing while she's on stage.
  • Girl Genius: Dr Bunbury's Wacky Weave Destabilizer; the reason so many performer women, including Zeetha, wear metal/leather underwear.
  • Girls with Slingshots has lasers that remove your clothes, used in playing Strip Laser Tag.
  • Intragalactic has the Nuditizer (link NSFW), apparently a piece of medical equipment. Which could come off as really handy when emergency access to the body is needed fast. It sure seems faster than scissors.
  • Sluggy Freelance: What to do with a swarm of clothes-devouring moths? Cue the meeting of the Young Republican Women's Assembly.
  • In Super Bikini Girls, Ebony and Ivory's bikinis are destroyed by a giant alien monster's "Preasure Beam". They continue fighting covered by the word "censored".
  • One of the many, many gimmick swords in, well, Swords is the Acid Sword, which immediately dissolves all of its wielder's clothing into a puddle of goop, along with itself. Fortunately, Sickle also has a pair of Censwords on hand. Later, she uses another Acid Sword voluntarily (it can apparently be wielded safely if you have a rubber glove).
  • Transformers Legends features a couple of Bonus Edition chapters (pack-in comics included with the figures of the toy line the Japanese webcomic was promoting) that involved characters getting their clothes destroyed.
    • Bonus Edition Vol. 49 (included with the figure of Triggerhappy) has Blowpipe use plasma energy to destroy the clothes of Ai, Minerva, Shaoshao Li and Papika, leaving them nude and embarrassed before the destruction he's caused is eventually undone.
    • In Bonus Edition Vol. 55 (included with the figure of Slugslinger), Slugslinger tries to use plasma energy to defeat Shaoshao Lin, Sue Faireborne, and White Lune, but only succeeds in destroying their armor. The three girls promptly kick his ass in the buff.
  • This was misdiagnosed by Bud (in that Bud thought that this was all that happened, but the truth was far more complicated) in a strip of Wapsi Square. Later, Monica seems to have developed a built-in version usable on others, starting here. Links are NSFW and contain some spoilers.
  • Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic:

    Websites 
  • SCP Foundation:
    • One of the less frightening items held by the Foundation, but certainly one of the more disturbing examples of this trope is SCP-1755 which was intended by its creators (two bored college grad students) to function as a Nudifier. It now has the potential to affect every piece of cotton clothing on the planet and to eventually render the cotton plant itself extinct.
    • SCP-539 is a disc that, when thrown, causes all kinds of impossible accidents to divert attention from the thrower. The first test has all the observers suffer a "sudden wardrobe existence failure".

    Web Videos 

    Western Animation 
  • In the Amphibia episode "Fort in the Road", Hop Pop is stuck on a conveyor belt and passed through a laser field that slices his clothes off. His boxers are mercifully spared. Anne wisely leaps over the contraption when coming to his rescue.
  • In the Biker Mice from Mars episode "A Mouse and his Motorcycle", Lawrence Limburger has Dr. Karbunkle invent a substance called toxic goo, which makes areas of land become ruined, as well as an orange dust that undoes the goo's effects. At the end of the episode, Limburger's minion Greasepit, while ranting about the Biker Mice yet again foiling his boss's plan, ends up covered in some toxic goo and then sprinkled with some of the orange dust. As a result, Greasepit ends up in his undies and sheepishly walks away while using his hat to cover himself.
  • Chowder: In "The Birthday Suits", Mung's dish causes people's clothes to shrink till they burst (although it leaves their underwear intact).
  • In Codename: Kids Next Door, Sector V tries using a "Nude Torpedo" against Professor XXX-L; however, the coordinates are wrong and instead it hits them. Note that it happens at the North Pole — sure, the kids aren't happy about the nudity, but the cold is a much more pressing matter. (Numbuh Two tries to make light of the situation by saying that at least now they know it works.)
  • In the C.O.P.S. (1988) episode "The Case of the Spotless Kingpin", Dr. Badvibes shows to Big Boss a material that is impervious to dirt, which makes Big Boss interested in having a suit made of the material so that he'll never get dirty again. A skirmish with the C.O.P.S. results in some chemicals getting spilled on Big Boss's new suit, which causes the suit to attract dirt rather than repel it and leaves Big Boss stuck standing around with dirt all over him. At the end of the episode, Big Boss's assistant Squeeky Kleen uses an antidote to neutralize the dirt. The antidote works but has the side effect of completely destroying Big Boss's clothes with the exception of an undershirt and boxer shorts with pigs on them.
  • The Dexter's Laboratory episode "Streaky Clean" has Dexter use a satellite to clean his clothes every instant they got dirty, only for a malfunction to make the satellite completely destroy any part of his clothes that got dirty, resulting in Dexter getting naked.
  • In the Donald Duck short "How to Have an Accident at Work" (1959), a scene card explains to the audience, "Loose clothing and machines JUST DON'T MIX!" Donald gets caught by a machine roughly resembling a riveter, grabbed first by his conspicuously loose tie. The machine follows up by turning his outfit into shredded bits. Hand covers crotch follows after what's left of him falls to the floor.
  • In the two-part G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero episode "The Traitor", Dusty pretends to side with Cobra and gives them a formula for a near-invincible armor. When it is revealed that Dusty's supposed betrayal is only a ploy, he then uses a weapon that destroys everything that was treated with it. While this was never intended to fit this Trope, seeing as the Cobra soldiers had treated their uniforms with the stuff, it kind of ends up as a PG-rated version of it. (Their underwear remain, but some might say that makes it even more humiliating when the Joes trounce them.)
  • Kid Rot from Grossology has the ability to cause all organic material to rot with a single touch, including clothing. He himself is exempt from this because his clothes are synthetic (and thus, do not rot). This is a foreshadowing of who he will become, since Abby notes this before we find out he's Kid Rot.
  • In Jimmy Two-Shoes, Heloise trains moths to partially do this to Beezy, to get rid of the fear sweater he was wearing. Unfortunately, their orders were to eat green, and Lucius just happened to be walking by wearing an all-green suit.
  • In the KaBlam! episode "I Just Don't Get It", Henry and June give the studio a thorough Spring Cleaning, with Henry doing the pairs laundry... using an industrial-sized bottle of Disappearing Ink as detergent. June makes it off-screen just before she loses her undershirt and shorts, Henry... gets locked out.
  • Bob Clampett's Looney Tunes short "Eatin' on the Cuff" is another example of fast-acting clothes-eating moths. The cartoon is a mix of live-action, still photos, and animation and ends with the moth character devouring the onscreen narrator's pants after the narrator insults him, causing said narrator to run off in a panic.
  • Pixar Shorts: Kabuto, the main villain of Tokyo Mater, is essentially the automobile equivalent of this. "The loser will be stripped of all modifications... and become STOCK!"
  • The Powerpuff Girls (1998): Nanobots eat the Powerpuffs' clothes in "Nano of the North", rendering them stark naked (using their arms to cover themselves). Oddly enough, Blossom's bow is still intact, but considering that Blossom's bow doubles as a time bomb, it could be made of something inedible to the nanobots.
  • Samurai Jack: In the antepenultimate episode of the 2017 revival, Ashi ends up getting her Garden Garment eaten off by Lazarus-90 when it covers up her body, rendering her nude. Undaunted, she just continues fighting the creature naked until an embarrassed Jack makes her wear his gi for the sake of modesty.
  • Saturday Night Live's TV Funhouse cartoon series had an episode of "The X-Presidents" in which Bill Clinton, wanting to join the X-Presidents, creates a robot with a magnet that sucks the clothes right off people's bodies.
  • The Simpsons:
  • In the Tripping the Rift episode "Miss Galaxy 5000", Six is reciting a poem during the talent portion of the eponymous Beauty Contest when Chode McBlob decides to liven things up by zapping her with a "Clothes B Gone" device.
  • The T.U.F.F. Puppy episode "True Spies" has Snaptrap's plan involve using a T.U.F.F. invention called the De-Threadulator to unravel all the fabric in Petropolis and leave everyone in the city too embarrassed by their resulting nudity to stop him. Fortunately, the Chief deactivates the device before anyone ends up naked.
  • As seen in the intro sequence for Ultimate Book of Spells, a flubbed invisibility spell leaves Verne standing in nothing but his shoes and underwear.
  • The Venture Bros.: Dr. Venture, working for Prof. Impossible's team, is abandoned in the freezing Arctic and quickly discovers the high-tech temperature-regulating bodysuit issued to him is only effective above a certain temperature and disintegrates off of him in the cold.

    Real Life 
  • The controversial "perv-scanners" being installed in airports around the Western world don't literally remove your clothes but generate 3-dimensional images of the person being scanned and allow for layers of clothing to be taken away virtually. But in defiance of this trope, the employees that monitor the scans never see the person being scanned, the images produced are not in color and are of low enough resolution that your genitalia isn't worth looking at, and the files are deleted once the scan is over. Or at least, they're supposed to.
  • The "Get Naked Bikini" (link SFW... barely). Note that despite what the link says, the video doesn't show the bikini dissolving entirely. What appears to happen is that only selected crucial parts (like a small portion of the strap) dissolve. This still leaves you with a bikini that won't stay on.
  • A Real Life inversion has been created by scientists at Imperial College, London. Reported in New Scientist magazine, the device can be used to spray a liquid onto a person's skin where it turns into a fabric.
  • Victims of powerful explosions are often found at least partially disrobed.
  • There have been some known cases of people who have been struck by lightning having their clothes reduced to ashes but being nearly uninjured physically. (But don't count on it.)
  • Locusts have been known to consume green clothes, while they're still being worn in particularly bad plagues. Hopefully, they won't strike on St. Patrick's Day or any holiday that has green on it.
  • A possibly unintended side-effect of some photo-editing packages is that a photographic image can be manipulated to show more of the body underneath. However, this is only possible if the outer layer of clothing is relatively sheer and taut over certain areas; the photoshopping processnote  is not magical and does not allow X-ray vision. It can't see through a thick wooly pully, for example. When a programmer released a program that can turn a normal photo into a nude fake (with fairly believable results), the server almost instantly broke down from overload.
  • All of the clothes in the "Resolver" show by fashion designer Jef Montes are made of fabric that dissolves in water.

 
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Fine Asgardian Leather

Having captured Loki, the TVA employ The Nudifier robot to remove all his clothes, save for the prisoner collar they've put on him.

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