Custom Uniform of Sexy

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
One of these is not like the others
"Operative Lawson's uniform is very official. It always makes me stand at attention."
—Donnelly, Mass Effect 2

This is where the most beautiful member of a group of people (who just so happens to be Always Female) gets sexier clothing because of their sex appeal. If the group wears a standard uniform, hers will be modified to show off her body. This very often has little to do with the plot: The costume designer is simply having fun dressing up the sexy one. Can be interpreted as Fan Service.

See also Not Distracted by the Sexy, where the sexy character is dressed inappropriately and neither other castmates, the elements nor the plot ever notice or care.

Often applies to The Chick or The Vamp (even if other female characters wear more standard clothing), as well as The Hero. Anyone fairly sexy, really.

A Sub-Trope of Rule of Sexy.

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

Examples of Custom Uniform of Sexy include:

Anime and Manga

  • Rangiku from Bleach wears the standard shinigami black kimono, cut low to show her cleavage. Nemu Kurotsuchi, the only Shinigami in a skirt, somewhat squicky given her relationship with her 'father'. Kenpachi shows off his chest, and Hisagi shows off his arms.
    • Pretty much all the female Arrancar customise their uniforms to be more and more Stripperiffic. And then for the female viewers there's Grimmjow.
  • Much is made of Utena wearing a "boys' uniform" that looks nothing like a standard Ohtori boys' uniform ... but damn.
    • Chiho Saito talked about this, saying that Utena was really just wearing what she wanted, rather than conforming to any gender standard.
  • Kallen from Code Geass wears a sexy version of the Black Knights uniform.
  • In Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, when Miu spars with Kenichi, instead of the full training gi (which Kenichi used to wear before the chapter 145), she always wears a combination of the normal training gi top and short and tight pants.
  • Female plugsuits in Neon Genesis Evangelion. No one except the teenage girl pilots wear them and yet the designer seemingly didn't bother to make something that is NOT made of latex and vacuum-sealed to fit tightly. While male plugsuits have some armoring on the torso, the female version lacks it completely to show off the wearer's curves. Then came Rebuild of Evangelion where Asuka donned a custom plugsuit with a transparent torso...
  • In Gurren Lagann, Team Dai-Gurren post-Time Skip are a government-supported paramilitary organisation, complete with uniforms. However, Yoko is just as Stripperiffic as ever, and Simon spends the final battle shirtless save for a man-corset.
  • Kururi Orihara from Durarara!! completely ignores the standard Raira Academy uniform and wears the gym uniform instead. Which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't just a thin T-shirt and a pair of bloomers that gives the impression of a constant Panty Shot.
  • Scheris Adjani's HOLY uniform in S-Cry-ed features a hip-hugging miniskirt and thigh-highs, a far cry from the Badass Longcoat and sensible slacks seen on the other ( read "male") members.
  • Highschool of the Dead: Busujima Saeko. Nuff said.
  • Speaking of Scheris' uniform, she has a proverbial sister in Lunamaria Hawke from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. Despite the fact that she floats around in zero gravity for much of the series, the girl has slapped a miniskirt onto her military uniform. And while there were no official panty shots proper in the show, the fans have not let that go unanswered...


Comics

  • Think of any universe in which more than one superhero exists: Marvel Universe, The DCU, Ultimate Marvel, etc. More often than not, there'll be a dozen or more people wearing Underwear of Power or Leotards of Power or less and this will be totally irrelevant to the plot and may not even be acknowledged by anyone.
    • Lampshaded in Watchmen, where the Silk Spectre complains about her Lycra suit's dehumanizing nature.
  • Originally completely averted by Susan Storm/Richards of the Fantastic Four, who wore first street clothes, then a uniform essentially identical to her teammates'. (Tailored to fit, but not to be skintight or anything.) Since then, there have been occasional exceptions. The most notable being the period in the Dark Age where she wore a thong and the "4" on her chest was cut into a Cleavage Window. The ludicrousness of the look was pointed out quite a bit. Even her husband chided her for "traipsing around half-naked in that ridiculous new costume". It was later revealed that she was under subtle mind control...or something. There have been other times where she wore a feminized version of the Fantastic Four uniform, but they managed to be both flattering and tasteful.
    • When She Hulk joined the team, her uniform was a mild invocation of this trope. The only difference between it and the standard Fantastic Four uniform was the bare arms and legs.
    • Justified in that she was replacing Ben Grimm, who essentially wore swimsuit trunks. Both of them are Super Strength melee fighters who would be prone to tearing any uniform they wear, so leaving their arms and legs bare to reduce the frequency of uniform replacement makes sense.
  • The X-Men have some examples of this in the few instances where they wear matching uniforms:
    • The original New Mutants costumes were nearly identical for boys and girls, except that the "turtleneck" was yellow for the boys, and black for the girls, suggesting a mildly different neckline, while actually being just as modest.
    • Emma Frost is the most notable, even in her Generation X days. Her version of a standard uniform is always white, always shows more skin, and usually comes with Combat Stilettos. This probably has the most in-character significance, since it shows her willingness to bend the rules and use sexuality as a weapon.
    • When Storm briefly took to the X-Men's "street" look in the early 2000's, she wore the standard Xavier Institute sweater with a microskirt and thigh-high boots.
    • Jean Grey did it first, of course. When the original X-Men first revamped their looks, the biggest difference was Jean's feminized version of the standard uniform: the hood was replaced by a mask that let her hair flow free, and the neckline plunged to show a little cleavage (in case you're wondering, the green miniskirt came later, but all the X-Men had their own look then).


Film

  • Aayla Secura in Star Wars wears a midriff-baring top and jeans, at odds with the traditional Jedi robes. She's not breaking any rules, though - the robes aren't mandatory and the robes themselves aren't uniform from Jedi to Jedi. The main reason she is dressed that way is because she's a Twilek, who traditionally wear less clothing. Compared to other Twilek females, she's exceptionally modest.


Live Action TV

  • Doctor Who:
    • In the episode The Doctor's Daughter, the Doctor's daughter, Jenny, is dressed in a tight shirt and trousers when she appears from the cloning machine (don't ask) as opposed to the baggy jumpsuits every other clone is wearing. Why? Because it's sexy.
    • In The Seeds of Death all the male technicians wear hideous, shapeless jumpsuits. Miss Kelly, on the other hand, gets figure-hugging Future Spandex.
  • Cited, although in not as few words, by the production team as the reason for the Cyber-kini in the Torchwood episode "Cyberwoman".
  • Stargate Atlantis episode "Critical Mass," not clothing, but hair. A recurring guest star playing a female Marine, Lieutenant Cadman, while in uniform on-duty, spends the entire episode with fairly-long hair hanging loose. Director audio commentary on the season set discs says this was done because it looked good. Never mind the fact that a real military female would never have her hair that way on-duty. Given they were frequently asked to cut Amanda Tapping's hair when it got too long on SG-1 one wonders why they didn't feel the need here.
    • Cadman's hair in that episode is just Rule of Sexy in action, as the commentary notes.
      • And they're in another galaxy, after all. They probably get a bit lax about minor things like that from time to time.
    • Most of Teyla's outfits qualify.
      • Teyla usually wears standard military dress when off-world, it's just her civvies that abide by the law of Bare Your Midriff.
  • Star Trek loves this trope.
    • On Star Trek: Voyager, crewmembers wore Starfleet uniforms (even the Maquis, much to their initial displeasure) while Seven of Nine (who isn't even given a field commission like the Maquis) wears catsuits and high heels.
      • At least this time they justified the trope by saying the outfit was needed to hold her in shape after removing most of her Borg implants. Though why she couldn't wear a regular uniform over it is never stated (might have been comfort, though that wouldn't explain the heels). The worst part was when she did wear a uniform, in "Relativity", she looked absolutely gorgeous.
    • Likewise, on Star Trek: Enterprise, T'Pol habitually wears a skintight, vaguely camo-pattern catsuit even though the standard Vulcan uniform consists of loose robes. Even in the desert, she wears a skintight white jumpsuit, even though Vulcans come from a desert planet and wear loose robes in their natural environment. The custom uniform part has some justification before she joins Starfleet (she's technically a civilian citizen of another state attached to the Enterprise mission), but the sexy part... You could at least explain away Seven as being the Doctor's influence.
      • And, once she joins Starfleet, she switched to a skintight, maroon or blue catsuit... with some hints of Starfleet insignia.
    • Kira Nerys from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine wore a more-or-less normal uniform in the earlier seasons of the show, similar to the uniforms worn by the Bajoran security and engineering personnel (including Odo). From season 4 onwards her uniform became more catsuit-like, with ridiculous five-inch heeled boots (with thick heels, though).
      • The heels were more for practicality in camera framing, though, as Nana Visitor is quite short of stature compared to her 6'-and-taller co-stars.
    • On Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deanna Troi had her famous body-hugging "cleavage suits". It's lampshaded when Jellico briefly becomes the captain of the Enterprise and tells her to get into a uniform ... and by the actress herself, who said sometime later that she much preferred the uniform, and so the character "got in the habit" of it.
      • Marina Sirtis talking of her reaction to this after the fact: "I can finally breathe out and wear underwear!" - Most Star Trek fans thought she looked better in the uniform, too, so it was a win-win.
    • Also on Next Generation, this was subverted in the first season: both men and women wore a "skant," a skirt-version of the familiar TNG uniform.
    • In every Mirror Universe episode of any Star Trek series, the female leads are always in ridiculously over-the-top Fetish Fuel outfits.
    • Classic Star Trek: The Original Series follows its own version, with the low-cut miniskirts worn by the female crewmen of the Enterprise.
  • Lampshaded in Galaxy Quest:

Gwen: My TV Guide interview was six paragraphs about my boobs and how they fit into my suit!

  • In "My Life In Four Cameras," an episode of Scrubs, JD has a lengthy fantasy about being in a cliche-filled sitcom, wherein all of the female character, save Jordan, wear titillating nurse uniforms while the men are dressed realistically.
    • This is more a parody of other medical dramas where the women will dress in low cut tops and the like.
  • V-2009: Peace ambassadors' (and their V companions') uniforms usually have a T-shirt or something underneath. Lisa's... well, it doesn't. Also, her uniform's cleavage is a bit deeper than the others'.
  • In BeastMaster, the Terrons wear black leather pants and vests. Except for Akili, who wears a very abbreviated loincloth.


Video Games

  • Rare male example: In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Big Boss and his comrades all share ostensibly the same outfits, although when they're being worn by Big Boss, they're more revealing. The Battle Dress gains orange buttocks and a skintight area on the chest (his men have gray buttocks and wear extra body armour over their chests), the various Fatigues are more unbuttoned, and Big Boss's 'Naked' camo is shirtless wheras his men will wear a tank top. Also his helmet is a metal bandana that covers practically nothing of his face and hair, whereas his men get a proper, face-covering helmet.
  • Mass Effect 2: provides the page quote above. Played with as Miranda is called out on her outfit during her loyalty mission:

Enyala: "I was waiting for you to finish getting dressed. Or does Cerberus really let you whore around in that outfit?"


Western Animation

  • In Teen Titans, the Titans don't share a uniform; however, in the episode The Quest Robin is away, and the other Titans have fun dressing up in his outfit. However, Starfire's Robin outfit is noticeably tighter than the others and bares more midriff, despite that Robin's outfits are supposed to all be the same.
    • Actually it's because all of Robin's outfits are the same that the uniform is tight on Starfire, as she's taller than Robin; in Beast Boy, who is shorter than Robin, the uniform is loose, and Cyborg can't really wear it at all.
  • Played with in a very minor way in The Incredibles. The family's uniforms are nearly identical, except that the female version has long gloves and high boots.

Real Life

  • Rhodesia's Selous Scouts, thanks to their operating theater, often ditched their pants in favor of shorts. Most of these short didn't even begin to match their top and varied wildly in both style and length, and many of them would qualify as "short shorts". Note: The Selous Scouts were all male.
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