Diamonds in the Buff



""That woman wasn't nude! She had a diamond in her navel!""

- How to Murder Your Wife

"Beautiful Girls

Wearing nothing but pearls

Caressing me

Undressing me

I'd have an attack"

- Leo Bloom, The Producers Musical

A woman wears prominent jewelry in such a way as to draw attention to what she's not wearing. Normally done with a necklace, probably because of just where that pendant is hanging, but can be any jewelry that draws attention to itself, such as dangly earings, bracelets and bangles, or a waist chain. The appeal of this is that the woman's body is adorned but not actually concealed — she's showing herself off.

A Sister Trope to Naked in Mink, Sexy Coat Flashing.

Film
"Indiana Jones: Wear your jewels to bed, princess?
 * In Titanic, Rose (Kate Winslet) character poses for her portrait nude, wearing only the Heart of the Ocean diamond necklace.
 * In Troy, Paris puts a necklace on Helen while she is otherwise nude.
 * There is an allusion to this in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom:

Willie Scott: Yeah... and nothing else."


 * Junebug in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka died from this.
 * In To Catch a Thief, when Francie (Grace Kelly) wants to seduce John (Cary Grant), who is a jewel thief, she wears a necklace to draw his attention to her cleavage (she normally doesn't wear jewelry). She does wear clothes, though, since the film was made in 1955.
 * The title/credits sequence to Diamonds Are Forever.
 * Lisle's enormous torso-covering necklace in Death Becomes Her.

Literature
""As soon as I can afford it, I will dress you in ropes of pearls and gold bracelets. And nothing else!"
 * This is standard attire (male and female) in the John Carter of Mars novels (pictured above).
 * Robert A. Heinlein's The Number of the Beast refers frequently to John Carter Of Mars, and at one point the female main characters invoke this trope.
 * An occasional threat against a slave girl on Gor is that she will be sent out in public naked but adorned with jewelry, to prove that her master can afford to clothe her but has consciously decided against it.
 * In Stephen King's Pet Sematary, when Louis buys his wife, Rachel, a sapphire necklace, she says that she will "take everything off except this."
 * Dudley Pope's Buccaneer has a conversation between main character Ned Yorke, recently turned pirate, and his sweetheart in which she teases him that successful pirates can afford to dress their women "in ropes of pearls and gold bracelets!" His response:

She blushed and looked away. "So you have an added incentive to be successful!""

"The front of her crimson gown was cut away to show the design of a many-headed dragon worked in gems glued to her flat belly, slim waist, and cleavage"
 * In Robert E. Howard's "The Slithering Shadow", Conan the Barbarian, fleeing soldiers, runs in on a woman dressed like this. She uses a Trap Door on him.
 * In the Show Within a Show play in The Book of the New Sun, Severian, Dorcas and Jolenta play what appears to be their culture's versions of Adam, Eve and Lilith. (OK, Lilith was never mentioned in the Bible, but you get the idea.) All three are naked, but Jolenta (who plays the Lilith equivalent) is wearing jewels.
 * Discworld: The fantasy-barbarian-queen parody in The Colour of Magic is adorned like this, managing to impress both Hrun the Barbarian's libido and mercenary sensibilities at the same time.
 * In the book of Esther, Queen Vashti is holding a banquet for the noblewomen of Persia, while her husband, King Xerxes, holds another banquet for his buddies to celebrate his recent victory. He drunkenly asks her to make an appearance before his guests wearing her crown. According to some scholars, she was to wear only her crown.
 * Done with flowers in the first book of The Darksword Trilogy
 * There's a line in Alistair MacLean's When Eight Bells Toll where the hero is temporarily staying in the room of a fellow (not present) who likes nude pin-up photos. As in, lots of them cover all the walls. When his love interest visits him there, she's unfazed by the decor and comments with amusement that "the one with the jade earrings" looks a bit overdressed.
 * In Elminster in Myth Drannor had a few Elven ladies who can afford the requisite jewelry using this to go Up to Eleven.
 * The noble fashion explorer Ithrythra Mornmist is introduced in a lacy gown that evidently didn't obstruct the gems glued to her skin. It was even specifically noted that she knows better than to repeat the apparently common mistake of using gaudy jewelry where it doesn't enhance the whole image - unlike the next lady who had her eartips "almost drooping" under the weight of dangling gems.
 * Symrustar Auglamyr, who was something of Femme Fatale at the time, was introduced dressing the same way:

"[she] smiled up at him, and tore open the front of her gown. His name was emblazoned in gems across her otherwise bare breasts."
 * Later one of the Elven ladies conspiring to do something about the decadence and start with shaking some sense into their own "poor dutiful lords" played this card on her husband, in addition to a few other little shocks. Seeing his wife "in a gown that would have made his pulses race if [she] had been forty summers younger, twice as slim as she was, and just a bit less familiar" does not distract him enough? Let's escalate by adding a few flattering poses, and then there's another way to make an excellent point -

Live-Action TV

 * Batman: The Penguin once directed a movie starring Batman and Marsha, Queen of Diamonds (It Makes Sense in Context). Penguin seems to have had this trope in mind for a scene where Marsha takes a milk bath, wearing nothing but her diamonds. Aunt Harriet's Gotham City Film Decency League put a stop to it before it happened, though.

Magazines

 * One issue of the German magazine Stern had on its cover a photograph of model Naomi Campbell nude except for jewelry.
 * This outfit worn by Yamila Diaz-Rahi in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue was the inspiration for Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball's Venus (see below in Video Games).

Tabletop Games

 * Like the John Carter of Mars example in Literature above, this is the standard attire of the lashunta in Pathfinder. Lashunta are the natives of one of Golarion's neighbour planets, Castrovel.

Webcomics

 * Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures: Referenced, but doesn't occur. In an Omake, Matilda explains that despite not wearing regular clothing, she feels naked without her jewelry on. Another character is quick to point out that Matilda never wears jewelry.

Video Games

 * Flurrie in Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door. Before you can recruit her into your party, you have to find her lost necklace, as she would feel completely scandalized without it.
 * Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball had the game's most expensive swimsuit called the Venus, which is jewelry concealing the ladies' where it matters most. It is available for only one girl to purchase. To give it to the others, you have to really know the game inside and out.
 * In the God of War series, the ladies in the sex mini-games tend to be (un)dressed this way.

Visual Art

 * Older Than Steam: This was really popular with the French Mannerist painters known as the School of Fontainebleau. A typical painting shows a woman wearing an elaborate jewelled headdress, a gold choker, a gold necklace, pearl bracelets, several rings and nothing else. She's reaching into a jewel box for more rings.
 * In Lucas Cranach the Elder's Cupid Complaining to Venus, the goddess of love appears clad only in gold necklaces and her Nice Hat.

Real Life

 * The Ancient Indian dancers - the Apsaras.