Vapor Wear



When a female character's costume doesn't include a bra—or, for that matter, any underclothes at all. It may be made from a translucent material (with strategically placed lace or tape for modesty), feature a window to show off some Absolute Cleavage or Underboobs, or may be something backless, but whatever the case, the outside costume is all that the person is wearing. If she's wearing any underclothes at all, they must be made of air—or, should we say, Vapor Wear.

Vapor Wear is the default dress code for The Vamp and the Femme Fatale, whose personality traits match up well with the ability to waste no time removing her knickers, and who (if seen in something less vampy) will specifically mention the lack of underwear, which can present even an ordinary outfit as something interesting or unusual.

A similar rule applies to succubi, the female Horny Devils.

This trope can also apply to male characters, but rarely does, because nipple nubs tend to be more socially acceptable than a certain bulge.

Vapor Wear is a significant factor in the Theiss Titillation Theory.

Not to be confused with Censor Steam. Or Vaporware. Nor with the similarly named Real Life clothing company that, alas, bears absolutely no relation to this trope.

For a more generalized version, see Going Commando.

Advertising

 * There was a commercial once showing a pretty girl standing on a busy street wearing a tartan skirt. She turns to the camera and says cheerfully: "No, I'm not wearing any." Referring, of course, to the famous vapor wear of the Scottish people.
 * That sounds very much like a commercial in which the girl says "Do you want to see what's under my kilt?" The ad was for tartan patterned sanitary napkins.
 * The female sports reporter in this Diet Rite commercial isn't wearing a bra underneath her sweater, as shown by how her breasts are bouncing up and down.

Anime and Manga

 * Mostly good guy version: Anko Mitarashi of Naruto wears only a jacket over a combination of fish net stocking and chain mail. (And a skirt.)
 * Ouch. Mail tends to hurt when worn on skin.
 * Aqua from Kono Suba visibly doesn't wear panties. Or as one fan theory states, she does, but made them invisible so people don't peak at them.
 * Kotoko-01 in Divergence Eve, in both seasons, she definately dosen't wear panties underneath her piloting suits.
 * Lust in Fullmetal Alchemist.
 * Later on, this also applies to Winry...and Ed accidentally catches her as she's about to take her shirt off.
 * Yura of the Hair from Inuyasha. Of course, bras didn't exist back then, but they didn't dress like that either.
 * Princess Kraehe from Princess Tutu. There's also Mytho, who has this quirky little habit of not only forgetting to wear pants, but apparently also underwear.
 * Kalifa in One Piece.
 * Nico Robin is probably most guilty of this among the Straw Hat Pirates. Though the true masters of this trope are the Kuja Pirates. One in particular, Rindo, has the same unzipped leather jacket mentioned in the Tokko example below.
 * Miss Deep of Read or Die.
 * The girls of Ultimate Girls may fit this trope—seconds after expanding to 100 foot tall, their skintight spandex uniforms begin to disintegrate. This wouldn't be so bad, except said skintight spandex uniforms are all they are wearing. Not to worry, however, they use the feeling of humiliation at being seen naked by millions as a Moe power source.
 * Precia Testarossa in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha goes with this and Absolute Cleavage.
 * In her mindscape battle with Evangeline during the Mahora Festival Tournament Arc of Mahou Sensei Negima, Setsuna is shown wearing the clothes of the bird tribe which doesn't come with a bra.
 * Some shots in Code Geass, especially the first R2 ED, strongly suggest that Kallen goes commando, though we do see that she does occasionally wear panties. Not a bra, though (at least, not all the time).
 * This is the entire basis for Hatsukoi Limited's side story. Soako, a Dojikko, was in such a hurry getting dressed that she forgot to put on her underwear. Hilarity ensues.
 * Yumiko in Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou has gone running around without panties twice. The first time was some unspecified number of years in the past where she threw them at a group of boys who were teasing her about it and then found herself on the run without them later. The second time, they were stolen by a daemon and she went running around without them.
 * Nowa from Queen's Blade, a forest elf, never wears any panties at all, to the surprise of Leina. She's totally comfortable with it, too.
 * Yuuma from Magical Pokaan accidentally defeats K-ko in episode 1 when this, along with the Chunky Updraft from her spellcasting effect, causes a rocket-powered Nosebleed. The same thing happens in episode 11, but this time on live television.
 * Urabe Mikoto, from the Mysterious Girlfriend X manga, shares a sort of psychic "bond" with the male protagonist that lets them share emotions (and memories, to some extent) with one another When some other guy asked her out, she tried to test it on him, but nothing happens. Then, she went with the protagonist (worried at the moment that she might actually switch to the other, "cooler" guy) and uses their bond, whereupon he immediately gets aroused without knowing why. Then, she pulls a pair of panties from her schoolbag, revealing that these were the ones she was going to use that day, and she was, in fact, wearing nothing under her uniform skirt. And it's not the weirdest thing she has done, either.
 * Mizuki from No Bra. Despite what the title may suggest, she seems to be the only one.
 * The leotard Miu wears in Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple. Her nipples are more defined while wearing this than if she were naked.
 * When Silcardo Jenezad obtains his disciple Bulu, it appears as if she wears nothing from the waist down except for the bottom section of a tunic. Once the inevitable Clothing Damage starts to pile up, we see her rear end is indeed completely bare.
 * Black Butler II: Episode 6 reveals that, underneath her usual maid outfit, Hannah doesn't wear underwear, only a corset and a see through slip. Probably a case of Go-Go Enslavement, though.
 * Honey Kisaragi is often revealed, via Clothing Damage and Wardrobe Malfunctions, to not wear a bra (though she definitely wears panties, at least most of the time). As of Cutey Honey, her Absolute Cleavage makes this obvious all the time.
 * Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. In "ANGELS' SHARE", Kusanagi is in London, wearing a trenchcoat as opposed to her usual Stripperiffic battle teddy, when she has to lure a police Special Weapons officer into an alley so she can steal his uniform. She keeps the trenchcoat, but the exposed cleavage shows she's removed everything beneath it.
 * In SHUFFLE!! (both the anime and the VN), Primula at first has no idea she's supposed to wear something under her shirt. Rin finds this out the hard way.
 * As Fairy Tail has gone on, it has become increasingly apparent that none of the women wear bras and that at least Erza and Juvia may not normally wear anything underneath their heavier clothing if Clothing Damage is any indication.
 * Yuka from Kemonozume never seems to wear a bra, but her breasts are small enough for her to get away with it.
 * Maicchingu Machiko Sensei has almost every Fan Service you can name. Whether or not she is wearing a bra varies from episode to episode. We can usually tell by the time her clothes are torn away.
 * Kureha from Tokko walks around bra-less and shirtless with only an unzipped leather jacket covering her. Sakura also doesn't appear to wear a bra under her tank-top.
 * Eriko from Dragon Crisis goes bra-less sometimes - in particular, her dress from episode 6.
 * The Yuurei Shoujo from Gate Keepers 21 wears a transparent dress, scarf, and nothing else.
 * Ranma ½: Ranma Saotome, being a guy half the time, never wears bras when he's in his female form. All the male students at his high school love it, I assure you.
 * Bleach: Riruka was either panty-less or only wearing a g-string in this shot.
 * Saki Achiga-hen: Shizuno wears a (zipped) jacket, shoes, and nothing else. She's flat enough not to need a bra at least...
 * Question Fairy, a Japanese animation created by the Japanese government to teach kindergarten children what they needed to bring to their first day of school. Some .... fans pointed out she can't possibly be wearing underwear. This is one of the reasons the Japanese government abandoned the project. See it here.

Comic Books
"Bystander: Son, I wanted you to learn about the female body; I just wish your first sight of it wasn't twenty feet wide."
 * Empowered, the titular heroine of that series, is empowered by a super suit that gives her super strength and super toughness. She can't wear anything over the outfit because anything touching it kills its powers. She can't wear underwear under it, for the same reason, and since it is literally skin tight, even a thong looked horrible. The lack of...certain things being visible through the suit was dodged in book 3, and seemed to have become a running gag in the metatext pages at the end that they'll never actually tell us how Emp gets around that problem.
 * The Engineer from The Authority. Her "outfit" was created when her nanomachines came out and covered her skin. Earlier issues showed how form-fitting it was quite clearly. If, for whatever reason, her nanomachines malfunctioned, well, they get reabsorbed into her body leaving nothing behind. Picture of a cover with her on it here. The Engineer straight up admits to being an exhibitionist when challenged on why she doesn't wear anything over it.
 * At least one Marvel artist draws the Scarlet Witch in outfits that make it clear she can not be wearing any panties. Said artist stated Wanda goes commando, and insisted there is no canon artwork of her that shows her wearing panties.
 * Girl One, a police officer from Top Ten, surprises her partner by revealing that she's not wearing a funky color-shifting outfit - she can change her pigmentation expertly at will and uses it to simulate the appearance of clothing while she's really naked. Later, she punches out her superior officer Ceasar without any warning, because she found out that dogs are color blind (he's an intelligent dog in a mecha suit—it's that kind of series) and, thus, he's seen her naked all the time without saying anything. It Makes Sense in Context when you realize the true horror of Girl One: She's not a nudist or exhibitionist. She's an artificial human created by 2 horny geeks based on video game heroine and fanservice tropes, who programmed her with a compulsion to never wear clothing but not an Innocent Fanservice Girl mentality. She doesn't want to run around naked, she can't help it. When she found out her boss was aware—no one else is outside of her partner—she assumed he was getting his jollies from looking at her. He explains later that he's a dog, and she's a human, and thus, she's about as interesting to him as a random poodle is to her. And then he married a human prostitute and adopted an Anubis-like Dog Headed Human girl. It's that kind of series.
 * The above makes it out to be a little more horrible than it is for Girl One. When asked by her partner why she doesn't wear clothes, she says she's more comfortable without, and it's not like anyone can tell the difference.
 * Cobweb from Tomorrow Stories, oh so very much.
 * In one Justice League of America story, after Black Canary defeats Giganta, she goes, "If you insist on wearing a skirt into battle, put on some underpants, or at least learn to sit like a lady."
 * Seanbaby pointed out the same thing, albeit more crudely.


 * Gotham City Sirens makes it very clear that Catwoman cannot be wearing a bra underneath her Spy Catsuit.
 * Gemini Storm has Elizabeth Rose, whose clothes are all strapless and we can see she doesn't wear a bra underneath. She does wear a thong, though.
 * The cleavage window in Power Girl's leotard is almost always drawn in a way that would make it impossible for her to be wearing a bra underneath.
 * And sometimes even drawn so wide that it seems she has no nipples, either.
 * Mostly a male example in The Smurfs, as the male Smurfs just don't have any underwear when they put on or take off their pants. Averted in the cartoon show, as one male Smurf does show his bloomers when his britches come falling down.

Fan Works

 * Almost any Firefly fic with sex and River involved will have her at least go bra-less.

Film
"Mr. Weis: She's practically naked in that thing! Janet: Well I can't wear anything under it, Daddy, it would spoil the lines."
 * Elektra King from the James Bond movie The World Is Not Enough.
 * Mention must be made of Carey Lowell's costume that, sadly, only appeared in the poster for Licence to Kill.
 * Plenty O'Toole didn't wear a bra 'til some Moral Guardians made them paint one on.
 * Sharon Stone in an oft-parodied scene from Basic Instinct.
 * Rene Russo in The Thomas Crown Affair goes to a ball wearing a very see-through black dress.
 * In the Alternate Universe of Black Mama White Mama, bras were never introduced to the Philippines.
 * Carrie Fisher didn't wear a bra in A New Hope, which isn't noticeable...until she gets wet. According to her, George Lucas decreed that bras didn't exist in space, so for running scenes, she was protected from bouncing via duct tape.
 * She also confirmed that the gold bikini wasn't exactly good at covering anything. (In one interview, she said that Jabba's puppeteers were perverts and liked standing above and behind her for some reason).
 * Similarly, Leia's mother has a scene in Attack of the Clones that confirms that 1) Amidala didn't wear a bra either, and 2) Tatooine can be surprisingly cold.
 * Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. She was given panties in the DVD release, sorry to say, though she's still obviously going bra-less.
 * Comes up in Shock Treatment, when Janet's parents are upset by her new outfit.


 * The Mike Myers's vehicle The Love Guru parodies the Real Life examples below with the titular Guru caught by the paparazzi getting out of a limo without underoos.
 * Avatar: there's an occasional glimpse of Neytiri's nipples because her "tops" tend to be nothing but a bunch of strings.
 * The actress playing Jabba the Hutt's dancing girl, Oola, in Return of the Jedi is wearing a costume that basically amounts to black fishnet and body paint. This is exceptionally visible when she is struggling against her chains, and visibly "falls out" for a split second.
 * Pretty much everything Milla Jovovich wears in The Fifth Element, much to her protector and acolytes' collective chagrin.
 * The very silly 1960's beach party movie The Girl in the Invisible Bikini. Yes, the bikini was invisible, but everything the bikini covered was invisible too.
 * In Sex and the City 2, Charlotte's nanny, Erin (Alice Eve), never wears a bra, making Charlotte jealous.
 * The alternate title of the 1968 British-French film The Girl on a Motorcycle is Naked Under Leather.
 * Alisa's red dress in the Night Watch.
 * Faith's chain-link concert dress in Strange Days. Very clearly not wearing a bra. Barely wearing a dress.
 * In Fritz the Cat, Bertha and Harriet both wear no underwear and short skirts that ride up in the back, so their butts are basically visible all the time. Oh, and Harriet's breasts are hanging out of her top during the entire first scene she appears in. Just in case you still thought this movie was for kids.
 * In The Mummy 1999, Imhotep's lover appears to be wearing a long gown when she secretly meets him - but then he touches her shoulder, smearing the body paint which is all she has on.
 * In The Little Devil, Nina doesn't wear panties under her dress. Not only that, she lifts it up, due to the summer heat as she says. The viewer doesn't see anything, though, as they only see her either from behind or from the waist up, but little devil Giuditta (and everyone else around him) does. In fact, Nina was.

Literature
""She winnowed close then. I made out that she didn't have on air stitch under her silky dress. She was proudly made, and well she knew it. She stood so close she near about touched me.""
 * In Philip Kerr's SF novel The Second Angel, a woman named Veronica (a major character) wears a long lambskin coat, but no underwear, even though the Earth has become arctic, due to the melting of the icecaps. This takes Fanservice to the point of near suicide.
 * The female Big Bads in The Wheel of Time are partial to wearing gowns of "streith", which is basically mood cloth. Under certain conditions, it becomes transparent or smoky, showing that they don't bother with underwear, and making this "vapor wear" of the most literal variety.
 * Done by Craye Sawtelle, the Evil Sorceress of The Spring, one of the Silver John stories by Manly Wade Wellman:


 * In On A Pale Horse, when Death meets Nature, she is wearing a dress literally made out of fog. In every other book in the series, she wears a dress made of leaves.
 * Piers Anthony is in a polygamous marriage with this trope and Panty Shot, and they recur regularly, separately or in the same paragraph, throughout all his series.
 * To illustrate: in one novel, appropriately titled The Color Of Her Panties, The Quest is to determine the color of a certain female character's panties. The complication is that she has yet to start wearing any underwear.
 * Kiss Me, Deadly opens with Private Detective Mike Hammer picking up a female hitchhiker in a belted trenchcoat. He doesn't realise she's got nothing else on until she slips his hand underneath it to encourage him to get her past a police roadblock.
 * Invoked and used for nefarious purposes in Turn Coat of The Dresden Files. Harry has just finished talking to another private investigator who has been tailing him. The other PI is a decent fella, so he backs off the case when Harry tells him lives are in danger if he keeps it up. However, he doesn't tell Harry who hired him because he's got integrity. He reports this to his apprentice, barely-legal Molly Carpenter, who decides to go ask him...but not before taking off her bra and cooling her chest for maximum effect. Poor guy never stood a chance.
 * Conversed in the book Dork Diaries by Nikki in her diary. She points out about the habit of some celebutante/actresses of 'continuously forgetting to wear their underwears'.

Live-Action TV

 * Sue Ellen Mishke, the Braless Wonder from the Seinfeld episode "The Caddy", is a subversion of sorts. When she was introduced, Elaine complained that she never wore a bra under her office attire; this was supposed to be apparent to the viewer. When Elaine gave Sue Ellen a bra as a gift, she started wearing it in place of actual clothing, causing whiplash and car crashes on the streets of New York.
 * Played for laughs in an episode of the prison-based Britcom Porridge. When Fletcher's daughter, Ingrid, pays him a visit (in the open-plan visiting room), he is outraged that she's not wearing a bra and all the other prisoners can see it. Next time she visits, she puts a bra on, and just to make sure he knows it, she lifts up her t-shirt to demonstrate.
 * If Kelly Bundy ever wore a bra, she was certainly always very bouncy and pointy in spite of it.
 * Funny Aneurysm Moment much? (IRL Christina Applegate had her breasts removed and rebuilt when she tested positive for a mutant BRCA1 gene...according to her, never needing a bra ever again doesn't exactly make up for the loss of function.)
 * In the Dollhouse episode of Wizards of Waverly Place, when Alex hugs Justin, she is noticeably not wearing a bra.
 * [[media:servie 2408.jpg|Servalan]] from Blakes Seven. It's more obvious in motion, but still...damn.
 * Professor Amelia Rumford in the Doctor Who story "The Stones of Blood" wore a silk blouse without a bra when the air was a bit chilly.
 * 30 Rock: Liz Lemon counseled her assistant Cerie about wearing revealing outfits and going braless at the office, despite protests from the male staff.
 * In an episode of Friends, Monica's decision not to wear a bra results in embarassing consequences when she chooses to sing at Mike's piano bar and the stage lighting causes her breasts to become very visible to the cheering male audience. She thinks they like her singing.
 * When Parker of Leverage changes clothes in an elevator, she is notably not wearing a bra. Kind of weird if you think about it - she's on a job and must have known she'd have to change - but nobody's complaining.
 * About half the time the main cast of Charmed are on screen, they don't seem to be aware of the existence of bras.
 * In the That '70s Show episode "The Third Wheel", Eric refers to Hyde's Girl of the Week as "Little Miss Can't Find a Bra".
 * Brittany and Santana went on a date with Finn during the first season of Glee. Brittany later informed Sue that they tried everything to seduce him—Brittany, for example, didn't wear a bra. And asked management to turn up the air conditioning. Ahem.
 * Jaime Sommers in The Bionic Woman wears quite a lot of barely legal dresses with no bra, which, in reruns, are slightly startling to modern sensibilities.
 * Shamelessly employed on the Tremors series, when Rosalita taught a self-defense lesson to Burt's survival class, apparently without realizing her white T-shirt was soaking wet. Not that the guys in the class were complaining, mind you.
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer has the first Slayer, whose costume seems to be nothing but strategically-placed cheesecloth.
 * Let's not forget the slayer's own aversion to bras in the first few seasons.
 * In Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen wears a flimsy silk dress that can barely pass off as clothing with nothing on underneath. Perhaps justified, as she was being displayed to her new husband, Khal Drogo.
 * Susan Sullivan in the pilot movie of The Incredible Hulk was wearing a see-through black shirt with twin breast pockets. While it would be difficult to say for certain while watching, the DVD commentary specifically states she was braless and the pockets were the only reason they got away with it.
 * Fiona Glenanne in Burn Notice is rarely seen with a bra and at times it's blatantly noticeable.

Music

 * Madonna in the music video for Vogue. MTV wanted to remove such shots (which make up a good ten seconds of the video), but Madonna overruled them.
 * Lynn Mabry and Edna Holt of Brides Of Funkenstein, appearing in the Stop Making Sense concert video.
 * The front cover of Stacey Q's Boomerang album; only her hands are covering her unmentionable parts.

Tabletop Games

 * The Dark Eldar of Warhammer 40,000 field Wyches, evil space-elf gladiators who wear weapons, boots, and about a grand total of one square foot of black leather. Maybe two square feet for some of the guys.
 * The Dark Elf Witch Elves in Warhammer Fantasy Battle practically wear anti-clothing and yet still have an armor save. This is considered by most players to be highly optimistic.
 * Same goes for 40k's Sisters of Battle repentia, who get a 4+ save despite wearing nothing but a few strips of cloth and parchment to cover their strategic area. For comparison, a flak vest gives a 5+ save. 4+ is equal to full-body carapace armor.
 * Some tabletop games acknowledge and actually provide statistics for the improbable amounts of protection offered by Stripperiffic "armor" (such as GURPS, which calls it "Bulletproof Nudity").
 * The swedish RPG Playelf has "clothing penalties" - anything above the base necessities will obstruct your movements and give penalties to everything. Armor is useless because any advantage gained is negated by all the penalties. There are some options, but for the most part, you're encouraged to dress like a Boris Valejo painting.

Theatre

 * The infamous black lace bodystocking worn by the late, great Anita Morris as "Carla" in the 1982 Broadway musical Nine.

Video Games
"Did you know only 1 in 1200 Gaians wears underwear? I'm the expert. Since I'm short."
 * Penelo in Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, as seen above, wears pants that make it highly unlikely that there are any panties involved.
 * In Persona 3 FES, you can equip Yukari and Mitsuru (and the female main character in Portable) with High Cut Armour or Battle Panties in, to quote the game, armour that looks like a bikini. If you look closely, they aren't wearing a bra or panties.
 * The models for female characters in the original Neverwinter Nights are set up so that they are always wearing underwear unless you have an item equipped in their armor slot, in which case the underwear disappears. Curious, given the presence of backless/excessive cleavage torso options for most armors.
 * A Dance With Rogues has dialogue options in which you can respond to Vico's insinuations about your panties with "What panties?"
 * Ilyana's 3rd tier outfit in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. Sheeda seems to have nothing on in a picture in Shadow Dragon's attract mode. In the leaked prototype for the 7th game, the CG pictures don't have the grainy filter applied yet and make it easy to see Lyn's bare right cheek under her dress.
 * Taki in the Soul Series to a ridiculous degree, to the point where it looks like she paints her whole body red and fights naked.
 * Maki in Final Fight 2. No wonder she has an only-frontal magic skirt.
 * Female characters in Age of Conan don't wear bras. This can be seen every time when using the "Hide" ability, as hiding makes your equipment turn transparent.
 * Morrigan of Darkstalkers fame deserves a special mention. Since her clothing is made up of servant bats that conform to her body and change appearance, literally everything she wears is Vapor Wear. Then again, she is a succubus...
 * Another Morrigan fits this quite well, and the Tsundere attitude only helps.
 * In Tsukihime, apparently, Roa's favorite outfit when it was possessing was a partially open cloak. And only that.
 * Given how he (or would it be a she?) went around raping people (regardless of gender) before he killed them, his choice of clothing is really not all that shocking.
 * Chun Li and Cammy in Street Fighter IV have visible nipples during battles. They even pull a Gainax. Oddly, Chun Li is depicted with underwear nearly all the time, except during battle. Hmm.
 * Ibuki in Street Fighter III wears an outfit that leaves the sides of her hips and waist bare with a distinct lack of a waistband for anything underneath.
 * Gaia Online has the Laceback Skirt, a miniskirt that amounts to two squares of black leather and lacing up the sides (the name references the Laceback Bootsnakes you get the materials from in zOMG!). Admittedly, Gaia Online also has articles of clothing that amount to strategically-placed clouds, "Heart Pasties", and "Porn Stars", so this is nothing new.
 * NPC Sasha used to wear a short sarong so low on her hips that any underpants she was wearing would have been apparent. After the Art Shift, she's switched to jeans and a t-shirt. Post-Art Shift Ruby, on the other hand, clearly isn't wearing a bra under her new dress (for obvious reasons, since she now has angelic wings). This is a bit more alarming than the other examples since Ruby is A) quite stacked and B) the single mother of a young boy.
 * Outright lampshaded by NPC Diedrich.


 * Feral in BloodRayne 2 is covered only by what appears to be a deep indigo vapor on the surface of her skin. Since she and her animated Body Paint tend to move capriciously, Theiss Titillation Theory is heavily applied with Nipple-and-Dimed up top and Barbie Doll Anatomy below, while leaving her rear more casually exposed at times.
 * Rayne's evening gown in the opening chapter of the game, showing Absolute Cleavage and slits so high up the hips there couldn't be undergarments beneath it. While you can imagine the material would move better for an Action Girl than her usual leathers, the lower hem accommodates her moves more than plausibly.
 * Numerous outfits for the female custom characters in Soul Calibur IV appear to be worn without underwear, complete with Absolute Cleavage. Of course, when Clothing Damage kicks in, a bra will spontaneously appear where there clearly wasn't one before.
 * I-no in the Guilty Gear series goes braless, in a top that realistically would show the goods to anyone she was fighting.
 * The Oracle in the first God of War has a see-through top and no bra (unlike most examples of Vapor Wear, her breasts are fully visible).
 * For a (probably unintentional) male example from the same series, in III, Hercules's Loin Cloth sometimes clips through his legs, revealing that yes, they did render buttocks on his character model.
 * In Nie R, Kaine falls under this trope. And the cutscene camera will remind you of it every time.
 * In Gladiator, in the Japanese release (and the initial USA release), it becomes evident that Irene is not wearing a bra under her armor after her breastplate is broken.
 * Janna's clothing in League of Legends is so skimpy that HOT PANTS AND A BUSTIER are considered decent.
 * In the Saints Row series, clothing customization includes underwear, and in Saints Row 2, you may go without. Depending on the rest of your outfit, Pixellation may be applied as necessary.
 * In Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, most of the women are decently clothed, though significantly bouncier than one would expect in armor. Catwoman, on the other hand, clearly isn't wearing a bra (and her catsuit is unzipped practically to her navel). Neither is Wonder Woman. As this is the skimpiest of Diana's outfits (completely backless leotard with a very high-V bottom), we can also say that she is probably not wearing anything under it, especially since thongs weren't invented in Ancient Greece.
 * The heroine of Psychotoxic averts this in the actual game, but plays it straight in the box art. Her low-rider jeans clearly show she wears a thong in-game, but the identical outfit on the box shows no thong.
 * Gravity Rush heroine Kat. Not obvious in-game, but confirmed by the character designer.

Web Comics

 * In Sluggy Freelance, the MMORPG "Years of Yarncraft" has all female Rose Elves start out wearing a see-through top with no bra. You have to complete a quest in order to earn underwear.
 * In Misfile, Cassiel's wardrobe is this trope incarnate, to the point it seems that she only wears panties in order to do Panty Shots. Ash initially refuses to wear a bra, but comes around to the idea. S/he refuses to wear a thong, though.
 * Guest comic in Cheer
 * Upgraded from guest-only to artist's own fillers. Maybe soon, we'll get some in the canon!
 * Order of the Stick's Celia is pretty obviously not wearing a bra most of the time, although you can only tell when she turns her back to the "camera": her clothes are all backless on account of her giant fairy wings.
 * Sabine does likewise; unsurprisingly, as she is a succubus.
 * Almost everyone in Curvy.
 * Literally (perhaps?), with Faye "boobs shaped like 70's Playboy model's" Whitaker in this Questionable Content strip.
 * Concession
 * Angie's picture on the Cast Page has her in a miniskirt with no underwear.
 * On the male side, a couple of Artie's appearances imply he doesn't wear underwear.

Web Original

 * "Virtual Youtuber" Kizuna AI notes that because she's all data she technically isn't wearing any clothes and has no underwear.

Western Animation

 * One surprisingly shocking moment in Teen Titans has most of Raven's clothes get torn away. A look at her bare back implies that she doesn't wear anything under that skintight leotard. Then again, most leotards are made to be able to be worn like that, not unlike a bathing suit.
 * The animators of Kim Possible probably did not foresee the unintended implications of this clip.
 * This is also implied by the fact that her top is pointy in the spot of her breasts...
 * Similarly, Suki from Avatar: The Last Airbender doesn't wear anything beneath her Fire Nation outfit in the finale. Check out the top and waistline. She does have pants on, though. They're just low-cut.
 * Which is odd, because, earlier in the finale, she is shown in what must be her underwear. There is the possibility that it could be a separate bathing suit, but since everyone else was in their skivvies in that scene, then logically, Suki was too.
 * Futurama's Zapp Brannigan isn't wearing any pants below his jacket, as can be judged from Kif's reaction upon having a view up there.
 * Sandy Cheeks from SpongeBob SquarePants has done it. Twice. In "Squirrel Jelly" and "Sandy's Nutmare".

Real Life
"Nip slips were so 2004. This year the thing to do was to denude your ladyflower, wear a short skirt and no underwear, and then spread your legs wide as you emerged from a limousine. Exposed O'Keeffes included those of Kate Moss, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and, of course, Britney Spears, who flashed so much cooter the week after her marriage broke up that at this point many of us could probably provide police with an accurate sketch."
 * Charlie Dimmock, the female gardener in the BBC's semi-cult garden-makeover programme Ground Force. References to "Charlie's dimmocks" abounded for a while.
 * Britney Spears, the time that she was caught by the paparazzi. Happened several times with other celebs, too.

- Rebecca Traister [Salon's "Year in Sex, 2006"]


 * A famous photograph of '30s/'40s actress Carmen Miranda, taken as she danced with Cesar Romero, revealed that she was not wearing underwear at the time.
 * Jean Harlow, film star and sex symbol in the thirties, never wore any underwear. Some even say that she put ice on her nipples before shooting a scene. This practice contributed to the introduction of the Hays Code.
 * While watching the 1994 Carnaval in Rio, Brazilian President Itamar Franco invited a parade dancer named Lilian Ramos to join him in the Presidential box. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt, and each time she raised her arms it rose a few inches, revealing to the press assembled below that she wasn't wearing anything underneath. Various newspapers and magazines ran major articles about it (translation), creating a bit of a scandal. Some time later, Ms. Ramos did a reenactment of the incident for some sort of documentary.
 * Many Black Dresses look normal under normal lighting conditions but become see-through when blasted with several photo-flashes at once. When an unlucky actress wears one onto the red carpet without realizing it, certain websites start making money.
 * This is why one female celebrity states she takes a camera with her when trying out dresses.
 * A photograph taken at Dutch publisher Playlogic's booth at E3 2004 revealed that one of their booth babes was going commando at the time.
 * Taiwanese model Vivi Wang created a minor scandal by wearing this trope to the 2007 Taipei Motor Show.
 * Czech-Indian Model and actress Yana Gupta was caught by Paparazzi at a November 2010 charity event in Mumbai wearing nothing underneath her Little Black Dress. She later explained the circumstances leading to this on
 * Shortly before the 2011 Miss Universe pageant, Miss Colombia Catalina Robayo was caught wearing this trope at an official event in Sao Paolo. After photographic evidence of this appeared in a local newspaper, event officials reminded Ms. Robayo to wear underwear while in public.
 * When she wore a green Versace dress to the Grammy Awards in 2000, Jennifer Lopez was obviously modeling this trope. Her photo was much reproduced and much commented on.
 * Adrienne Bailon made headlines thanks to this trope after a red carpet event in March 2012, when a gust of wind blew the cream-colored ruffly thing on her dress to one side, and the skirt underneath proved unexpectedly transparent.