Fashion Shop Fashion Show

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The guy takes the girl out to buy some clothes. The girl vanishes into the changing booth, and performs a little fashion show, appearing in various catwalk-like poses and different outfits with increasing velocity. Either this utterly annoys the man, who is quickly running out of patience, or he's increasingly intrigued by those sexy outfits.

Mostly done in form of a Montage, where we see each outfit for a mere second, and then the guy's emotional (and often goofy) reaction.

Alternatively, the girl is the bride and the guy is exchanged for her best friend(s). If a wedding is involved, this may be a sort of Hard Work Montage.

A Sub-Trope of Costume Porn.

Compare Shopping Montage, Costume Test Montage, Fashion Show.

No real life examples, please; Real Life does not have montages.

Examples of Fashion Shop Fashion Show include:

Anime and Manga

  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED gives Lacus Clyne one of these while on a break on the Moon. Each outfit she tries on gets an approval from her boyfriend, Kira. Eventually she accuses him of just nodding and saying yes without actually caring what she wears.
  • The titular character of Solty Rei goes through a holographic dressing room while shopping for clothes, enabling a montage of costumes. The reactions of the man she is seeking the approval of range from indifference to irritation until, without looking at the outfit, he finally snaps that the one she has on at the moment is fine.
  • Happens in one episode of the anime Dai no Daibouken, with princess Leona doing the fashion show. One of the outfits she tries is in fact a bikini, which ends angering Pop (whom still suffers from a Nosebleed).
  • Minako does this during the opening for the Sailor Moon S movie
  • Rocket Girls has one the first time the girls get (back) to Yokohama after being in space. All that's missing is a boyfriend.
  • Since Girls und Panzer has a Fundamentally Female Cast, team leader Miho fills the "boyfriend" role when everybody goes shopping for swimsuits in the first OAV (and ends up forgetting to buy a swimsuit for herself). Hana, Yukari, and Mako each end up modelling swimwear.

Comic Books

  • Terra #4 (February 2009) in the DC Universe. The title character has one when her friend Power Girl takes her shopping for clothes.

Film

  • Mel Gibson and his daughter in What Women Want.
  • In Alfie, Susan Sarandon's character and her husband do this; Alfie drops in and gives Sarandon some... advice, and hilarity ensues.
  • Tank Girl: The title character does one of these (without an audience) while trying on a bizarre series of costumes in Liquid Silver (starting around 9:25).
  • Xanadu: When Sonny takes Danny (Gene Kelly) shopping for a new outfit, Danny has one with music and dancing (watch it here, starting at 6:00).
  • Charlie and Itchy take Anne-Marie shopping in All Dogs Go to Heaven. In a clever variation, the outifts are revealed through a spinning full-length mirror.
  • "I'm Going Shopping With You" from Gold Diggers of 1935.
  • Most famous scene of Pretty Woman.
  • Happens in What a Girl Wants with Amanda Bynes' character. Weirder though is that the guy is Colin Firth, her father.
  • One of many Rom Com tropes subverted in Bromantic Comedy I Love You, Man, when Peter is trying on his tux.
  • Happens in the Disney Channel original movie Life-Size, in which doll-turned-human Eve (played by Tyra Banks) tries on clothes so she can expand her wardrobe while a real person.
  • Done in the Live Action Adaptation of High School Debut with Haruna trying on clothes and Yoh watching.

Live-Action TV

  • 30 Rock:(Lampshaded, parodied and ultimately subverted) In the episode "flu Shot" the trope is played straight for two seconds in a flashback sequence, with Tracy and Jenna.

Liz: Stop. I don't need the Montage.
Jenna: Sometimes I was like this, (shakes head no) but other times I was like this (gives thumbs up).

  • Gossip Girl: In "Dare Devil", Jenny tries on outfit after outfit for Blair's approval, and met with such encouragement as, "Ugh. Too Hannah Montana."
  • Parks and Recreation: Cold opening to the Sweetums episode, with Tom. It takes place in the office, but otherwise plays the trope straight
  • One is alluded to in an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent where Goren et al are on the trail of his nemesis Nicole Wallace—her apprentice held one for her presumptive boyfriend, but was posing by the window so that Nicole herself could have a view of the outfits. This is the first clue in a string of clues leading Goren to Nicole.
  • A rare male example in Everybody Hates Chris, the titular character coerces his mother into taking him shopping so he won't look bad during school's Picture Day.
  • Used on (of all things) MythBusters, for the B myth in the "Exploding Water Heater" episode. Said B myth dealt with jeans shrinking to the point of constricting blood flow, so Kari and Grant went shopping for jeans. Even more unusual in that most of the montage was dedicated to Grant rather than Kari.
  • Farscape. John Crichton is given a vision of what life would be like if his alien friends lived with him on Earth. In one scene Aeryn is trying to choose a wedding dress.

Aeryn: (appearing in a rather revealing dress) What about this one?
John: That's good... Just not...for...the wedding. (chases a giggling Aeryn into the change booth, followed by the shop assistant scurrying to stop any hanky-panky)

Webcomics

  • In Legend of Bill, Gina goes through a three-strip fashion shop fashion show after she's been body-swapped with the Evil Queen Vasheeva. It starts here.

Western Animation

  • Played with in "South Park Is Gay!", in which the boys enthusiastically adopt the metrosexual lifestyle.
  • In The Weekenders when Tish is looking for a new look after getting a "B" and being deemed no longer suitable to be considered the nerd, her friends organized this. Complete with scoring.
  • Inevitably happens in "Clothes Minded", the episode of Kim Possible that mostly revolves around her search for a new mission outfit. The judgements come from her friend Monique, and ultimately nothing makes the grade.
  • In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, Twilight and Fluttershy go through this (in wo different episodes), courtesy of Rarity. Though Twilight doesn't buy anything and Fluttershy was just modeling.