Limited Wardrobe/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character wears only one set of clothes.

  • Straight: Alice wears the same green top and blue jeans every day.
  • Exaggerated: Alice wears the same green top and blue jeans even to special events, costume parties, work, funerals, and even on snowy days.
  • Downplayed: Alice is always seen wearing jeans and a top, but they're usually different colors/models.
  • Justified:
    • Alice only owns one set of clothes due to being incredibly poor.
    • Or, Alice doesn't feel comfortable in any other style of clothes.
    • Or, Alice found out she could get her clothes cheaper if she buys in bulk.
    • Or, we are seeing Alice a few weeks from the last time we saw her
    • Or, Alice is just so lazy that thinking about what the wear is a pain for her.
    • Or, Alice sees to it that all her clothes are the same.
    • Or, Alice is from a culture whose standard practice is to change only underwear.
    • Or, the show takes place at a school or workplace, and the outfit is a uniform.
  • Inverted: Unlimited Wardrobe.
  • Subverted: Alice seems to wear the same clothes everyday, but the next day, she shows up in a blue shirt and khaki shorts.
  • Double Subverted: But when this is pointed out, she freaks out.
  • Parodied: Alice shows us her closet which has a number of identical shirts and pants to choose from, and complains that she just can't decide what to wear.
  • Deconstructed:
    • Alice has an unhealthy obsession with a particular style of clothes and wears the same outfit everyday. The clothes eventually become filthy and unsanitary. Her friends leave her due to the stench and Alice eventually gets sick due to not ever changing her clothes.
    • Or, the same as above, but Hilarity Ensues as Alice's friends do crazy things to wash the clothes without removing them.
  • Reconstructed: Alice becomes obsessed with a certain style of clothes, so she buys eight identical sets of the same outfit.
  • Zig Zagged: ???
  • Averted: Alice has several sets of clothes to choose from and changes her outfit everyday, but not so much to cross into the Unlimited Wardrobe.
  • Enforced: "Our animation style doesn't make faces very distinctive, so we'll give them one set clothing style to make them instantly recognizable by the audience."
  • Lampshaded: "It feels like I've been wearing these clothes forever!"
  • Invoked: Alice intentionally wears the same thing every day to make herself stand out.
  • Defied: Alice burns every outfit after use so she never wears the same thing twice.
  • Discussed: "You'll recognize Alice by her green top and blue jeans. Trust me."
  • Conversed: "They wear the same clothes every day. How is that sanitary?"

Back to Limited Wardrobe...but first, here's twenty bucks. Go buy yourself something nice to wear. It's getting embarrasing.