She Cleans Up Nicely: Difference between revisions

While the ballroom and the staircase are not strictly necessary for this trope to function, they are the most common elements in which to place the events unfolding.

 

 

{{examples}}

* Misty of ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' fame has done this from time to time. The infamous example of her wearing a kimono at the [[Festival Episode|Summer Festival]] and actually rendering Ash speechless comes to mind.

** Also, in one episode, Ash and Company met a girl who dresses and acts tough. At the end of the episode, when she invoked the trope, Brock reacted the way he usually does around beautiful girls, which prompted her into resume her boyishness.

** She also pulls it with a kimono, shocking everyone.

* Nadja Applefield from ''[[Ashita no Nadja]]'' embodies the trope whether dolled up via Leonardo and Thierry or wearing her [[Gorgeous Period Dress]] inherited from her [[Missing Mom]]. {{spoiler|When said gown is destroyed by Rosemary, with help of Grandma Anna Nadja sews the intact top part into a new dress.}}

** {{spoiler|Tieria Erde}} not only dresses up ''really'' nicely for the same second season party, but mixes this with {{spoiler|[[Wholesome Crossdresser]].}}

** Setsuna also cleaned up nicely in that same ball. Seeing him in a black suit was a very, ''very'' nice surprise.

** And Deedo is so uncomfortable that she whines quite a bit at first, too.

{{quote|'''Deedlit:''' Ah, this dress is so tight! Seriously, I don't know how you court ladies can wear these things ever day...}}

* ''[[Rocky (film)|Rocky]]''. [[Meganekko|Adrian]] is the [[Trope Codifier]].

* In ''[[Enchanted]]'', the example is recursive. Giselle shows up at the ball (with Edward in tow) in this fashion. Funnily enough, the ball is an "old fashioned fancy dress" kind, involving clothing of the sort Giselle's been wearing for the whole movie -- except now she shows up in a fairly simple modern-day dress. Robert still gets distracted away from his date Nancy, who is also dressed up fancily. The reason for Giselle's very striking effect is that she suddenly looks like a grown woman instead of a little girl playing dress-up with the Disney Princess dresses she'd worn until then.

** According to the extras in the DVD release, that was one of the hardest scenes for [[Daniel Radcliffe]] and [[Rupert Grint]] to get right, because although ''Ron and Harry'' had never seen ''Hermione'' all dolled up before, ''they'' had seen Emma done up to the nines on many occasions.

** [[A Very Potter Musical|"I used to think looks weren't important, but now I think they're more important than anything!"]]

* This is the entire premise of the show ''[[How Do I Look]]?''. Take a woman whose friends don't like her fashion sense, buy her a new wardrobe, change her hair and makeup, and show her new look to a crowd of her friends and family as [[She Cleans Up Nicely]]. Often, the show gives a useful gift to the woman (besides the clothes, hair and makeup) such as paying 1/2 the past-due mortgage debt so a woman and her kids can stay in their house.

* In ''[[Castle]]'', [[Fair Cop]] Kate Beckett is told this explicitly using the trope name on at least two occasions: the high society fundraiser in "Home Is Where The Heart Stops" where she and Castle go undercover and the book launch of ''Heat Wave'' in "When The Bough Breaks". They're not wrong, either. The first time is a 'nervous and shy' example because she's wearing an amazingly expensive and beautiful dress that Castle has bought for her; the second time, everyone assumes she's a character actor hired to play 'Nikki', [[Write Who You Know|the character based on her]].

* Kaylee, in the ''[[Firefly]]'' episode, "Shindig". Some women at the party snark at her for wearing a store-bought dress, but she is happily vindicated when one male partygoer comes to her defense (and later the men [[Geeky Turn On|are delighted]] to discover [[Wrench Wench|how tech-savvy she is]]).

* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined|Battlestar Galactica]]'' (2004). The sight of Starbuck in a long slinky blue dress instead of her usual military-issue tanks or flight suit renders Apollo quite literally speechless. Lampshaded by a previous exchange between them where he teases her about her (lack of) hygiene, and she tells him she cleans up nicely sometimes.

** [[Hot Skitty-On-Wailord Action]]!

** In the new series Casey Jones looks ''damn'' sexy in a tux.

** In the same episode, Robin himself looks quite nice in that tux.

** There's another instance for Starfire, in the episode "Go!". Throughout the entire episode, Starfire has been wearing her prison garb and either screaming at everyone or being suspicious of them (since she just escaped being sold into slavery, that's understandable). At the end, when the enemy has been driven away, Starfire shows up wearing the outfit she spends most of the series wearing, smiling and looking happy and relaxed for the first time. Everyone is amazed.