Sexy Slit Dress

Shampoo seductively shows her slim shanks.

"We had the skirts with the slits up the side, sort of tough, sort of Spanish Harlem cool, but sweet too."

— Ronnie Spector

In short, a dress, typically a maxi dress, with a slit up the side of the skirt. Sometimes the slit is on both sides, though most of the time it's usually just on one. Depending on the dress, and often what they are trying to communicate about the character, the slit can be either as low as the woman's knee or as high up as the side of her butt.

This type of dress is the perfect balance of elegant and sexy. Because they are typically about ankle length they usually avoid the issue of looking skimpy, and therefore trashy, while the exposed leg created by the slit allows the woman to show her legs and give on lookers (and the audience) plenty of eye candy to devour.

Because of how well it can straddle the line between elegance and sensuality, it's a type of dress that can be found worn by characters on multiple points on the alignment chart. For good characters it's a great way to show She Cleans Up Nicely, or that she's Beautiful All Along, and for villainesses it's a great way for her to show that she's gorgeous and she knows it like The Vamp, the Literal Maneater, the Femme Fatale, or any similarly styled woman. It's also great for characters who fall somewhere in the middle they may be working with the good guys, but just like the exposed leg, there's a hint of danger to her. This dress is also great for an Action Girl or Kick Chick because, in the case of a Ballroom Blitz, she's better able to fight without requiring an Action Dress Rip or risking a Panty Shot (or at least, it will be less in-your-face).

Because of its association with elegance as well as sexiness, this is often the dress of choice for The Fashionista and the High-Class Call Girl, especially if they're really rolling in dough.

Qipao, especially when leaning into the fanservice, are known to have this trait. Practically the uniform of The Chanteuse. Often overlaps with Pimped-Out Dress and High-Heel Power.

Please be careful when adding examples so that they don't violate No Lewdness, No Prudishness. Since these types are dresses are used for Fanservice, be sure not to add too much excessive details.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• City Hunter: As part of her sex appeal, the Fair Cop and Femme Fatale Saeko Nogami sometimes wear slit skirts, in one case writing on her thigh a job offer for Ryo when she was filmed in an airport during a hostage situation.
• One Piece: Boa Hancock wears a lot of dresses like this as part of her roll as Ms. Fanservice and the World's Most Beautiful Woman.
• Ranma ½:
  • Shampoo often sports a qipao, showing off her long, slender legs. This is only natural, as she hails from China, and works in a Chinese restaurant. And it also allows her to try and entice Ranma.
  • Ranma has been known to sport a qipao or two when he was in his girl form. Usually as a way of invoking Distracted by the Sexy.
  • In the movie, Nihao My Concubine, many of the girls are given dresses that sport slit legs while being offered up as bridal candidates for Prince Toma. Special note for the dresses worn by Ranma (girl-type), Nabiki, and Ukyo.
• Sailor Moon: Kaolinite from the Infinity Arc is a Lady of Black Magic who combines this with a Navel-Deep Neckline for Fanservice and black leggings for opulence.

Comic Books

• The DCU: The villainess Roulette wears a sexy Qipao with a long slit showing her right leg and part of the long dragon tattoo she has across her body.
• The Ice Princess: As part of her being Ms. Fanservice, Princess Zmarlina wear a slit dress showing part of her legs.

Fan Works

• In the Marvel Cinematic Universe fanfic The Artist's Garden at Madripoor, Steve and Natasha go to Madripoor in order to acquire the component they need for the Quantum Tunnel from the Power Broker, who Steve is shocked to discover Sharon, which he finds out when she meets with them wearing a form-fitting sequined white dress with a long slit on the right side that Steve notes is much more low-cut than anything he had seen her wear before.
• Khaos Omega: There are two alternate colorations of Ranpha's qipao (which is Ranpha's primary attire in the fanfiction chronology). The first to debut is in orange, and slightly longer overall, as the main outfit of Amethyst's Rune Angel teammate Arielle Sakuraba. Amethyst's own is in the exact same shade of pinkish-red as her hair.
• Under the Northern Lights: As a part of her impersonation of the evil sorceress persona that the reindeer of Tanadroland think she is, Twilight ends up wearing a dark purple dress with long slits intended to draw attention to "those parts a stallion's eyes might linger on".

Films — Animated

• The Emperor's New Groove: Yzma wears such a dress in purple, but, because she's an old woman "scary beyond reason", she is less sexy and more Fan Disservice. To prove this point, Kuzco and Pacha are seriously disturbed when Yzma appears to be raising the slit of her dress to Show Some Leg... and are then relieved when she reveals that she has a dagger tied to her leg instead.
• Elsa's Iconic Outfit from Frozen (2013) has a slit in the front.
• Hercules: Almost all the Muses wear these kind of dresses, with the exception of Terpsichore, the muse of dance, who wears a miniskirt.

Films — Live-Action

• Ghostbusters (1984): When possessed by Zuul, Dana wears a revealing, red dress with a leg slit and her behavior becomes overtly sexual: first attempting to seduce Peter and later meeting and hooking up with Louis (possessed by Vinz Clortho). Ghostbusters: Afterlife establishes that Zuul's clothing isn't something that was discovered by Dana — it's a dress that Zuul manifests on the wearer, in this case, Callie Spengler. In Afterlife she prefers gold, but in the same style with a leg slit.
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005): The poster shows Jane wearing a black version that reveals the gun in a holster on her thigh. She also wears it in the movie where she and John are dancing together. This plays into 1. The fact that she's played by Angelina Jolie and 2. The Femme Fatale and Honey Trap aspect of her job as a hitwoman.
• Red Notice: John and Nolan arrive at a masquerade ball in Valencia to steal one of the film's valuable eggs. Their rival thief Sarah was also at the ball and intercepts them in the vault while wearing a figure-hugging red dress with low cleavage and a high slit. Upon seeing her, Nolan can only comment that she looks awful. Sarah kicks off her heels, lets her hair down, and engages them in a fight while wearing the dress. It also featured prominently in the film's marketing.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Jessica Rabbit is a Lady in Red with a figure-hugging dress with a high slit up the thigh.

Literature

• Everworld: While in Olympus, April mentions being given such a dress to wear. It looks somewhat like the one Artemis is wearing, getting her a dirty look from the goddess.

Live-Action TV

• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
  • Princess Disa is a Big Beautiful Woman who wears a silvery dress that is slit on the right side.
  • The three Priestesses from Rhun are a trio of Dark Action Girls who wear the dresses slit on both legs.
• Supergirl (2015): The villainess Roulette wears a sexy Qipao with a long slit showing her left leg and part of the long dragon tattoo she has across her body.

Music

• Reba McEntire: "Fancy" revolves around a desperate mother turning her daughter out to be a prostitute in the hopes that she can escape their current poverty. To do this, she spends all of their money on a body-hugging red satin dress with velvet trim and a hip-high slit for Fancy.

Video Games

• A Star in Her Eyes: After Clodius and Lyra go to her dorm, she wears a white dress that reveals her starry legs.
• Dead or Alive: One of Lei Fang's iconic costumes is a Qipao with slits on both sides to show off her legs and her panties since she's a Kick Chick.
• Fallout: New Vegas: Vera Keyes's dress in the Dead Money DLC is a red version of this, and though she herself is far too dead to be of fanservice, the player character or companions can show it off in style.
• Galaxy Angel:
  • Ranpha's main outfit in the first trilogy is basically one of this with added windows for cleavage and midriff. Like Lei Fang above, she's a martial artist (but further augments her kicks by pairing it with matching high heels). The dress, like Lei Fang's, is a qipao.
  • Forte's Mini Dress Of Power is also one of these, although it's not slit nearly as high as Ranpha's, going up to just above the knee.
• Garou: Mark of the Wolves: Bonne Jenet is the flirty and free-spirited pirate captain of the Lillien Knights. She's almost always shown in her purple sleeveless dress with the leg slit to match.
• God of War II: Lakhesis, the leader of the Sisters of Fate, wears a dress with a slit on both sides that goes all the way up to her pelvis, and is the most beautiful of the Fates.
• Pokémon: Gardevoir's body has six (seven if Mega Evolved) frills forming a dress from the waist down, with the opening in the front of the dress being the widest, revealing its long, thin white legs underneath.
• Resident Evil 4: Ada Wong wears a long dress with a thigh-high slit, continuing her trend of looking her best no matter her situation. The slit is functional too, as her entire inventory is strapped to her leg, and the length of the slit allows her to run, flip, and kick without being restricted by the dress.
• Street Fighter 6: Chun Li's default outfit is now a qipao that plays into this trope, and an argument could be made that her debut outfit from SF2 also fell under the trope.
• Tales of Eternia: The greater spirit Celsius is often portrayed wearing this style of dress. Justified given her fighting style.
• Tekken: In contrast to her cold-hearted, no-nonsense sister, Anna Williams is flirtatious and seductive. She also tends to wear tight-fitting dresses, usually a Qipao, with slits to show off one of her legs.

Web Animation

• Pyrrha Nikos shows up wearing one in the school dance episode of RWBY. The outfit isn't strongly sexualized, due to the family-friendly nature of the show, but it did become very popular in fanart.

Western Animation

• American Dad!: In "Love: AD Style", Hayley wears a Jessica Rabbit-esque dress while singing sultry love songs at Roger's bar.
• Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers: Gadget sports a leg-slit dress in "Double-Oh Chipmunk" as part of a ploy to cheer Dale up with a spy adventure. Then they get caught up in a real espionage incident.
• Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama: Twice over. Kim sports a black dress with a slit up to the top of her thigh as part of a disguise to learn what Drakken is doing, but Shego sees through the disguise. Then when she goes to prom with Eric, she's wearing a shimmering dress with a more modest slit, stopping at the knee.

Real Life

• The peplos, a woman's garment from ancient Greece, could be worn "closed" meaning the skirt on the side was pinned shut, or "open" where the skirt was unpinned, leaving the side of the leg exposed, invoking this trope and being one of the earliest examples in history. This style was very popular in the Peloponnese, especially Sparta, to the point where women from there were nicknamed "thigh showers." Peloponnesian women were also said to be among the most beautiful in ancient Greece.
• Originating from China, a qipao or a cheongsam is a silk dress that hugs the figure and often features a long slit along one or both legs.

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