Not all invisibility methods are created equal. While many works ignore or Hand Wave the problems with invisibility — being able to see being the main one — one specific form of Invisibility with Drawbacks frequently comes up. Namely: you may be able to become invisible, but that doesn't mean things you interact with can become invisible, and that includes your clothes.
This can be explained in multiple ways. Invisibility as a drug or innate ability may only affect the natural body, leaving clothing and other external objects out of luck. A person's original clothing may have turned invisible as well, but that's no guarantee that they will remain intact. A Literal Genie may make the person invisible, and just the person.
Ultimately, if this trope is in play, then the Mundane Solution has come up — by definition, nobody can see an invisible person, so they aren't exactly exposed if they just go around naked. This will likely be Played for Laughs the first time it's brought up, since the insinuation of nudity as well as the reactions to such is classic comedy — and for the same reason, there's also an inherent sexiness to the concept.
Actually using the power afterwards, on the other hand, can often be anything but funny and sexy. After all, being naked doesn't just mean being indecent, it also means being completely unarmed and vulnerable. Indeed, an invisible streaker may be able to infiltrate a place with ease, but likely won't be able to do much besides eavesdrop—the stealth can't be used offensively (probably), nor to steal anything (for the same reason clothes are forbidden), and blood probably can't be shed either, again for the same rule, as it would reveal the streaker's presence if they got any on them. The invisible streaker is also liable to being Exposed to the Elements, and will have a more intimate problem with anyone trying to See the Invisible (woe betide any streaker whose invisibility is completely disabled, especially if forced to be a regular streaker).
On the other hand, for characters who are always invisible, this apparent downside is flipped on its head and usually ends up being pretty convenient for them, since they can avoid all the awkward situations that always-invisible characters with always-invisible Magic Pants tend to get into—for an always-invisible streaker, being visible is as simple as getting dressed (though they might want to wear a burqa or similar headwear to make it clear they actually have a head).
This trope can also take a darker turn and be Played for Horror. More than one Invisible Man has been a sexual predator who used their powers to stalk and assault their victims, and the need to go without clothes to use the power at all can make it seem specifically designed for the purpose.
As a final note, if you think about it too much, you might stumble upon a problem with this trope: at any given time, a person will have bacterial colonies whose members come and go, viral invaders being fought by their immune system, food being digested or excreted, dirt and dust falling on their skin, cells, sweat and hair falling off their body, etc. — What exactly counts as being part of an invisible person's body? There's just no hard line. Whatever the source of the character's invisibility, the Required Secondary Powers that this trope supposedly averts may not be so "secondary" after all. The few Real Life attempts at invisibility use the inversion of this trope, which is the Invisibility Cloak.
Compare Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing and Can't Take Anything with You.
Not to be confused with Living Clothes, which is visually similar but unlike the invisible streaker, there's no body wearing them.
Examples:
- A Turkish advert for Daylong sunscreen
shows beachgoers who are invisible except for their swimsuits.
- A commercial for Efferdent
has an invisible man taking the product to kill unseen bacteria. His wife, who is also invisible, comes in and kisses him. He says, "Darling, we're on TV," and puts a towel on her.
- An American commercial for KitKat chocolate bar
shows a woman married with a man named Brian, who is always been invisible except for his clothing. The couple have 2 boys, who unlike their father, they can switch the visibility of their bodies at their will.
- A Venezuelan advert for Trident chewing gum
shows people who are invisible except their clothes. At the end a young man and a young woman, being the main protagonists of the advert, turned visible after they tried a piece of gum.
- Adam and Eve, a manga series created by Ryoichi Ikegami and Hideo Yamamoto, features an invisible man and an invisible woman (only their shoes and gloves are ever seen) who attack the Yakuza. The last panel of the first volume shows wet prints left by bare human feet.
- In Alabaster, the normally lethal invisibility ray hit Ami Ozawa while she was still in the womb, leaving her permanently invisible. Alabaster, the main villain, kidnaps her and breaks her will, and she helps him perform several jewelry heists by simply doing them naked. What finally causes her to do a full blown Face–Heel Turn, however, is the FBI agent raping her, then covering her in hideously colored paint stripes that she can't remove.
- In Assassination Classroom, Koro-sensei uses his invisibility to avoid scaring a group of train passengers during a class trip, but his students point out that a random set of floating, disembodied clothing is just as unsettling.
- Bouquet in the anime adaptation of Blue Dragon can turn her body invisible, but not her clothes. As a result, she strips completely whenever she wants to go unnoticed. Bowdlerised in the English dub: Bouquet's body has a magic mass covering it, and mentions of nudity are removed.
- In BNA: Brand New Animal, Michiru develops Chameleon Camouflage powers when she realizes she needs to infiltrate Sylvasta's medical labs, but they don't affect her clothing. Rather than strip, however, she simply folds her arms and tail over her clothes, hiding them just enough to evade notice.
- Misaki from Brynhildr in the Darkness has a restriction on her invisibility that prevents whatever she wears from being invisible, though it oddly doesn't seem to apply to her glasses.
- There's a Crayon Shin-chan "what-if?" story, where the titular character obtains a pair of magic underpants that cloaks him when worn on his head, but doesn't work on clothing. Said underpants only works for about an hour before it wears out its uses and turns into ordinary clothing, but then Shin-Chan decides "being invisible is boring" because Nanako (his college-age neighbor he had a Precocious Crush on) couldn't see him and ditches the underpants aside when it still has around 10 minutes of invisibility left. Then Shin-Chan's dad, Hiroshi (who doesn't know about the time limit) finds the underpants and decides to try it out...
- In Demon King Daimao, Kena Soga can turn invisible, (not that anyone knows that she can). However, since it's just her that turns invisible, it requires a lot of stripping or being caught naked after she materializes since her invisibility wears off if she runs out of magic or stops concentrating.
- In an early chapter of Dr. Slump, Senbei turns himself (but not his clothes) invisible, then starts undressing... but decides to leave his underwear on, just in case. This results in a pair of floating boxer shorts running around the town. Complete with author's notes from Toriyama insisting that the whole plot was not an excuse to draw less.
- Don't Call Me a Naked Hero in Another World: When Runa, who suffers from a nudity curse, runs out of mana and cannot summon her towel, Tia turns her invisible so she can make it through town back to their inn. The invisibility wears off halfway through, but Runa doesn't notice and thus walks confidently through town, not noticing everyone gawking. Tia and Chris decide not to tell her.
- Doraemon has a gadget which makes Nobita invisible, sans clothing, which he used to pick on Gian and Suneo for picking on him. It works, but because Naked People Are Funny, the gadget then loses its effects when Nobita is in front of Shizuka and two other girls.
- In a filler episode of Fairy Tail, Lucy turns invisible from an old ointment she used. Her clothes remain visible, so when she runs to the guild for help, she does so in the nude. The show being what it is, a group of children run into her on accident and proceed to prod her naked butt out of fascination. When she finally gets to the guild, Natsu, who locates her more intentionally, finds a much more standard area to grab her.
- Ghost in the Shell has a type of camouflage — essentially invisible spandex — that can't be worn over anything and is ultra-skintight. Once the anime series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex went more mainstream, the camo became "invisible clothing" as it had been in the manga. Note that this typically only applies to the Major, while male characters using the camo are able to wear less revealing outfits.
- Hen na Nee-san: Keiko, the girl in "Invisible Me", takes special pills to turn invisible for a set amount of time, then runs around outside naked. Subverted at the end of the chapter when it's revealed she mixed up the doses and was visible from the moment she left the house.
- I Encountered a False Spiritual Revival: Zhao Yasi awakens the power of invisibility and tests it by walking through her apartment complex naked. Unfortunately, Ye Ling has Anti-Magic and can see her, but he awkwardly pretends he can't to avoid getting beaten up. She later improves her ability and can make her clothes invisible too.
- In I'm Gonna Be an Angel!, Noelle's older sister Sara is invisible, and uses clothes and bandages to simulate visibility when needed. After everyone but protagonist Yuusuke starts taking her for granted, she manages to regain visibility through sheer emotion... and flashes everyone in the area with her nudity. Fortunately, only her family were present, but her brother managed to comment how she'd grown a lot since he saw her last, before he passed out from nosebleed.
- In Is This A Zombie?, Ayumu gets turned invisible after drinking a potion he mistook for a drink. He strips down to sneak into the gym during the girl's physical examination day. Being the Butt-Monkey that he is, the invisibility starts to wear off while he's still inside and he's forced to run and hide. Taeko catches him, but kindly loans him some clothes instead of turning him in.
- Suehirogari's adult manga Moonlight Exhibition features a girl who can become invisible with the standard "no clothes" rule in play. Years of sneaking around nude in public to use her powers has lead to her gaining a serious exhibitionism / public nudity fetish. The plot is kicked off when one of her classmates sees her outside being "self indulgent," which confuses her to no end — however, as established earlier dogs can see her just fine, which apparently includes... werewolves.
- Played for Laughs in My Hero Academia: Toru "Invisible Girl" Hagakure can usually be "seen" as either a floating school uniform, or in her superhero outfit, which is just a pair of shoes and gloves. To be truly effective with her powers, these come off when she needs to get completely stealthy. She usually doesn't mind having to go naked, but feels embarrassed if people watch her undress. Also, on one occasion, a character accidentally bumps into her when she's naked as she freaks out as if he did it on purpose. Later chapters of the story hint that Hagakure has some sort of light-manipulation ability, with one side effect of that being constant invisibility. A critical late chapter briefly reveals her true face thanks to a light attack she reflected, and exposed a defect in her powers that caused her to temporarily become mostly-visible—leaving her mortified. In the epilogue, she has a special costume made to preserve her modesty in case her powers glitch again.
- In Rumiko Takahashi's The Samurai, the titular samurai descendant is stalked by his rivals, twin female ninjas who only differ in that one Really Gets Around and the other Does Not Like Men. They make use of an invisibility spell that doesn't affect clothes in order to further their goal, but the hero's perverted friend figures out what's going on when he accidentally gropes an invisible breast. Just to compound things, it's the man-hater who's invisible. Cue beatings.
- The 1978 Go Nagai manga Supeope Chuugaku features an invisibility potion at one point in the second volume that doesn't work on clothes. Notably, the first thing the perverted main character uses it for is tricking his sister into thinking she's invisible (by drinking some himself to show her that it works and then using sleight of hand to give her a fake bottle) so that she'll strip naked in front of him and his friends.
- The eponymous Akira from Toumei Shounen Tantei Akira can turn invisible under his clothes and strips them off to use his power. The clothes also seem to include a mask.
- In Translucent, Translucent Syndrome, as a physical disorder that causes invisibility, does not affect clothes or makeup.
- Vermeil in Gold: To sneak past a Cerberus with a cold, meaning it lacks its sense of smell, to steal a special flower it is guarding, Lillia drinks an invisibility potion and strips. Even though Alto and Vermeil can't see her, she is incredibly embarrassed. The potion wears off just as she returns with the flower, giving them an eyeful. She later uses the same potion to sneak into Alto's room (this being the original purpose).
- In Archie Comics' Sabrina at Gravestone Heights 91313, Sabrina is friends with a perpetually invisible girl named Cleara Glass, whose clothes and makeup are always visible. In one story, Cleara wears a mask to appear as a redhead girl.
- Inverted in The Bod, a short three-part miniseries in Image Comics. The story is about a rising supermodel whose body gets turned invisible due to an industrial accident shortly after she arrives at Hollywood to have her big break as an actress. She wears lots of very form-fitting clothing to show off her beautiful body as she tries to use her new, incurable condition as a gimmick to further her career.
- Milo Manara's Butterscotch features, among other things, a woman giving the invisible character a blowjob while other characters, unaware of the invisible man's presence, look in bafflement at her "lewd mime act."
- In Cyber Force, Sly can make herself almost completely invisible, but has to be naked to do so and can lose her invisibility if her concentration is broken.
- In the 1960s Italian comic book La Donna Invisibile, the heroine, Nadine Roland, is given a formula for pills that make her invisible for 15 minutes. In order for the pill to work, she has to be naked, and on at least one occasion she's still naked when the invisibility wears off.
- Inverted in Empowered: the suit of the eponymous heroine can turn invisible. Just the suit — the wearer remains completely visible. Given that Emp gets her powers from her suit and loses them when it's damaged, it can actually be useful.
- Classically averted in Fantastic Four. Sue's always been able to extend her field to whatever mundane outfit she has on (and much further if she so chooses). Although it's been mentioned that the FF's entire wardrobe has unstable molecules infused — after all, how else would Ben Grimm's clothes and shoes fit him?
- The Marvel 1602 version of Susan Storm has no unstable molecule costume, but this isn't much of a problem since she can't turn visible. Until the first time she activates her forcefield...
- The original script for The Fantastic Four said that Sue would be permanently invisible, and unable to make anything else invisible, so she would have to strip down every time she wanted to disappear. Stan Lee commented in the script that this might be too sexy for comics.
- What If? #34, a Self-Parody issue, has a one-off joke of Reed Richards not inventing unstable molecules. Sue is visible as a suit of clothes because of modesty. There's also male Fanservice of her brother, who finds himself naked when he flames off.
- And playing with this trope and The Nudifier, Susan can turn clothes of other people invisible while the people themselves stay normal.
- The Invisible Man (an alternate version of the original one) in Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen must strip down to best take advantage of his condition. He was originally found wandering a girl's dorm nude... impregnating several of the girls (which they took as miracles).
- The second issue of the Harvey Comics Monster in My Pocket comic book has the Invisible Man decide to go without clothes due to enjoying the freedom and realizing that he's more use to the good monsters when no one can see him.
- Parodied in Le Petit Spirou, where Spirou and Vertignasse offer Suzette to try the "invisibility machine" they've invented in exchange for some candies. The machine doesn't actually work, but the boys assure Suzette she's 100% invisible — it's just that her clothes aren't, so they can still see where she is. Suzette begins stripping, and then, as she's down to her panties she has a "Eureka!" Moment when Spirou is definitely too excited for seeing a pair of flying panties. Cut to Suzette fully clothed again and walking away in anger while Spirou laments that "it almost worked."
- In Sturmtruppen, at one point the Medic believes to have drunk the Potion of Invisibility, and boasts about it in front of his underlings. When they say that they can still see him, he assumes that is because he's still wearing his clothes, so he strips naked and boast again his presumed invisibility to the now stunned assistants. From that strip on, he firmly believes that he has to strip in order to become invisible.
- Weird War Tales #25 (May 1974) has a story titled "The Unseen Warrior". After German scientists experiment on him, a German soldier discovers upon removing his bandages that he has become invisible. Unable to find clothes, he enters battle naked and unseen. He commandeers a jeep and is attacked by the American army. He eventually falls into a cauldron of molten steel and dies. His face is never seen.
- Infamously inverted in Wonder Woman — her plane was invisible, she wasn't, so in general, it just looked like a mysterious squatting woman shooting through the air. The plane is later retconned to make its contents invisible, too (in Wonder Woman 1984 as well).
- Calvin and Hobbes. In one strip, Calvin becomes invisible except his clothes, so he takes them off to be completely unseen. Of course, he's only invisible in his mind, leading to one of his parents asking why he's trying to steal from the cookie jar naked.
- Yenny had an arc lasting from October to November 2005 in which Yenny mistakenly drinks her friend's invisibility potion. She decides to walk around nude and spy on Kelso and Margot.
- The plot of Beware of What you Can't See
, an Invader Zim fanfic, revolves around Dib discovering a spell that turns the user invisible, but excludes their clothing. He's too aware about the potential downfalls to use it, but Gaz is more willing to take the risk.
- One of the stories in Do the Gasmask Shuffle — about a potion-based game of Russian Roulette — has Sheen gain this kind of invisibility. His friends immediately dissuade him from taking his clothes off, but he ends up doing it at the end of the story.
- Taylor in the Worm fic First Witch
can shift into a parallel dimension, becoming invisible for everyone in the "normal" one, but can't take anything with her, forcing her to move around naked. Another power allows her hair to act as a cape.
- My Hero Academia Spiderverse: This is defied by Toru, unlike in canon, and is deconstructed when her hero "costume" is revealed to be just a pair of gloves and boots. She is utterly livid at how insulting and idiotic that is, pointing out she'll be powerless if someone grabs her like that, and that she'll freeze running around naked in Winter. It is even pointed out how there are apparently costumes that can become invisible or transparent with their wearer, making this "costume" even more idiotic.
- The Secret Return of Alex Mack: After becoming permanently invisible through an experimental serum, Klar has to strip naked at first, which becomes a real problem in winter. Eventually he's able to administer the serum to some sheep and collect invisible wool from them.
- Toga Himiko's Guide to Time Travel: As in canon, Toru Hagakure has to strip down naked to really take advantage of her invisibility. Himiko asks her own teacher, Vlad, why the school doesn't just make her a costume that is also invisible. Vlad, who didn't know there was a naked invisible girl running around, facepalms and complains that Toru's teacher is a Sink-or-Swim Mentor who doesn't tell people things like that unless they explicitly ask.
- Paul in With Strings Attached and The Keys Stand Alone can't wear anything when he turns invisible — but that's because he can't wear anything, period, being massively strong to the point where clothing easily tears off him. So he wears an illusion of clothing, and simply swaps it for invisibility when needed. Also, in Keys, after he develops super-speed, he literally could become an invisible streaker if he wanted to.
- Griffin the Invisible Man of the Hotel Transylvania franchise mostly goes nude except for a pair of floating Eye Glasses, and the one time he wears clothes is for the sake of a gag where he gets his pants pulled down and claims shrinkage. In Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, he's finally made visible, confirming once and for all that he's nude, horrifying his friends Wayne and Murray. At the end of the film after he's made invisible once more, his friends beg him to keep his clothes on.
- In Igor, Carl Cristall is an invisible talk show-host who can be detected by his floating shirt and hat — but no pants. His hatred of pants becomes a Running Gag up until the end of the movie.
- Defied in The Incredibles franchise: Violet's powers work this way, as seen in an early part where she turns her head invisible when her crush looks at her, with her still-visible clothes hidden behind a wall. However, by the time she becomes a superhero, Edna Mode has made her a special suit that turns invisible with her. An extended version of the restaurant scene in the second film would have played this straight when she's caught up in a robbery without her Super suit and forced to undress from her civilian clothes, but the filmmakers quickly realized the Squick factor of having a 14-year-old get naked even if invisible, especially in a family-friendly movie, so it was scrapped.
- In Monsters University, Randall is introduced with Nerd Glasses that don't turn invisible with him. (Like many monsters, he doesn't wear other clothes). Mike advises him to integrate that power into his scare routine, but to ditch the glasses. Randall takes them off and starts squinting.
- In the 1941 comedy The Body Disappears, the Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter injects herself with her father's invisibility serum to rescue her boyfriend, who was also made invisible. While nude and invisible, she gets into a convertible and Drives Like Crazy, to the horror of a man who had been hiding in the back seat.
- In Bradley's Summer, the invisibility potion doesn't make clothes invisible, so Bradley has no choice but to take them off when he uses it.
- The martial arts fantasy flick The Enchantress has a charm which makes its wearer invisible, sans clothes.
- Fantastic Four (2005): In Susan Storm's first attempt to use her invisibility to sneak past a crowd, she finds her clothes don't cloak with her and reluctantly starts stripping down. Unfortunately, she's not yet in full control of her powers and they wear off while she's down to her underwear... and still in said crowd. A later gag has her being chased by reporters, who round the corner and find only a pile of shed clothing. Luckily for her and the other three, her blue bodysuit she was wearing during the shuttle flight where she gained her powers underwent the same reaction and so changes along with her.
- The Major in Ghost in the Shell can cloak her cybernetic body, but needs to disrobe before she can actually make use of it in combat (which, since she's played by Scarlett Johansson, is definitely a good thing). Certain full-contact actions like jumping through a window disrupt her nigh-invisibility even so.
- In the 1980s comedy The Invisible Kid, the boy heroes have to sneak around nude and invisible, partly to steal back the invisibility formula and, given that this is a Teen Sexploitation Comedy, partly to peep on the cheerleaders.
- Invisible Mom: Some time after trying to cover her invisibility with towels and other lingerie, Laura simply opts not to wear any clothes. After all, she's invisible. Josh, her son, realizes this and feels uncomfortable over being watcher over by her while she's naked. In the sequel Invisible Mom II, Laura's invisibility wears off while she's walking around naked.
- In the campy 1940 science fiction satire The Invisible Woman, the title heroine, while able to turn invisible, was naked when she did so as her clothes could not turn invisible along with her, making many audiences at the time regard the film as slightly risqué.
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003): Rodney Skinner is permanently invisible and actually has to wear clothes to become something like visible. He is invisible when the League gathers for the first time, upon which Mina Harker comments that she is encountering a naked man, technically speaking. He also lampshades this in one scene where he's performing recon in Mongolia where the villain's base has been discovered. The issue is not so much his nudity being inappropriate in public, as public as this remote landscape is anyway, but his nudity being inappropriate for the freezing cold winter weather.
Skinner: May I remind you, I am standing naked in the snow? I can't feel any of my extremities, and I mean any of them.
- Mostly averted in Memoirs of an Invisible Man: Chevy Chase's outfit was hit by the same invisibility beam. Understandably, he occasionally has trouble finding his invisible clothes, and any outfit other than the one he was wearing when he became invisible remains visible after he puts it on.
- Invisible Boy from Mystery Men, whose clothes apparently just fall off him when he uses his power (which works only when he's not being watched by anybody, making it good only for fooling purely mechanical surveillance).
- The title character of Paul can stay invisible only as long as he holds his breath, so he does get caught naked in public a few times. It's not really an issue though, since people are too caught up in his being an alien to care that he's naked.
- The alien visitor in Phantom From Space is invisible and can move unseen outside his spacesuit, but being in contact with Earth's atmosphere long enough makes him visible eventually.
- Michele in Il Ragazzo Invisibile has to do this at first, and walks around town pranking and perving on people while he is totally nude, which leads to a situation when his invisibility wears off. Eventually he gets a super suit that can turn invisible with him.
- The Russian film Super Bobrovs is inconsistent about this. This trope usually applies to the invisible woman, but sometimes only part of her body (such as her arms, her legs or her head, neck and chest) is visible along with her clothes, and sometimes her clothes become invisible with her body.
- In The Accidental Superheroine, Mira's and Giancarlo's powers let them become completely invisible — including things that they've eaten, but not clothing — and unable to turn it off. The government forces trying to capture them utilize spray-cans and hoses of blue paint to place them. It's later hinted that their transformation also removes any smell to them unless they remember to do things like sweat.
- In The BFG, a boy's dream is that he can make himself invisible by pressing his tummy-button. He discovers this in the bath, so he is naked anyway, but later he puts on his dressing gown and slippers and walks in the streets, scaring people.
- In one of R. L. Stine's Ghosts of Fear Street books (Go to Your Tomb — Right Now!), magic allows two friends to turn invisible for twelve hours; it causes whatever clothes they put on to turn invisible with them, then turn visible when they undress. Unfortunately, the two decide to sneak into the community pool when it's closed and go swimming in their underwear. Two people who run the pool show up, the friends can't find a way to escape unnoticed...and of course, that's when their times expires.
- In the short story "Hersheys Kisses" by Ron Goulart (contained in The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy II by Michael Ashley et al.), a young man in trouble with his (young, hot, female, hates him) new boss runs into a wizard. He ends up trying to save his career by turning invisible, breaking and entering, and kissing the magic tattoo on her butt three times as she sleeps. It wears off prematurely: It turns out she'd hired the wizard in a gambit to get him to her apartment, naked, as he failed to recognize her previous hints. They find out about the other gambit when the camera crew bursts out of the closet.
- In one of The History of the Galaxy novels, the book's protagonist finds a Lost Colony whose settlers have gained strange powers after landing. One of these groups calls themselves Shadows and have invisibility powers, along with empathy and healing. While the inhabitants of the City don't walk around naked and generally avoid turning invisible if they can help it, many colonists went mad after the mutation and live in the wild. The wild Shadows almost never become visible and run around naked.
- In Invisible! by Robert Swindells, the main characters turn invisible with the use of a ring called a fairy ring. This invisibility doesn't affect their clothes. It also should be noted that the main characters are invisible but they can still see each other in this state.
- In Invisible Inc, Chip fell into the magic spring while fully dressed, and has kept that set of clothes safe ever since. Of course, once he grows a bit... Chip's invisible clothes don't show up until the second book of the series, probably due to complaints from Moral Guardians. The Retcon is hardly noticeable because the first book was silent on the subject. Apparently it was the reaction to the implication that Chip was naked in the first book that convinced them to explicitly state he wasn't in the second.
- The title character of H. G. Wells' The Invisible Man hides from the rioting peasants by stripping naked. In winter. One of the few examples to take into account the elements, as well as other things such as being unable to walk in a crowd (people would step on him and hit him with waving arms/purses/packages/etc.), having to avoid mud (it sticks to the feet), etc., etc. Fridge Logic suggests that Griffin was holding the Idiot Ball, as the original novel's invisibility-induction process also worked on white fabrics. Griffin was always a bit of a nutcase, so his failure to create a suit of invisible clothes may have been a simple oversight. (Later adaptations avert this problem by making the source of his invisibility a drug, effective only on living things.)
- The Lord of the Rings: Gandalf notes that Ringwraiths are invisible because they mostly inhabit the spirit world, and their dark cloaks are just there so that they can interact with normal people. The One Ring affects clothes and weapons, though, so presumably the Ringwraiths' original clothes and ornaments went to the spirit world with them.
- In Memoirs of an Invisible Man, the accident that turns the eponymous man invisible affects everything in a sphere roughly 100 feet across: him, his clothes, the building structure, and a number of objects that happened to be nearby. When he eats and drinks, until it is digested fully, the food/beverage does not become invisible. His invisible clothes suffer wear and tear. His invisible gun will eventually run out of invisible bullets. And, with the government after him, it's not like he can just live at his old house or sneak into places at will. The author does quite well at thinking out the rules and limitations of the premise.
- Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: Millard Nullings, whose peculiarity is invisibility. He's constantly being chastised by Miss Peregrine for loitering around naked.
Miss Peregrine: How many times must I tell you, polite persons do not take their supper in the nude!
- One Fat Summer: When Bobby Marks told his friend Jodie about his fantasy of making an invisibility potion that let him fight crime and sneak into the girl's locker room, she makes him realize that he would need to do it naked. Given how awkward he is about his body, this kills Bobby's fantasy.
- In Neal Shusterman's The Schwa Was Here, Calvin Schwa is The Nondescript; you basically won't notice him unless you're trying to. Once he goes through two and a half periods of the school day before anyone notices he is present and only wearing a speedo.
- In Smoke by Donald Westlake, a small-time crook accidentally gets turned invisible after getting turned into a guinea pig by two Camp Gay (yes, it becomes relevant) skin cancer researchers. Westlake obviously did his research, as the titular character has to deal with all of the troubles of invisibility including exposure to the elements, having to fast to avoid having half-digested food showing, and being noticed at one point by a blind man.
- Discussed in The Squire's Tales. Ywain is in hiding, using a magical invisibility ring. It affects clothes, and at one point, Rhience wonders if it would also affect a horse if Ywain was riding it. Later, Ywain justifies why he changed into stolen clothes:
"Well, I couldn't keep wearing my armor. It clinks when I walk. And you wouldn't expect me to run around naked, would you?"
"Why not? You're invisible."
"It's cold," Ywain replied practically. "That's why not." - Things Not Seen:
- Bobby sneaks over to the library to research his condition. A blind girl, Alicia, notices him and finds out that something's not quite right with Bobby; after touching his bare arm, she finds it odd enough that he's supposedly in a short-sleeved shirt in cool weather, but when she bumps into him at one point and feels his bare chest, she gets furious at him being shirtless and starts making assumptions about what kind of person he is and what his intentions are, which ultimately leads to the quote.
Alicia: So... so you're really...
Bobby: Invisible.
Alicia: ... naked?
Bobby: Yeah. That too. - Another person with the same condition is said to wear a burqa all the time so that nobody will know she's invisible.
- Bobby sneaks over to the library to research his condition. A blind girl, Alicia, notices him and finds out that something's not quite right with Bobby; after touching his bare arm, she finds it odd enough that he's supposedly in a short-sleeved shirt in cool weather, but when she bumps into him at one point and feels his bare chest, she gets furious at him being shirtless and starts making assumptions about what kind of person he is and what his intentions are, which ultimately leads to the quote.
- In the Torchwood (BBC Books) novel Pack Animals, Ianto Jones is invisible for about half of the book. At one point he must sneak into a secret facility and is forced to do so nude, since his invisible clothes were ruined. His teammates also bar him from eating anything beforehand, as a floating blob of digesting food would be noticeable (not to mention disgusting).
- In Natalie Whipple's Transparent, the heroine, Fiona McClean, was born invisible, and dropped on her head the moment she was born because the doctor couldn't see her. Her bodily fluids are invisible, and she is capable of making other things invisible, so food turns invisible as she chews it, and makeup and sunscreen only stay on her skin for a short time before getting absorbed by her skin/sweat. Her clothing is not invisible, so she takes off her clothes if she needs to hide.
- In The Trouble With Moonlight, Lusinda Havershaw's skin turns invisible when exposed to moonlight, but her clothes don't become invisible with her. Works out well, since she's a gentlewoman thief. Getting the loot out is kind of a complication, however, since in order to stay invisible she has to remain in the moonlight. She needs to absorb a certain amount of moonlight in order to turn invisible in the first place, and she can remain invisible if she absorbs enough of it, but if she's away from the moonlight for too long she gradually becomes visible, leading to a few Naked People Are Funny moments as her glorious body is glimpsed however briefly by the public a few times when she is cut off from the moonlight for too long.
- Wild Cards:
- Played with: Wraith is a Classy Cat-Burglar who turns semi-transparent and intangible. However, as she can only do so while holding on to a certain amount of mass and she'd actually like to get away with some of her stolen goods, she performs most of her heists in a mask and bikini.
- Chrysalis is a Joker whose invisibility is always on and only applies to her skin and hair.
- There was a Japanese TV drama series in the 1990s about a photojournalist who has special pills that make him briefly invisible. In one episode, the photojournalist's girlfriend takes some of the pills and becomes invisible. While nude and invisible, she pulls pranks such as pushing a couple off their bench into a swimming pool.
- On an episode of Big Wolf on Campus, a longtime rival of Merton develops abilities for sorcery and uses them against him by (no surprise) gradually turning him invisible. Merton is reduced to a "floating" head hiding inside Tommy's backpack and, to Tommy's disgust, admits his nakedness.
- Translucent from The Boys possesses a skin that he can turn invisible, but he must be naked to truly stay unseen. He certainly has no inhibitions about being naked... and spying on people in bathrooms.
- Night Court: Referenced in one episode where one of the people brought before the court, a Mr. Sleighbaugh (played by a pre-fame Michael Richards), is convinced he's invisible, despite the ability of everyone to know exactly where he is. Naturally, Harry moves that he be held over for psychiatric evaluation. Sleighbaugh later calls Judge Stone to say he finally figured out why everyone could see him... Because he was wearing clothes! The others rush into the courtroom to see a naked Sleighbaugh sitting in the galley.
Sleighbaugh: Quick impression, Claude Raines standing!
- In the Round the Twist episode "Linda Godiva", Linda uses an enchanted perfume spritzer to become invisible and tries to help her brother Pete win a race by riding a horse nude. Of course, her brother accidentally deactivates it at exactly the wrong time.
- Clara from Sanctuary is unable to use her invisibility while she's being observed, and she uses it to steal and spy at first. When Will and Druit come to recruit her, the "no clothes" is lampshaded, and they turn on the sprinkler to find her. When completing her mission, she persuades Will to strip so she's not alone (he doesn't have the power of invisibility). She's the granddaughter of Nigel Griffin, the original invisible man, who was one of the Five who injected themselves with a vampire-derived serum. And yes, Griffin used to strip to fully use his power, such as when infiltrating German camps during World War II.
- The 1998 ITV drama Vanishing Man adds the complication that, besides naked, the title character has to be wet to be invisible. This led to some funny moments when he dries out. For example, when he's following someone in a car by clinging to the roof rack, said car overtakes a lorry, much to the lorry driver's shock he is overtaken by a car with a naked man clinging to the roof rack; thankfully it starts to rain before the car reaches its destination.
- In the Wicked Science episode "Catch Me if You Can", Elizabeth invents an invisibility gel that doesn't work on clothes, so she walks around school in the nude to spy on Toby's date with Nikky for much of the boy's embarrassment when he realizes it. As the episode ends, however, she is locked outside the shop where she put her clothes and the rain makes her visible again, leaving her totally exposed.
- In an episode of Wizards of Waverly Place, Justin is turned invisible by Alex's careless wording of a wish to a Literal Genie. Justin strips off his pyjamas so his parents won't notice him, leaving him naked in a room with his parents and his sister. Hilarity ensues as Alex attempts to prevent the parents from accidentally sitting on him, etc.
- The X-Files: In the episode "Je Souhaite", two brothers find an actual genie, and begin asking for wishes, with typical results. One brother asks to become invisible. He immediately strips down and goes out to have fun with his newfound power. He has a great time for about five minutes, then gets hit by a truck. Scully has to fingerprint-dust the entire body just to see it, and is completely flummoxed by being confronted by something that is clearly physically impossible.
- In the 1997 sitcom You Wish episode "A Real Don Juan" Genie gives Travis magic gum that turns him invisible to help with his sister’s magic act. However it doesn’t work on clothes and not wanting to be completely naked, he leaves his underwear on. When the gum falls out his mouth he turns visible and ends up in his underwear in front of the entire school.
- In the video
of "I'm The Urban Spaceman" by The Bonzo Dog Band from The Innes Book of Records, the singer is invisible but his clothes aren't. He's never seen (or unseen) completely nude, but when he gets out of bed he's clearly not wearing anything below the waist.
- The music video of the song "Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)"
by American band Garbage shows the band members being invisible except their clothing. Their bodies only can be seen through the screens.
- In Are You Afraid of the Dark Universe?, Jack Griffin must be fully naked to take full advantage of his invisibility. This leads to several awkward moments where someone accidentally brushes against his junk, and makes him briefly uncomfortable in Dark Legion: The Mummy's Hand when he finds out that Hunter is still underage. It also means that, when a container of gold dust powder is poured on him, it mostly just highlights his junk and convinces the witnesses that they're being haunted by an incubus. By the time of The Invisible Man's Revenge, he's managed to develop a few pairs of invisible underwear to try and counteract this. They only last a few fights before being destroyed, the last pair being stretched apart when Jack grows to giant-size.
- During the Gemini arc of Sequinox, where the team are sent through various alternate universes, one lands them in a world where they're all classic monsters. Hannah, now an invisible woman, suggests doing this to escape the angry mob and potentially sneak up on Gemini. The others shoot it down since none of them are invisible, and also because they don't want Hannah to start stripping in front of them either way.
- In Magic: The Gathering, the art for Innistrad's Invisible Stalker
depicts an unseen entity removing their clothes. The flavour texts reinforces this is the case for them.
"All that concerns me is the vampires' sense of smell and those freezing Nephalian nights." - Promethean: The Created: One of the powers available to Prometheans, Cameleon Skin, allows them to change the texture of their skin so they will better blend in with the environment. For obvious reasons, clothes make this ability considerably less effective, forcing the ones using it to strip naked.
- Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment: Hole, the communications officer, is invisible except for his eyebrows. He's sometimes called upon to get naked for stealth purposes, but he's very much not happy about it.
- Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia feature an enemy called "Invisible Man", who is wearing a trenchcoat, hat, and pants when you enter the room, but he quickly drops them and charges at you, naked and invisible. (You can still make him out by his blurry outline.)
- In Detectives United, one of the eponymous detectives — Agent Brown — is invisible since childhood. The series doesn't call much attention to the streaking aspect, but it's there.
- In Microforum International's mobile phone games The Invisible Man and The Invisible Lady, the player character is nude and invisible, and must collect clothing and four antidote ingredients to become visible again.
- In Minecraft, the invisibility Status Effect does not extend to any items the player is holding or wearing
◊, so they must forgo any protective properties of armour and keep their hands empty to take full advantage of the status effect.
- In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Princess Peach has to sneak into the X-Naut leader's office by using an invisibility potion. Of course, she doesn't realize until it's too late that her clothing won't be affected. In the remake, this even changes the noise her footsteps make. She does remember to dress back up before she drinks the potion that will make her visible again; it is an E-rated game, after all.
- Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley has a non-consensual case in Ninny, the Invisible Child. When you find her, Stinky has stolen her clothes, reasoning that she doesn't need them since she's invisible. Ninny disagrees, as she not only likes being visible, but also needs them to keep herself warm, which initiates a sidequest where you take those clothes back from Stinky.
- In Alien Loves Predator, Preston's cloaking device doesn't affect his clothes or glasses, but he doesn't notice, and can't understand why people can see him.
- Mr. Invisible of The Incredible and Awe-Inspiring Serial Adventures of the Amazing Plasma-Man reluctantly admits that he is in fact naked.
- One strip
of German webcomic Notfunny Cartoons (mildly NSFW) shows two old scientists waiting at a bus stop stark naked, with their dialogue implying that they were field-testing some kind of invisibility experiment when it ran out on them. Here's a rough translation:
Scientist 1: All right, you were right. The invisibility machine only makes you invisible for two hours.
Scientist 2: [happily] I WAS RIGHT! - The Order of the Stick:
- In "Armor Begone"
, the Cloudcuckoolander Elan learns that wearing less armor makes a person harder to notice, and takes this fact to its illogical conclusion.
Elan: Wooooo! I'm invisible!! You can't see me!
Roy: How I wish that were true. - 640 strips later, the same joke gets a call back in "In the Flesh"
when Roy is resurrected.
Elan: You're invisible!
- In "Armor Begone"
- The Young Protectors: While Kyle is on a date in Hong Kong with Duncan, two vigilante heroes crash the restaurant to take out Duncan or pretend to do so, on Duncan's orders; Kyle is instructed by Duncan to leave and promptly gets a bag of invisibility powder tossed on him. Unfortunately, his clothing is still visible, prompting him to frantically strip as he (blue and naked for our viewing convenience) runs through the streets of Hong Kong. When it wears off, naturally, he's standing in front of Duncan.
- In The Addams Family episode "Hide and Go Lurch", one of the ways Gomez and Fester attempted to prevent Lurch from finding them was by turning themselves invisible. The invisibility formula didn't affect their clothes, so they had to disrobe, only for Lurch to again succeed in finding them.
- The Big Knights: The Knights use magic invisibility hats to go spying in a neighboring kingdom, and have to remove their armor and underwear to remain invisible. It's not terribly effective, as they aren't the brightest pair and still stomp around bellowing and waving their swords, even doffing their hats to a group of shocked nuns.
- On The Cleveland Show, Rollo is told he's invisible and spends the rest of the episode running around naked, trying to play pranks on people. It's unclear whether he thinks he has to take off his clothes to remain unseen or whether he just wants to do it, given that supposedly no-one can see him.
- In Courage the Cowardly Dog, Eustace is forced to strip when he has to turn invisible to save Muriel from the government in the episode "Invisible Muriel". He keeps wearing his hat and glasses though and the guards don't think anything is strange. Oddly enough, when Eustace gets turned into a gold statue, he's wearing boxers.
- Futurama: The Hulu revival episode "Children of a Lesser Bog" has Kif Kroker make use of his camouflage ability to rescue Zapp Brannigan from the Tardigrade Bears, ensuring his invisibility is effective by removing his clothes.
- Sid the Invisible Kid from Gravedale High apparently doesn't wear pants, as all the rest of his clothes are visible.
- Invader Zim: Inverted when the cloaking device on the Megadoomer makes the vehicle invisible but the pilot can be seen floating in the air as the transparent mecha stomps down the street.
- In The Replacements episode "Todd Busters", Todd uses Agent K's invisibility hat, which turns invisible along with the wearer, but for unexplained reasons the rest of his clothes doesn't, so he has to take them off. In the end, he loses the hat and is exposed naked to an audience.
- In one episode of The Jetsons, George is turned invisible by one of Mr. Spacely's inventions and needs to fix it to turn visible. At first, it doesn't work on his clothes, and he has to take them off to sneak around invisible. However, at certain times in the cartoon the effect wears off, and in a couple of scenes, he's naked (only the top half of his body visible, of course) while in others he's fully clothed, wearing his usual outfit.
- Skinner Boys: In "The Curse of Invisibility" the magical artifact the kids find is a bracelet that allows the user to turn invisible. Except the person who uses it has to be naked to be at their most effective. Did they mention that this person is a child?
- South Park: In the episode "Good Times with Weapons" where the boys are pretending to be ninjas, one of Cartman's "many, many powers" as a ninja is the ability to turn invisible, albeit with the caveat that his clothes don't follow, hence he strips naked after doing so. He does this in an attempt to sneak to the other side of an ongoing auction so that he can find Butters before his parents find him and get the boys punished for injuring his eye during their pretend fight. Unfortunately, Cartman doesn't stop to realize he doesn't have any powers in the real world, so all he accomplishes is getting naked on the auction stage, in front of everyone. Fortunately for Stan, Kyle and Kenny, the adults pay more attention to Cartman's nudity than Butter's injury, and they make him the scapegoat to escape punishment while the adults deal with him.
- On SpongeBob SquarePants, SpongeBob and Patrick buy an invisibility spray and take off their clothes before using it because the spray stains clothes. Of course, being the imbeciles they are, they end up spraying their clothes anyway.

