In Desperate Housewives, the main characters frequently find themselves in the middle of very sticky situations. The severity of these situations varies from mild everyday inconveniences to hiding pregnancies, affairs, a secret love child and even murder. Sometimes the outfits the characters choose to wear when dealing with the particular drama at hand are very impractical.
While Gabrielle is the character who tends to wear the most uncomfortable but glamorous outfits, and is nearly always sporting a pair of very high heels, all of the main characters find themselves wearing (or not wearing) garments that get in the way or make it difficult to keep their secrets concealed.
The Maid Outfit And The Colleague – Lynette
Although Tom and Lynette are couple goals, during a rough patch and in an attempt to inject romance back into her marriage, Lynette buys a maid outfit from a lingerie shop. She gets dressed up for Tom and awaits his return for a romantic night together. However, Tom gets held up and work and Lynette, bored while waiting, works her way through a bottle of red wine and falls asleep on the couch. Unknown to Lynette, Tom invites a colleague to stay over and sleep on the couch, instead of going to a hotel. When Tom and his colleague return home, they find Lynette asleep on the couch in her lingerie.
While this unfortunate outfit choice does not have any terrible repercussions, it is a bit of an embarrassing situation for everyone involved, and Lynette would have undoubtedly chosen a different outfit had she known what was going to happen.
The Ball Gown At The Shopping Mall – Gabrielle
When money becomes a little tight, Gabrielle goes to a modelling agency where she is offered a job talking about a car at Fairview Mall. While Gabrielle initially snubs the offer, she does eventually sheepishly agree to the job. However, at the mall she sees Tom and Lynette and, embarrassed, Gabrielle tries to make a quick getaway.
However, the blue, floor length ball gown and heels turns out to be an impractical outfit for running away and Gabrielle’s dress gets caught on the revolving platform leaving her unable to run away from the situation.
Lingerie At The Teen Party – Susan
Having agreed that her daughter, Julie, could go to a party, Susan and Mike plan a romantic night in together. However, when Mike talks about how out of control the party looked when he drove by earlier, Susan immediately tells Mike that they need whipped cream and rushes to the party to bring Julie home.
However, in her panic, Susan merely grabs a cardigan to put over her lingerie and when she turns up at the party, a group of teenage boys assumes she is a stripper. While the boys assumption is by no means Susan’s fault, it does turn out to be an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction, given she is a parent at a children’s party.
The Baby Doll Attacking Paul – Susan
When Susan finds out that Paul, one of the worst husbands in Desperate Housewives, got her fired from her job by telling the school about her job on the internet, Susan is furious. Although she happens to be in the process of taking MJ Trick or Treating for Halloween (dressed in a flamboyant baby doll outfit), she storms over to confront Paul. She then proceeds to use MJ’s Halloween club to smash objects in Paul’s home.
While the club does come in handy, the outfit makes it a little hard to take Susan seriously, as well as it being impractical. However, she still manages to do some damage, despite the outfit.
The Shirt While Cutting Back The Hedges – John
When Gabrielle and John are having an affair, they go to great lengths to keep it from Carlos. One day, Carlos unexpectedly returns home when Gabrielle and John are together. Gabrielle And John scramble for their clothes, but John has to jump out the window before he has time to put on anything but a shirt. John then finds himself up a ladder, wearing nothing but a shirt, cutting the hedges and talking to his lover’s husband, who is also his boss.
Obviously, wearing nothing but a shirt is not very practical when doing garden work, nor is it ideal when speaking to a lover’s husband and a boss. Not only this, but also if someone had walked by during that moment, Gabrielle and John’s secret would have been revealed.
The Fake Pregnant Stomach – Bree
When Bree, one of the best characters in Desperate Housewives, finds out her daughter, Danielle, is pregnant with Edie’s nephew’s baby, she is beside herself. In order to hide Danielle’s pregnancy from their friends and neighbors, Bree and Orson devise a plan and Danielle is sent away. Despite Bree’s mother-in-law’s efforts, Danielle agrees to allow Bree and Orson to raise the baby as their own, in exchange for sending her to college and buying her a convertible. In order to convince everyone that the baby is theirs, Bree wears a fake pregnant stomach.
Of course, wearing a fake pregnant stomach all the time in not always practical. People wants to touch Bree’s stomach and feel the baby kick, but Bree is hiding that there is no baby to feel! This is without a doubt one of the most awkward and impractical things ever worn on Desperate Housewives.
The White Dress At The Charity Fashion Show – Susan
Backstage for the charity fashion show Gabrielle has organized, Susan is confronted by Helen, who mistakenly thinks that it is Susan who is having an affair with her son John, when it is actually Gabrielle. Helen attacks Susan, who is all dressed up ready walk the runway. Susan’s dress is ripped, one of her shoe is broken and her hair is messed up. Immediately afterwards, Susan is pulled on stage in her tattered outfit and made to walk the runway.
Before the fight, Susan is on top of the world and looks beautiful, but post-fight she does not look runway ready. She is clearly mortified as the audience gasp at her appearance, making this one of the most impractical outfits worn on the show.
Dinner Dresses And Heels While Burying A Body – Bree, Gabrielle, Susan & Lynette
When a dinner party on Wisteria Lane ends in murder, the housewives and their partners are unsure what to do. Carlos kills a man by hitting him over the head to protect Gabrielle, but they are concerned that because he was unarmed, Carlos will go to jail. Bree takes initiative and decides that they will cover up the murder, and the group head to the woods, where they bury the body. Of course, they are all still wearing their dinner party outfits which, for the housewives, means cocktail dresses and heels.
These outfits are fairly impractical going into the forest, let alone burying a body! There is quite a big chance that some of the high heels get ruined, but it is definitely fair to say that the situation is an emergency.
Halloween Outfits During The Birth – Bree, Orson, Danielle, Andrew & Adam
In one of the best seasons of Desperate Housewives, Danielle visits Wisteria Lane towards the end of her pregnancy. She is angry at her mother and sick of staying indoors so she dresses up as (not really) pregnant Bree and attends the neighbor’s Halloween party. However, her water breaks at the party so the family (in their own Halloween outfits) escort Danielle back to their own home. When Adam delivers Danielle’s baby, he is dressed as Frankenstein.
The Halloween outfits did make for a hilarious scene, but the family and the doctor being dressed in costume was fairly impractical during a medical emergency.
The Birthday Suit On Wisteria Lane – Susan
When Karl turns up a day early to have a serious conversation with Susan, she is wearing only a towel. As the conversation gets heated, Susan is (justifiably) yelling at Karl as he walks out of the house, gets into his car and drives off. Of course, disaster-prone Susan’s towel gets shut in the car door and when Karl drives off, Susan finds her in nothing but her birthday suit in the middle of Wisteria Lane.
Poor Susan does always seem to find herself in these sorts of embarrassing situations, and the impracticality of Susan’s (lack of) outfit is only made worse when her crush Mike walks by and finds her.
