The roots of the Roblox-based fashion game find themselves in the drag-and-drop HTML games of the 2000s.
Hazy memories of dress-up games colour the childhood of the Gen Z Girl. Sites like GirlsGoGames were cyber-libraries of hundreds, even thousands, of girly, glittery fashion games. The simple yet sparkly clothes were some of our earliest expressions of personality and style, in lieu of the Clueless-esque wardrobes we wanted for Christmas.
Any chance of a trip down memory lane was virtually eliminated when, from 2017 to 2021, Adobe phased out Flash. It’s no wonder that kid-friendly apps like Roblox took over, especially during the pandemic — the corporation made $250 million in 2020. What is unbelievable is the recent willingness from older teenagers and adults to look past the “cringe” associated with the platform, or rather, playing games with children.
Enter Dress to Impress, the Roblox-based game taking TikTok by storm. Players have five and a half minutes to style their best outfit to fit one of several chronically online themes, from “visual kei” to “2014 vibes” to “coquette.” All aspects of the look are considered — hair, makeup, nails, and cleverly layered outfits. These glamourous avatars strut down the runway, sometimes hitting the awkward Pose 28, where they are given up to five stars by other members of the server.
Technologically speaking, Dress to Impress is lightyears ahead of the endearingly simple dress-up games of the past. Long gone are the days of dragging and dropping. Instead, players walk their avatar around a large dressing room-salon complex, even sitting down to get their nails done by the in-game nail tech. Generation Alpha is being raised on hyper-realistic 3D simulations on their laptops, and Gen Z’s nostalgia trip is just that: a trip on the futuristic maximalism of what Flash games could have been. Do we wish they had been this way, or is the past what we crave?
Maybe it’s the TikTok algorithm that’s drawn so many adults to Dress to Impress. Initially gaining popularity among teenagers, it’s now easy to find videos of creators in their 20s confessing their obsession with the game — on TikTok, @tom.hi11 pokes fun at himself for playing a children’s game despite also training to be a doctor. However, escapism naturally comes to the fore, in line with the trend of an almost infantilising girlhood. “I’m just a girl”-games evoking the nostalgia of digital styling are a logical next step for Peter Pan-ified adults, akin to the “playing house” feel of The Sims.
On August 17th, 2024, the Dress to Impress lobby was painted a bratty shade of green. In a way, the Brat takeover was inevitable. Charli XCX knows her way around a niche, ironic internet reference. Remember her lockdown performance on Grindr’s Instagram? And like the nostalgia-laden experience of playing the game, Brat brings Gen Z and Millennial audiences back to late 2000s clubbing and the (somewhat dubious) indie sleaze. Old habits die hard, and the use of the celebrity in the fashion game is simultaneously making a resurgence. Think back to dressing up Britney, Beyoncé, and Bieber on Windows Vista.
Supported by the extensive Brat update, the selection of clothes and themes reflect an overlapping in style between generations. The reign of Y2K appears ceaseless, seen in the flip-phone accessory as opposed to a more contemporary iPhone. Yet, a common grievance circulates amongst adult players of Dress to Impress: that the main demographic of the game (58% of Roblox players are under 16) often misunderstand themes, most likely because they weren’t actually alive for the trends referenced by them. Everything circles back to nostalgia; much like the Y2K resurgence from 2018 onwards, the burgeoning 2010s revival is being pushed by a generation too young to have participated in contemporary trends, but old enough to witness them online or on older teenagers. Attempts are made to clarify faint memories, straining the dated from the renewed. What emerges is a diluted form of the visual past and a somewhat strange experience playing Dress to Impress.
There can never be enough praise for the developers of Dress to Impress, with most of them being under 17 and creating bright futures for themselves in game design. And truly, the game is addictive — you’ll find it difficult to get that lobby music out of your head. Yet, what may seem silly at first poses questions for fashion. How far will the merging of adult and child styles go? Are our tastes in fashion intertwining with our online identities rather than the clothes we wear in real life? Will we get one step closer to the iconic Clueless wardrobe? 🌀
Emma Heagney is a writer, editor, and Classics student. Sometimes in London, sometimes in Oxford. Her obsession with history bleeds into her love of all things music, fashion, and literature. Subscribe to her upcoming Substack ephemeros for explorations of forgotten culture.