“I’m not going to lie to you, I feel very on the spot with the Renaissance theme!” says 26-year-old Beatrice, at the onset of a demo round of Roblox’s Dress to Impress, a digital game where players create outfits to compete in fashion shows. The theme description reads as such: “Historical looks with flowing gowns and tunics.” According to the rules, she’s got five minutes to create a look that satisfies the prompt. Start the clock.
She selects “something gentle” for makeup—apple-rouged cheeks, supersized lashes, and a bee-sting pout. For the hair, “something that’s a little bit poofy”: a bouffant edited a shade darker. Renaissance denotes corsetry; she selects one and assigns it a palette of red and gold, adds custom sleeves and a multi-tier skirt. A crown? Naturally. She throws in a coordinating parasol and platform heels for good measure. “It s very Renaissance-vibe, isn’t it?”
Dress to Impress was made by four friends in 2023 who wanted a Roblox game that catered to their specific interests. Flash forward to today, the fashion runway game boasts over six billion visits to date with a team of over 30 attending to development, marketing, community management (like Beatrice), and more.
Beatrice ascended to Community Manager of Dress to Impress after years as an influencer on the game making content, as well as being a prominent Twitch streamer and YouTuber. “People in this game love layering,” she says. “The audience seems to really engage with mixing items together to make something that you wouldn’t have even imagined when we were putting the game together.”
There is no standardized panel deeming this look good or bad, no judge critiquing her on historical accuracy. Instead, users compete in fashion shows and a court of competitors rates the ensembles, with scores totaled at the end to crown a winner. The goal is to advance from a “New Model” to a “Top Model.” Things that impress? Maximalism, creativity, and general “vibes.”
Thanks to low barriers to entry—you don’t need many technical skills, nor do you need to pay to play (though you can purchase add-ons)—Dress to Impress and the larger Roblox platform is largely oriented towards kids.
Still, the Dress to Impress user demographic skews older than most of Roblox. About 63% of users are over 13 (43% are over 18) compared to 51% in the larger Roblox community—though the latter saw 25% growth for 17-24 year olds last year. “It’s really their ability to harness what’s happening in culture and what s happening on the platform and bring those two together in a single epicenter,” explains Winnie Burke, Roblox’s head of fashion and retail, of their broader success. The marketing and development team, Burke says, are “taking cues from what’s happening in the physical world, they’re taking cues from what’s happening on other social platforms.”
What does that look like? Well, this past summer, Charli XCX collaborated with Dress to Impress for themed runways and fashion in the game surrounding her cultural phenomenon album Brat. Users could enjoy four specifically generated themes, a map update, new poses, and Brat-inspired attire. During the collaboration, the game saw 16.6 million plays of Brat-themed dress-up challenges, and it brought 2.4 million new users to DTI for the first time. (Both Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo have worked with Roblox to create digital looks for avatars, as well).
The collaboration drove over 200 million views of community-created content across YouTube and TikTok according to Tubular data. “Every time there’s a cultural moment or a theme that is interesting or can attract a different demographic, it’s going to continue to build that community,” says Burke. “The platform becomes stickier.” Roblox, on average, generates a billion views across YouTube and TikTok everyday. Dress to Impress has proven endemic to cross-promotional sharing, whether users are posting a fabulous ensemble or an impression of Pose 28, a move that users can strike on their final runway walk which went viral last year.
Stats like that are so attractive that fashion brands have already come sniffing. Ralph Lauren and Karlie Kloss have both previously worked with Roblox, and Burke says Dress to Impress has a list of luxury brands interested in partnerships. It’s a “massive opportunity” for early exposure with a young fashion-oriented consumer in a trusted environment that’s also a cultural juggernaut.
For younger generations, the line between digital and physical fashion is blurry at best. A total of 84% of Gen Z users say their physical style has been inspired by their avatar’s style according to Roblox’s Fashion Beauty Expression report. The larger platform sees tens of billions of avatar updates every year as users change up their look.
“For me, as somebody who’s trans, I obviously didn’t get to express myself the way I wanted to growing up,” says Beatrice. “Having games like this was pivotal, because it allowed me to be the person I wanted to be or felt I was in spaces online that I couldn t be in real life.” An influencer first, she became known by her avatar. “My real-life style developed heavily to lean towards my digital style.” She dressed her avatar in pinafore dresses. Now, she has a closet full of them.
Of course, games like this are marketed to Gen Z or Gen Alpha, but is this a Gen Z thing or simply a youthful desire to explore identity sans financial, logistical, or emotional barriers? Both, posits Burke. It’s essentially a more expansive, accessible form of dress-up that would pique any style-minded young person’s interest just as Sims or EverythingGirl did in decades prior. “And the more growing up happens on the platform, the more content on the platform that speaks to that demographic,” she continues. “I’ve heard anecdotes of people well into their thirties using Dress to Impress.”
For Umoyae, 18, who is Dress to Impress’s Manager and Representative, the game allows her to study fashion as much as experiment with it. “I learned a lot about different subcultures and things like that from Dress to Impress,” she says. There’s now a feature that allows users the opportunity to explore and educate themselves on subcultures and fashion trends. “I knew some of them, like Y2K, that’s pretty popular, but something like punk, for instance,” she says, “it’s a fashion aesthetic, but it’s not just that. It’s also a movement.” Dress to Impress gives users ample space to interpret these loose themes as they see fit—that’s often what scores you a winning ticket.
On Beatrice’s Renaissance round’s final runway, creative interpretation comes through. Amid the opulent parasols, one contestant outfitted their model as a Renaissance painter. “A lot of people will take themes like Renaissance and make it relevant to a culture that’s not necessarily a Western one, too,” adds Beatrice. “They might take it and make an outfit from the Renaissance time period but from Southeast Asia.”
Umoyae notes just how imaginative and freewheeling you can get with the themes: “I’ve seen people dress up like Beyonce because of her Renaissance tour.”