Viral sensation Dress to Impress has a secret ingredient: fabulous video game jank
Are you a member of Gen Z, a committed TikTok user, with an Instagram feed full of fashion content? Do you know what ‘slay’ now means? Have you been living a Brat summer? If you answered yes to any of those questions, chances are you’re already familiar with the dress-up game currently taking over the internet. But if all those words sounded alarmingly unfamiliar… allow me to introduce you to Dress to Impress.
A Roblox game that first released in November last year, Dress to Impress has become enormously popular over the last few months, with high-profile influencers, streamers and YouTubers all jumping on the fashion bandwagon. The premise of DTI is relatively simple: you are given a theme, access to a room full of clothes, and a time limit. You can interpret this theme any way you choose, and you’ll need to channel all your creativity to craft a unique and surprising outfit. Each round is frenetic, requiring players to dash between mannequins and makeup stations to achieve their perfect look. Once time is up, players walk down the catwalk to show off their outfits, and everyone rates each other’s fashion choices using a 1-5 star system.
It’s a simple yet brilliant idea, and one that has clearly found an audience. At the time of writing, Dress to Impress has a concurrent player count of 334k, making it the most popular title on the Roblox platform. It has been visited by players over 2.3 billion times. Variety streamers such as Kai Cenat, CaseOh and Pokimane have all put their fashion sensibilities to the test, and there are now entire YouTube channels dedicated to covering the game. It’s become such a phenomenon that Charli XCX — currently one of the biggest pop artists on the planet — has collaborated with Dress to Impress to introduce an update themed around her latest album. Dress to Impress has obviously hit on something here, managing to cement itself firmly within the Gen Z cultural zeitgeist. But given the number of dress-up games out there that haven’t achieved this level of popularity, why has this one blown up?
It seems likely there are a few factors at play here. The game’s straightforward format, in combination with its competitive multiplayer mode, makes it easy to understand and compelling to play. The time limit adds pressure, introducing an element of silliness and panic when you make bad fashion decisions within the last ten seconds. There’s the fact it uses Bratz-style character models, which differentiates it from Roblox competitors using the platform’s blocky default characters. It leans into current fashion trends, with plenty of Y2K, grunge and coquette-themed items to choose from. Beyond all this, however, I’d argue that Dress to Impress has a secret ingredient that has (so far) gone under-discussed. One that stems from its origins as a Roblox game, rather than something made by an established game developer. The answer? Good-old video game jank.
I know what you’re thinking: what? Surely jank is a bad thing? It’s certainly seen this way in traditional game development, where issues such as clipping, awkward animations and clunky UI are something to be avoided. In Dress to Impress, however, these janky elements are key to the game’s identity, and sometimes even form core parts of the gameplay. Dress-up games are normally quite restrictive in the number of items they allow players to equip at once: items are often limited to specific slots, with one hat allowed for the head space, for instance, or one t-shirt for the top slot. The reason for this is to prevent things from looking chaotic, or for the dreaded ‘clipping’ to occur – when items intersect with each other in unexpected or improper ways. Developers will typically go to great lengths to ensure that clothing items connect properly with each other, to prevent things from looking sloppy and unpolished.
Dress to Impress doesn’t care about this at all. Much like Brat summer, it embraces being a hot mess. Here, players can equip up to 18 items at once, with relatively few restrictions in place for which items you can select. This enormous flexibility grants greater creative freedom than most dress-up games would typically permit. Rather unusually, you can also merge clothing items together to create looks that are totally unique. Need a mid-length dress with an off-shoulder neckline? Combine a basic dress with a bardot top. Need an alien-looking hairstyle? Blend several braid haircuts together.
This opens up all sorts of possibilities for messing around with silhouettes, necklines and accessories. If you need a blingy look, for instance, you can simply chuck on every necklace and bracelet in the game. And while it’s possible to win rounds of Dress to Impress with simple looks, you’re more likely to win by using ‘layering’ to stand out with unique, highly-embellished designs. According to the Dress to Impress community, this is what separates the aspiring models from the fashion mavens: just take a look at this chart declaring that the best players are those who can layer effectively. Layering is a technique used in real-world fashion styling to add depth and interest to an outfit, so it’s refreshing to see that this is a viable option in-game.
Some players take things a step further, too, by deliberately using clipping to achieve wacky looks. For themes to do with ghosts, zombies or vampires, I’ve seen players deliberately clip red layers through their outfits to give the illusion of blood. There are hundreds of videos on YouTube detailing various tricks and hacks, and even glitches are also used to achieve unique looks. Just take a look at the design I created after watching a floating limbs tutorial on TikTok. “I hope [developer] Gigi never fixes glitches or layers like these because it’s genuinely part of the game and makes it more fun,” says one of the comments below this video. I completely agree!
In other areas of the game, the jankiness serves to make the experience feel ridiculous, and therefore hilarious. Dress to Impress’ UI is tricky to navigate, which contributes to the panic of running through a room and frantically changing clothes. It’s easy to accidentally pick up unwanted items just as the deadline hits, and struggle to remove them in time. This results in farcical situations where you can strut triumphantly down the runway in a glamorous gown, while holding a tennis racket. The animations and poses are also absurd, with players frequently ending their runways by backflipping and sliding off the stage. Don’t even get me started on Pose 28. While it’s possible to take Dress to Impress seriously, this is a game that is intrinsically funny, partly due to its multiplayer format, which naturally encourages you to surprise other players by interpreting themes in innovative and jokey ways (such as replicating Regina George’s cut-out top for the theme ‘Mean Girls’). But it’s just as much a result of these rough edges, which can’t help but produce incredible comedy moments.
So where does this leave us? Perhaps with the idea that future dress-up games could stand to forfeit some level of polish to grant players more creative freedom. The enormous flexibility of Dress to Impress means that there are always new combinations to create, and weirdly enough for a fashion game, there’s a high skill ceiling — meaning players are likely to keep coming back to improve their design techniques. That being said, I do think that Dress to Impress is a game that could only have come from Roblox. Given the context in which it was made, it’s permitted to look a bit janky, and the platform’s massive user base has allowed it to quickly gain traction with young players looking for free games.
Still, it’s a good reminder that video game jank isn’t always a bad thing, and can actively bring personality and quirkiness to a game. After all, who doesn’t remember their first Skyrim space launch? Players also love being able to bend the rules and discover unintended ways of playing a game –myself included. Keeping these oddities and glitches adds depth and weirdness to a game world that would be lost if they were all perfectly ironed out. So then, game developers: think twice before you eliminate that amusing bug your community found. In the eyes of your players, it could be one of your game’s most memorable features.
