Style Savvy: Fashion Forward Thinks You Deserve to Look How You Want
If you’re looking for a verdict on whether or not to buy this game, you can stop here: it’s great. Just get it. Roger Ebert, that old videogame nemesis of old, once said to judge movies on the merits of their genre. If an action movie is really good at being an action movie, don’t compare it to Oscar bait or whatever. It is okay that Die Hard isn’t Schindler’s List. No one was asking it to be. So I submit that Style Savvy: Fashion Forward does exactly what you’re expecting it to do, and it does it very, very well. Ten out of ten. Graphics, mechanics etc, just buy the damn game.
But Style Savvy is also sitting at the crossroads of some hot button issues and while it’s not a game about anything of them, it’s still going to have a point of view. This is a videogame about interests that typically appeal to women: fashion and beauty. I’m a woman who is fairly politically active, I’ve written about fashion, and I love videogames. How does this game make me feel about these things?
The first time I had an inkling that the game was trying to teach something was right before the credits hit. Adelaide, a prissy character who was trying to (gasp) shut down the fashion shows you put on with your friends, finally comes around to seeing the value of personal style. What she says to you is, “It’s always better to say, ‘Thank you,’ than ‘I’m sorry.’” She goes on tell you to value yourself, not to constantly apologize for taking up people’s space and time.
I say “right before the credits,” but as with the last Style Savvy the game goes on, and on, and on, after they roll. There’s a lot of game here, and very little filler. The simplistic plotlines carry on and through the post credits—yes, there’s plot here! One character, Xiaoling, finds a new sense of self first through remaking herself in the image of her idol, Callie, and then through finding out what her own style is. You as a player will develop as a style icon first by adding hairstyling and makeup artistry into your repertoire, and later by making your own designs and selling them to brands. In fact, one of the designs you make will be Adelaide’s wedding dress. She met her fiancé wearing the outfit you picked out for her.
It’s a gong I’ve been banging on for my whole life: when you like how you look, you feel better about yourself. The game contextualizes your skill in fashion not by dressing people how you think they should be dressed, but by making them look how they want to. You’re granting wishes, like a fashionable genie. I gave a girl a haircut that looked like toothpaste—pure white, in a side ponytail without bangs. It looked fucking awful, but it was what she wanted, and she was so happy.
I mean, this is the way that fashion as an industry has been trending since beauty blogs became a thing. It’s a more holistic approach to clothing: don’t try to hide what you hate, instead try to emphasize what you like. With the rise of beauty blog Into The Gloss’s own makeup and skincare brand, Glossier, Style Savvy seems particularly on trend. It is possible now to became an all in one brand like you do in Style Savvy in ways it wasn’t even ten years ago. There’s more freedom here. I don’t have to listen when the industry tells me that paisley prints and corduroy are back in style; I can be fashionable in a way that’s uniquely me.
