Fashion and styling games enable gamers and fashion aficionados to access digital art studios that remove real-world barriers to design like financial or physical limits. This lets the user experiment with even the most bizarre of ideas while expanding creative thinking.

For starters, these digital fashion studios provide zero-risk through experimentation as they provide thousands of simulated clothing items, textures, and colors. Even if the design goes up to Avant Garde madness, there is no risk of purchasing a bad outfit much less the psychological backlash of ridicule. The whole process is done in the spirit of fun and games.

Likewise, many of these fashion game digital studios operate under a set of themes or a specific one. A would be fashion designer could focus on outfits for a specific purpose like say a Wedding or a Halloween Ball. What's more, the creative feedback to the user is practically instant. A choice of an option, a click of a mouse, and the player can see the results immediately, good or bad it may be.

With the ease of simulating looks, digital fashion designers are able to express their creativity with almost no bounds. Even if one creates a Dino costume with the most outrageous looks, or try to up Barbie with everything she's got, players have the ability to explore every facet of their creative identity using avatars as proxies. Sometimes, the freedom to experiment with identity and looks uncover creative preferences the player may not have been aware of.

Think of this really big muscular "The Rock" looking guy trying to dress up "Barbie" on his PC in the name of experimentation. After all, the results may be quite interesting and not bad at all.

Fashion and Styling Games of Legend

Let's start with the first Fashionista game ever. The game that started it all, “Barbie (1984)” for the Commodore 64. Yes, probably way before your time, but we're talking legends here.

Created by Epyx Games, Barbie was a text-and-graphics hybrid game focused on fashion and styling where the player had to help Barbie dress up for a date with Ken by selecting the appropriate themed clothing (dress, shoes, accessories, etc.) from a dynamic 2D pixelated clothing boutique. Outdated as it is today, Barbie 1984 established the core principles for digital theme-based fashion and styling used today.

Style Boutique

Speaking of Fashion Boutiques, “Style Boutique” which was released for the Nintendo DS / 3DS in 2008 and initially known as “Girls Mode” in Japan. It was then released in the west by 2009. The game is considered as the Gold Standard of digital boutique management and fashion. Style Boutique also known as Style Savvy is a serious fashion and styling game as it doubles as a fashion boutique simulator and not only dresses up avatars but delves into the technical intricacies of Fashion Subculture. The game sold over 6 million copies worldwide, proving that Fashion and Style is not just an art but also a productive commercial endeavor.

Nikki

The Nikki Fashion Series by Infold Games (aka Papergames) is the most biggest and profitable Fashion Gaming franchise in gaming history. First released in 2012 as the “Nikki UP2U: A Dressing Story”, the game evolved from a 2D mobile game to a multi-billion dollar game franchise. What’s more, the game was unique that it treated Fashion as a magical superpower where clothing items had equivalent strategic stats. The detail of the artwork as well as other factors like clothing physics and intricate material textures more than provided for the visual attractiveness of the game.

Glamdiva

“Glamdiva: Fashion Stylist” is one of the best fashion games on the site. An immersive dress-up and makeup game, you play the stylist who has to help her model win fashion contests with other players from around the world, from choosing your model to dressing her, putting on makeup as well as taking care of all her physical attributes and making her ready to face the crowd. Models are rated according to overall physical attributes, Glamdiva is not only a fashion and styling game but a competitive one as well. The awesome character design and smooth animations make up for the game’s overall visual presence as well as the immersive and interesting gameplay.

The Sims

Yes, you heard it right, “The Sims 4” by Electronic Arts is also a Fashion and Styling game worth the experience. The game has a feature called CAS (Create-a-Sim) which happens to be, believe it or not, one of the world's most powerful digital styling toolkits. With the game’s revolutionary trademark click-and-drag engine, players can create body types and faces as well as mix hats, clothes, hairstyles, with the ultimate styling freedom.

Being the product of a huge AAA game company, the Sims is able to pull in brands like Gucci, Coach, and Moschino. What’s more, backed by the massive "Custom Content" (CC) community, current fashion trends are recreated within days and immediately applied into the game. The Sims 4 provides players with infinite and evolving fashion and style.

These are just a few of the best of the best in the digital fashion industry, and the beauty of it, once digitally tested, liked, and approved, it’s just a matter of finding the right Tailor/Seamstress to port the idea to real like.