I have to admit – over the summer, more of my free time than I’d like to admit was spent playing the silly little Roblox game “Dress to Impress.” If your social media feed is anything like mine, you have probably been flooded with content about it, but for those who have not been so fortunate (or maybe have been more fortunate, in all honesty), it is essentially a dress up game where you are given five minutes and a fairly limited selection of clothing to design an outfit centered around a theme. You are put into a lobby with around ten other people, and once the timer runs out, each player walks a little runway in their themed outfit, which everyone else rates from one to five stars. Silly? Absolutely. A waste of time? No doubt about it. Way more fun than it should be? Try it yourself… and maybe set a time limit!
While there are certainly more themes than I’ve listed here, this is my incredibly subjective opinion on different themes I’ve seen… and sometimes spent way too much time and energy designing outfits for. It is not a ranking, and there is no particular order to it.
- “Holiday.” This theme has so many fun possibilities– but my main gripe with it is that EVERYONE DOES THE SAME THING. Every time this one comes up, I see at least five of the same Santa hat and red coat combos, usually paired with black tights and some kind of fur. There is SO much room to be creative here… Easter? Thanksgiving? Valentine’s Day? St. Patrick’s Day? Come on… at least get creative if you are going to do Christmas! My only Christmas outfit for this theme has been a recreation of the “Jingle Bell Rock” outfit from Mean Girls. I thought it was pretty awesome… and placed last. Oh, well.
- “Elements.” This is another theme with so much creative potential… and the number of miniskirts with the ugly “water” pattern with no other detail that place first? Diabolical. Personally, I at least try to get creative – I once did an “air” theme where I used fairy wings and dainty looking outfit pieces to create a whimsical, fairy-esque look, and another time, I made my character look like Katara the waterbender from the show Avatar, the Last Airbender. The second one placed last, which made me feel ancient.
- “Android vs. Cyborg.” This one was fun and definitely different from others. The thing I did not love about it, though, is that there is only so much that can be done with it. At the end of the day, most of the outfits start to look the same.
- “Dark Academia.” This one is also fun, and threw me straight back to 2020 Pinterest boards. It does get a little repetitive, but there is more creative potential than people usually use. Some of the outfits I have made for this one go hard, I can’t lie.
- “2014 Vibes.” Look, 2014 fashion was… a choice at times, but it is definitely fun to make outfits for. I do suspect that some of the people playing this game might not have been alive in 2014, but alas.
- “Meme.” There are so many possibilities for this. It’s kind of beautiful.
- “First day of school.” MOST OF THESE OUTFITS WOULD GET DRESS CODED SO FAST. What kind of schools did you people go to? I did enjoy figuring out what my first day of school outfits would have been, though, if not for the lovely and extensive choices of blue or gray polo shirts I had for Catholic school.