Does fashion have a place in the gaming world? We spend a lot of time building every character so it makes perfect sense that luxury fashion houses are starting to take notice. Welp, better get your consoles ready.
The earliest dress-up video game I can recall was The Sims. Not quite a real style game, but I spent hours and hours customizing my character that I would only feed once a day, burn its house, and engage in a friendly chat with the Grim Reaper. Choosing the eye color, nose shape, and hair was fairly easy, but picking an outfit took me ages. It was a way for me to mask my insecurities as a young’un back then, because in that dimension, you could be whoever you wanted.
Far from the kawaii flash player e-paper dolls on the infamous free gaming site Y8.com back in the 2000s, e-sports is slowly becoming fashion’s next big thing with the absence of physical shows. With the news of Balenciaga unveiling their first ever video game, After World, featuring their Fall 2021 collection, here are some of the best interactive games in fashion that you can play all day.
MOSCHINO X THE SIMS 4
Pop culture is in the DNA of Italian fashion house Moschino. Definitely no stranger to kitschy and tongue-in-cheek looks, creative director Jeremy Scott designed a series of wearable bodysuits, bomber jackets, and even a dress covered with Moschino bears for you and your Sim. You can play The Sims on Xbox, PC, and Playstation4.
TRAVIS SCOTT X FORTNITE
While the Houston rapper isn’t necessarily designing collections per season, Travis made cultural impact when he held a CGI concert on Fortnite. Spitting bars on his tracks, Goosebumps, Highest in the Room, and debuting The Scotts with Kid Cudi, Travis kept his performance fit true to life by wearing nothing but chains, cargo pants, and his Travis Scott x NIKE Air Jordan 1. Of course he made some merch, too. Who else is envious of his collab with Playstation? Play the game on Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
BURBERRY’S B BOUNCE GAME
Just in time for the unveiling of their new monogram puffer jackets, Burberry launched its first video game, B Bounce, on their website last year. Pick a puffer jacket of your liking and you can automatically race to the moon by bouncing on platforms with your supercharged deer and gain extra speed by collecting gold TB logos and drones. Creative director Riccardo Tisci knew it was the best way to innovate and engage customers to use the website other than shopping—and he was right. We were unknowingly on the game for a whole 30 minutes. You can play B Bounce here.
COLLINA STRADA’S VIDEO GAME AT GUCCI FEST
If anything, the pandemic has forced fashion houses to adapt to change. A few days ago, Gucci launched Guccifest, their first digital film festival featuring emerging designers. One of the standouts from their roster was Collina Strada—opting for a playable game instead of the usual fashion film. Collina Land’s premise is about climate change, saving the earth, and looking cute while doing it. You can play Collina Land here.
ALL OF LOUIS VUITTON’S GAMING COLLABORATIONS
Virgil Abloh may have created a 16-bit video game for Louis Vuitton’s F/W 2019 show, but it’s not the first time that the luxury giant tapped the e-sports world. Back in 2016, LV revealed the face of their Spring/Summer collection—Lightning, the rosy-haired protagonist of the Final Fantasy world. It’s something any fashion house has never done before. Three years later, they collaborated with battle arena video game League of Legends for some premium skins for the platform, then released a capsule collection featuring the prints on tees, bomber jackets and pants. They even made a custom-trunk for their trophy.
