The lessons Style Savvy: Trendsetters' developers learned about fashion and games

Video games and the world of fashion have more in common than most people think, according to the developers of Style Savvy: Trendsetters.

Speaking to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, the developers of the 3DS fashion boutique game said that working on a fashion game taught them a lot about the similarities between the two fields.

Style Savvy's Koji Tamura – who also works for a company that produces fashion shows – said that like many video games, fashion is about fun.

"Ultimately, it's whether it's fun or not," he said in the interview. "It may just be me, [but] that's why we did the Tokyo Girls Collection (a fashion show held in Tokyo twice a year for young women). I thought that we'd try breaking down the type of show in which the models just come striding in and out. The models move all kinds of ways, so people watching sense a kind of story and feel closer to the experience. I thought that kind of show would definitely be more fun!"

Yurie Hattori of Style Savvy said the similarities extended to the intentions of the two fields. Both aspire to be fun, but both also aspire to make their consumers happy. "Of course, our cultures and common sense were different, but we were both geared toward the customer and shared a desire to make everyone happy with fashion, so we never had an ounce of trouble communicating," she said.

In Style Savvy: Trendsetters, players operate a boutique where they can access up to 12,000 items, offer styling advice and sell clothing to virtual customers. To engage players, the developers had to think of what consumers would enjoy, but they also had to understand the changing trends in fashion in order to create an authentic universe.

Style Savvy's Hitoshi Yamagami said that the previous Style Savvy game in the series was made studying the latest information available on fashion, but this meant the team ran the risk of providing dated content by the time the game was released. For Trendsetters, they had to study trends in fashion in order to predict what would be in vogue by the time the game launched.

Iwata's extensive interview with the development team also touches on fashion tips the developers learned, such as which colors go together and which clothing combinations and shapes are most flattering.

To read the full review, visit Iwata Asks.