Welcome to the world of fashion…well, at least the virtual world of fashion. Earlier this week during the Sony keynote at TGS, Kaz Hirai made a comment regarding downloadable content for Home that could make things really fashionable. “Dress” is going to be an expansion to the PlayStation Home service that will connect real life and virtual world fashion, and it will be a "premium avatar service".
The idea that created Dress is really interesting as it came from the game Tourist Trophy. In Tourist Trophy, gamers were allowed to dress up their bikers in real life clothing brands/gear. Dress will provide the same theme, but of course with much extension. It will be a unique avatar system separate from the default Home avatars. With Dress, you’ll be able to make precise detail customizations to hair style, facial features and body.
Takamasa Shickhisawa, director of Tourist Trophy explained four distinct areas of Dress within the Home realm:
Dress Town will be an area where gamers can enjoy the world of fashion. It is designed to be a virtual mall with clothing shops. Players will enter these stores based on real life clothing brands to make players feel as if they are really out and about shopping for their favorite brands. American Eagle, GAP, Armani, or Express – the possibilities are just limitless.
Dress Studio is the design portion where players will actually be able to create their own brands and designs. With the backing by Sony, players will also be able to send off their creations to real life fashion designers in hopes of their creations becoming real life products.
Dress Museum is a place where players can view the history of fashion. There will be many interactive factors where the players can view famous scenes from movies and famous characters to learn about fashion as well as create ideas for their own designs to take back to Dress Studio.
Dress Park is the community area where players can exchange gifts including clothing. You’ll be able to create and participate in fashion shows based off the brands made in Studio.
Dress is expected to become available for download in early 2008, which is also when Home is scheduled to be rolling out.
Source: IGN