Xbox gamers can dress as a BioShock Big Daddy or a Halo trooper if they sample the new virtual world fashions launching today. Or they could dress like theyâre from the Great Depression. The lineâs designer explains why.
We dress in mere costumes when we control characters in our Xbox 360s. Michael Connell believes itâs time for us to wear fashion â some of which came from poorer times.
Connell is the Microsoft-contracted designer behind two original fashion lines, offered, for pay, as part of the new Xbox 360 system update that goes live today. The freelance creative director whose professional experience includes modeling, designing Barbie-branded fashion and a stint as the design director of the Cranium line of games, has crafted clothing for the bodies of virtual men and women, to be worn by Xbox 360 Avatars.
Through Connell and Microsoft, gamers can today buy 1930s-era cuffed trousers ($1) or a pair of Steampunk metal goggles ($1) to adorn the virtual person who represents them on their Xbox 360 â and who appears on their Xbox Live friends lists.
The fashion offering might vex those gamers who donât see the sense of spending a dollar on a virtual pair of pants but Connell sees the introduction of the new lines as a promotion for what he fundamentally values about fashion: a way for us to say something about ourselves.
âThe fashions [in video games] have mostly been driven by context,â he told Kotaku in a phone interview to discuss the lines. âThe context for this game is a war or a sci-fi war or what have you, so letâs build fantasy characters. In other games itâs based on World War II. So these are a set of characters and theyâre thought of as movie characters. Itâs more costume-based. But when you really start thinking about fashion ⊠my personal feeling about fashion is that itâs always about expression.â
Itâs self-expression that Connell hopes his work can further enable for Xbox gamers. âOnce you see enough avatars, they kind of start to feel the same,â he said, recalling the initial wave of Xbox Avatar fashion that has been available for the past nine months, while heâs been designing the new lines. âThe generic collection that we have out there currently doesnât really offer any individuality. Certainly itâs a basics collection. but itâs generic in the worst sense.â
Today launches Connellâs wearable antidote. In the new Avatar store on online-connected 360s, buried behind banners advertising BioShock and Halo fashions for Avatars and tucked behind new pages that sell Adidas and Quiksilver Avatar clothes, are the first of Connellâs brand-free lines: Steampunk and the Depression-inspired Recessionista.
Steampunk was a no-brainer, part of an attempt to offer some clothes to the folks Connell described as âthought leaders.â Itâs a big trend, with people melding styles from the 1800s with a fanciful addition of future technology. âWe felt the community was so active that paying homage to this trend was pretty much a natural,â Connell said.
Recessionista was a bigger leap, one that had to clear more skepticism in Microsoft before getting full support. That line from Connell is based on working-class clothing from the United Statesâ worst economic slump in its history. It is a relevant inspiration, of course, because of the worldâs current economic woes. It may also be one of the first acknowledgments in video games of the biggest real-world news story of the past two years in video games, arriving only now in August 2009.
âI was thinking about making a statement, if you will, that even though this time of global recession, everything isnât bad.â Connell said. âAnd in the 30s, in a time that was really bad, much worse than it is today, it wasnât all bad. There was fashion that was quite interesting. And this fashion wasnât the couture that was happening at the time. It was â what Iâm trying to do â is more of a work fashion. [I hope] to kind of show that there are good things and weâve been there and weâll get out. Clearly these are subliminal messages, but this is what I was inspired by. If you design a collection I think the most important thing is there needs to be heart and soul and direction.â
On the Xbox 360, fashions are divided for male avatars and female avatars. The system doesnât allow for cross-dressing of gendered items. Other restrictions of color palette and memory limitations curtail the wildest fashions Connell could conceive. He canât adjust for fit, eliminating the ability to distinguish between, say, baggy pants and tight jeans. But within these strictures that Connell still sees opportunity: âIâm trying to do is encourage people to take risks and play with expressions. And play with where their boundaries are with fashion. Because right now the real expression that we have in this ecosystem is visual.â
Connell doesnât set prices. But heâs hopeful that people will find worth in dressing in some of the clothes he has crafted. The fact that he helped stitch some of the first paid hats and shirts on the Xbox 360 motivated him, he said, to make things that were top-flight, an aesthetic goal, not a commercial one. âNobody has been playing with the idea that this is world domination through avatar apparel and making huge money,â he said. âIf we donât charge and itâs free, how can we re-invest? Thereâs significant time and money and capital thatâs being spent to actually bring these to market â
More fashion lines from Connell are coming. And heâs paying attention to the response. âWeâre hoping weâre going to get feedback and thatâs going to help us course-correct, improve and push the envelope on what it means to give expression through avatars.â
Who thinks about what their characters wear when they play or browse an Xbox 360 dashboard? Wear what you will. Connell hopes it will mean something.
