The Esports Dress: 1 Year Later
By: David Barrett
Tags: Clothing, Esports

On the second of March 2019, a tweet went out from a small esports apparel company about their hot new product. Cranium Apparel made big promises about their new item, with claims of “never seen before in esports”, “proudly supporting #WOMENINESPORTS” and “gives a new identity to female gamers”. Unfortunately, the dress in question left much to be desired and the marketing campaign took a rather swift nosedive.

This was covered pretty extensively at the time and I wouldn’t want to beat a dead horse too much. This medium article by Emma Hossen gives better insight than I ever will about the greater cultural meaning of the dress. One reply by the Youtuber “SpeirsTheAmazingHD” had caught my eye and I decided to have some fun with it. Would a man, in fact, be able to “rock one” as Speirs had put it. To my knowledge, the dress wasn’t exactly flying off the shelves and surely someone should write a review of what the damn thing is like to wear.

So let us begin.

Purchase

So something interesting that I had to get familiar with before I could even buy the dress was would I even fit in the thing. Women’s size charts aren’t exactly the simplest thing to understand. Thankfully they had a size chart that was appropriate for me to find a good fit.

I can’t even say anything negative about this, it’s a pretty good chart. Although a length would have been nice.

A quick scheduled payment to them through PayPal and a modest shipping fee later, the dress was on its way. It took a few weeks to arrive, but the dress comes with a custom design that includes your Gamertag of choice, so it arrived pretty quickly considering that. The packaging was appropriate for delivery and it arrived in perfect condition. I’ve ordered clothing online before with some weird issues (such as clothing smelling strange on arrival), but Cranium Apparel was one of the better online clothes shopping experiences I’ve had.

In less than ideal circumstances, they are still showing the original cleavage zipper on the website, despite it being redesigned. It is a poor reminder of a design choice they shied away from. Yet is still being used to advertise the dress.

At least they got rid of the zipper in the finished product.

The Dress

So the first thing to notice is the dress is actually very comfortable to wear. The advertised “skin friendly” in their original promotion while incredibly weird in terms of wording has some merit. After the initial small effort to put the dress on, it fits like a glove and I could honestly wear it all day without any issue.

It’s a look, literally.

There is a lone review that sits on the store page of Cranium Apparel’s website that seems to agree with this. Another purchaser ‘Adrian’ had positive things to say of the way the dress felt to wear and the way it smelled. While the initial target market for this may have been women, the vocal purchasers have ended up being men for different reasons.

Along with how nice it feels (and smells, apparently) is that it actually looks pretty damn good too. Before doing the photoshoot, I’d shown it to some friends and the reception was far more positive than expected.

Matching gamer apparel!

If we look at it in the context of the tweet that inspired my purchase, I do think that a guy can certainly “rock one” while wearing this. It looks good, it feels good, it works well with other clothing depending on the kind of look you’re going for. I’ve had fun wearing it and the photo session for it was a blast. The biggest issue with wearing it is the pockets are a bit small for larger hands. Perhaps I should invest in a matching esports shoulder bag.

The negative aspects don’t end with just the physical aspects of the dress though. The earlier mentioned praise always came with some comments about the type of dress it is. “Cheerleaders dress” was probably the most accurate term and given the context of this being for a competitive environment, is probably the impression those who wear it will give. There, on the sidelines, cheering on their friends rather than being viewed as a competitor in their own right. The dress promoting comparison to a stereotype it tried to move past is a level of irony that is worthy of note.

Not exactly what I’d rock up to a tournament wearing, but still a damn good look.

Looking Forward

The thing that interests me now is: where has the clothing industry in esports gone over the past year? For as much of a massive PR blunder this dress was, has esports clothing offered much in the way of traditionally feminine clothing since?

After looking around, it seems we might be a ways from seeing something like this tried again. There are a number of clothing options like tank tops that have a target market aimed at women, but even these seem to be harder to come by compared to the swathes of sports shirts and hoodies that embody esports clothing. It was worth noting Cranium Apparel released more products aimed at women but to little fanfare.

Maybe one day someone will make a serious attempt at a dress in esports. Maybe it will actually be good and have a positive impact on the industry. Louis Vuitton has shown that gaming themed dresses can look smart, so it isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Esports will need to wait its turn for now, at a hopefully lower price point.

Until then, I’m going to do my Scottish thing and look good in what is basically a glorified skirt, ready to “rock one” once more should I wish to.

Because let’s be real, the only difference between this photo and the one above is societal preconceptions.

Footnote: I’d like to thank Acoustica Photography for her work on this article. You can find more of her work here.