I spent nearly 20 years in fashion buying, working with luxury houses and later with brands such as Tommy Hilfiger and MaxMara. Over that time I met many talented young people who wanted to work in fashion but had little idea how the business behind it works: who decides what a label sells, where, to whom and at what price. Most only meet that side of the industry once they are already on a course, through lectures and case studies.
I wanted a way for students to try the business of fashion before they commit to it, and to keep practising it in the first weeks of a course. So I built Sim de la Mode as an iOS game, because that is where many of them already spend their time. Each short mission is based on a real part of the industry, and every decision goes into a virtual fashion label the player builds as they go. The content comes from industry experience and sourced data, so what players learn holds up when they meet it again in a classroom or a job.
Players download the app, choose a role (designer, influencer or entrepreneur) and start Mission 1, What Is Fashion?, which is free. They explore what fashion means through the words of designers and editors, from Coco Chanel to Alexander McQueen, then write their own fashion statement, the first piece of their label. Mission 2, Fashion in Numbers, looks at the size of the global fashion industry, the markets a label could launch in and how prices change from country to country, using sourced figures from organisations such as the IMF and the WTO. Every choice is saved to the player's My Brand profile, so each mission builds on the last.
For classrooms, an educator toolkit sets out learning outcomes, discussion points and sources for each section of each mission, so a lecturer can run a mission as a seminar activity: students play on their iPhones or iPads, then discuss the choices they made. Class pilots are free for students.
It is early: two of Level 1's ten missions are live. We track mission starts and completions for every player, and the first classroom pilots will add structured student feedback.
Sim de la Mode first went live on the App Store in 2025 with its onboarding and label-building features, and relaunched in August 2026 with its first two missions. It has grown mainly through App Store search, with players joining from around the world, and now has more than 80 registered players. We are talking with UK fashion educators about using it in their classes, and the educator toolkit was written for those pilots.
Over the next two to three years we want to complete Level 1's ten missions, then move into business planning (finance, logistics and supply chain) and, later, a full simulation where players launch their label into a marketplace. Alongside that, we want it to become a regular part of fashion business teaching in colleges and universities, with class access arranged by the institution, and to reach students who don't have an iPhone.
Download Sim de la Mode free from the App Store (iPhone and iPad) and start with Mission 1, which is free. Educators who would like to try it with a class can email hello@simdelamode.com for free student access and the educator toolkit, with learning outcomes, discussion points and sources for each mission.
