The Style Index

The vote score is set by other players and the algorithm — it's what this guide exists to move. The total score adds your bonus items on top. Everything below is measured against vote, not total, so nothing here is inflated by purchases.

1.1 · Venue baselines

1.2 · Vibe & formality

1.3 · Completeness

Clean and monotonic: every filled slot helps, and the jump from 8 to 9 is where it turns positive. Target 9–10 of the 12 key slots.

1.4 · Master lists

This edition tests every feature through four separate models — random forest, extra trees, gradient boosting and ridge regression — each asking "if every look wore this instead, what happens to the vote?" When four different algorithms agree, the finding is about as solid as this data gets.

2.1 · Model consensus

2.2 · What this tells us about the algorithm

• Theme alignment is still the biggest structural lever and the only feature that tops every model's list. Excellent vs fair is a ~0.35-point swing.
• The face carries as much weight as the wardrobe. Eye color is the #2 feature in three of four models, and filling all three face fields (lip, nails, eyes) is worth +0.07 versus filling one.
• It rewards a defined, specific bag above almost anything else. Hobo, evening and crossbody bags all sit near +0.25 lift — bigger than any garment.
• Pink beats red, decisively and repeatedly. Every pink/magenta/mauve lip is strongly positive; every red is negative in all four models. This is now the most replicated finding after theme.
• Oversized silhouettes are penalised — oversized tops (−0.052) and bottoms (−0.034) both drag. The algorithm likes defined shapes.
• Fluffy textures are the surprise loser — fluffy shoes (−0.056), dresses (−0.059), bottoms (−0.045) and hats (−0.028) all sit at the bottom.

This edition measures every recommendation against the venue's own baseline, not the global one — so these are the items that beat that specific backdrop, with the venue's difficulty already accounted for.

Met Museum n 1,120

• The only venue with a real positive edge (+0.059) and by far the most-played. Cool cream/aqua flatters crisp neutrals.
• Striped bottoms are the standout (+0.148, mean vote 4.14) — an unusually high figure. Pair with knee-high boots (+0.100) or straight-leg pants (+0.094).
• Colors: gray outerwear (mv 4.13), champagne dress (mv 4.04), tan bottom, light-blue bag.

Ballroom n 634

• The dressiest room: black tie is +0.078 here on top of its global bonus. Evening bag is the top play (+0.148, mv 4.00).
• Black accessories win — black shoes (+0.092) and black hat (+0.084), with a red bag as the accent (+0.083).
• Pumps (+0.116) and sequin bottoms (+0.089) round it out.

Night Club & Rooftop Café n 663 / 618

• Both sit below the global baseline, so they need deliberate looks. Sequin bags lift both (+0.146 / +0.092).
• Night Club: red is the color — red top (+0.123) and red bottom (+0.083), with a silver bag. Evening gowns work (+0.087).
• Rooftop: knee-high boots (+0.141), silk gown (+0.139), clutch (+0.097), nude shoes.

Central Park & Stone Street — floral country n 623 / 800

• Floral bottoms are the top play at both (+0.132 / +0.102) — the one pattern that beats these two backdrops.
• Central Park is the hardest regular venue. Light hair wins here: platinum (+0.137) and white (+0.126), plus silver shoes (+0.122) and nude hosiery.
• Stone Street: nude hosiery (+0.122, mv 4.08), silver shoes (+0.112), teal shoes, fur bag.

Times Square, Music Venue & Restaurant n 593 / 468 / 747

• Times Square rewards shine and denim — sequin bottom (+0.118, mv 4.04), stilettos (+0.114), denim bottom (+0.098). Cream tops and outerwear are the colors.
• Music Venue is the wool-and-gold room — wool outerwear (+0.114, mv 4.02), gold bottom (+0.125), gold shoes, yellow top.
• Restaurant runs warm and metallic — champagne bottom is the highest mean vote of any venue-color pair (4.29), plus cream and gold bottoms. Ankle boots and formal dressing (+0.071).

Theme alignment is the only feature that appears at the top of all four models. The game grades how well your look reads as the occasion, and that grade moves the vote more than any single garment.

Poor to excellent is a 0.53-point mean-vote swing — roughly three times the entire best-to-worst venue gap. Note that 29% of all looks land on "fair," so this is where most score is lost.

How to climb the ladder

• Match the formality first. Most "fair" grades are dressing wrong for the occasion, not missing an item.
• Use the challenge name. Section 09 shows the words in the title predict difficulty before you start.
• Let the venue reinforce the brief where it can.
• When vague, go elevated and coherent — a tight, dressy, complete look rarely grades below "good."

The game reads your palette as a relationship between base, secondary and accent. The preference holds across every dataset: cohesive and restrained beats busy and scattered.

5.1 · Harmony

Triadic is now the single worst palette choice in the entire guide (−0.169) — worse than any garment, worse than poor theme alignment on the lift scale. Complementary is the most-played harmony and mildly negative; switching your default to monochromatic is free score.

5.2 · The palette dials

5.3 · Best colors by role

You pick a fabric regardless, so pick the one that scores. The effects are modest individually but they stack across six or seven garments.

Lip color is now the strongest single lever measured anywhere in this guide, and eye color is the #2 feature in three of four models. Most players leave these fields blank, which makes this the biggest gap between what's available and what's claimed.

Individual items are one thing; this edition measures pairs. Some combinations lift far more than either half alone, and the top of this table beats every single-item effect in the guide.

• Bags reward the shape-plus-fabric pairing more than anything else — four of the top six pairs are bag combinations.
• Romantic + semi-formal (+0.170) beats glam + black tie (+0.065), even though black tie is the stronger formality on its own. The romantic vibe is doing real work.
• Denim is the sleeper of this edition. Skinny pants in denim reach a 4.10 mean vote — one of the highest figures in the guide — and denim also wins at Times Square and Central Park.
• Synthetic is fine. It's the weakest fabric in isolation but pairs well with strong shapes (pumps, stilettos, leggings). Don't avoid a good shape because the fabric is plain.

This is the most practical addition to the guide. Individual challenges have small samples, but the words in the challenge name pool across hundreds of entries — so you can estimate difficulty before you spend a single item.

• Spend premium items on "VIP," "private" and "exclusive" briefs. They're common enough to plan around (n=121 and 130 for the top two).
• Bank your consumables when you see "contest," "inspired" or "fusion." A mean vote of 3.27 means most entries there won't clear the target no matter what you wear.
• "High" (−0.098) is a warning, not a promise — as in "high-class photoshoot." Glamorous-sounding names are not the same as easy ones.

The current data drop doesn't include trend, designer, celebrity or perfume fields, so this section carries forward the findings from the previous 6,013-look cut. They were stable across three datasets before this one, but they haven't been re-verified against the newest looks — treat them as reliable background rather than fresh evidence.

Designers: Dior (5.25, n=47) and Max Mara (5.22, n=30) were the best-evidenced; Louis Vuitton and Bottega scored higher on small samples. Celebrity: Naomi Campbell (5.72, n=12) was the only reference with repeat support — the archetype (polished supermodel, old-Hollywood starlet) matters more than the specific name.