Both men and women can indulge in this guilty pleasure.
I initially heard about the game through Gamestop's advertising, and the pre-launch cover had a simple elegance to it that is present throughout the actual game. After reading some positive comments in the gamespot forums, I decide to give Style Savvy a spin, and I wasn't disappointed.
The game makes you an artist--you have to design and coordinate many eye-catching and beautiful outfits for your customers as a boutique stylist. It also has simple business-sim elements mixed in, what with managing shop stock and also keeping an eye on profits and spending. However, I found it incredibly easy to make money in this game, so the business aspect of it wasn't particularly daunting or challenging.
There are also fashion contests that you can participate in, and you "beat the game" after completing all of them, but you can still keep running your boutique and serving customers. I found the game a little on the short side, because after you max out your boutique to 5 stars and win all the fashion contests, there's not much of an incentive to play any longer unless you plan on collecting all 10,000 clothing items. (I personally disliked the shopping aspect of this game, as there are too many colors per single style, and it gets repetitive shopping for them.)
A part I really enjoyed about the game was dressing yourself up in your apartment, and getting photos of your personal outfits to look at in your photo album. This gave me an incentive to dress up my character nicely and to change her clothes often. Collecting all the mascaras, eyeshadows, contact lenses, and lipsticks was also surprisingly addicting.
Style Savvy also has fun wifi interactions, such as visiting a world-wide shopping complex where all players with the game can visit each other's boutiques and buy outfits. You can also compete with other players via wireless fashion contests, and download special items from Charlotte Ronson's fall 2009 clothing line.
Although males may be discouraged from this game, I highly encourage anyone who is interested in fashion to take a look at Style Savvy. (Just pretend you're playing as your girlfriend or aiding a new female clerk at your manly boutique.) The clothing designs are very diverse and well-made, and creates a lot of versatility in outfit coordination. The customers can also be pretty challenging at times; by all means, Style Savvy could be classified as a sophisticated mini-game where you buy and sell the right type of clothing to different personas.
In the end, Style Savvy has a lot of potential but doesn't take advantage of all of it. It would have been great if there were dating-sim elements in it, as well as more ways to spend your money (paying back Dominic, for example, or buying a second floor for your boutique). But all in all, the game is very enjoyable and extremely addicting. Don't play it late at night, or you'll look like a fashionable disaster the next day.