The Dress to Impress lore is actually terrifying

Dress to Impress is one of the most popular games on Roblox to date, with hundreds of thousands of players daily. Players dress up to various themes to be voted on, with players with the highest score finishing on the podium.

Part of the game is being able to change your nail color with a nail technician dutifully waiting to help you out. It’s this nail tech, named Lana, that leads you into the horrifying lore that’s going on underneath the surface of the game.

Seeing as how the story is scattered throughout details in the game, questionnaires held by the official Roblox accounts, videos, and more, it’s tough to keep track of. Here’s the full story of the lore on Dress to Impress, and what’s going on with that creepy nail technician.

Lana lore explained

The lore began on April 1, 2024, during the April Fool’s Day update. Instead of Lana appearing normally, she was crying. On her desk was a journal, where Lana confessed that she hated working as a nail tech at the runway. She said she felt like nobody knew her name and no one appreciated her. 

However, it took a turn for the creepy when Lana proclaimed she would get her revenge on all of those who ignored her and that she would set fire to the nail studio. Behind her were missing posters, and next to the diary was a target list. It included many of the developers of Dress to Impress. The important ones to note on the list are the creator of the game, Gigi, and M0T0PRINCESS, who writes most of the lore.

Soon after this update, an official YouTube channel was made by Lana, LanaDoesNails, and unsettling videos began to be posted, filled with red lighting and static. They’re very reminiscent of analog horror. These videos didn’t make a lot of sense to the players when they were first posted, but they’ll be important later on. 

Lana airing out all the dirty laundry on the runway caught the attention of the wrong people. On April 20, the next update came out with a new diary on Lana’s desk. It reads that the Lana at the desk is not the real Lana. She’s been replaced by a doppelganger. The reader is then told to find her, with Lana’s Roblox user ID appearing. Go to her page, and you’ll find a creepy game called The Forest where you’ll learn more about Lana’s history. She was drowning in medical debt, and Gigi offered to pay it off if she worked at the runway. But Lana didn’t know the truth about the runway at the time, which was that it was run by a mysterious group called The Awakening. 

That same diary says that Dress to Impress is run by this evil group, and they have plans against the player base. Lana created her own group on Roblox, which was meant to be a rebellion against The Awakening, called Saudade. Several accounts were already a part of the group, and many players flocked to join Lana against The Awakening.

The Awakening relates back to Lana’s YouTube. The first video posted what appeared to be security footage before a red and black face appeared on the screen asking why Lana dared to reveal their plans. Since the video was titled Awakening, it’s not hard to infer that it’s the same group threatening Lana that runs the game.

More questions than answers

Lana would hold questionnaires in her server with the players, answering questions about both groups. However, something was off in these questionnaires. One day, Lana would be wearing an eyepatch, and then the next claim she’d never worn an eyepatch in her life. She would give conflicting answers, even claiming that The Awakening wasn’t evil at all after saying Gigi and The Awakening wanted to use the player base for human experiments. 

It turns out that players were not speaking to the same Lana the entire time. Someone was cloning Lana, and different doppelgangers would show up and answer questions. Lana’s account and the Saudade group would post that someone was taking over Lana’s account and using her for their own means, including sacrificing the members of Saudade. 

Lana then does something wild — she begins holding executions of her group members in her questionnaire server. No, I’m not kidding. She executed three Saudade members before M0T0PRINCESS held her own questionnaire, claiming that Lana was using the body parts of those killed to make herself stronger. 

In the final questionnaire, two former Saudade members kill Lana. Or they at least killed one of the Lanas. 

A YouTube video titled The Last Serenade was posted quickly afterward. This video reveals that Lana is still out there and leads players to a portal at the end. This portal brings you to The Fortress server, where you can explore rooms that give us a huge look at what’s actually happening through the various notes on the walls and

The Beast Within

Lana’s doppelgangers, and subsequently everything awful that’s been happening with The Awakening, have been orchestrated by a massive Eldritch monster named Agamemnon. This creature has been the one creating all the Lanas to do their bidding, using the body parts to gain strength, and likely is who really started The Awakening. Agamemnon manipulates the Lanas in an attempt to reach his pure form. 

This was further confirmed by another video, which shows how Agamemnon manipulated Lana into trusting him and doing what he wanted. 

Hints of Agamemnon can be found in the Dress to Impress servers, such as walking through the wall into what’s referred to as the meat room (which many theorize is Agamemnon’s stomach) or entering Freeplay Mode and finding the mural which shows a horrifying, massive red and black creature. This is Agamemnon. 

In the Summer Update for the game, a new diary was found. It simply repeated “I love my job” repeatedly. On the next page, “I don’t feel the plague” is written. This relates back to Agamemnon, who started a group called The Plague. Lana is also in this group, and we have yet to find out what The Plague plans to do. 

This leads us to the most recent lore in the September 1 update. Lana has been entirely replaced by a new nail tech, Lina. If you walk through a spot in the wall in the nail room,  you’ll drop down to a floor below where a Lana is being held in a cage, next to an empty one labeled for another Lana. 

The Plague is coming

While there’s still a lot to be uncovered, this is what we can take from the lore. Dress to Impress is being run by a cult called The Awakening, which serves to help the creature Agamemnon gain strength to reach its true form. Lana has been cloned many times to aid in this, but some of the clones are going rogue and trying to warn the players before Agamemnon can gain enough strength. 

What’s still a mystery is whose side Lana is really on. Is she being manipulated into thinking she’s doing what’s right? Or is she evil? Is the real Lana trying to stop all this but isn’t able to? What happens if Agamemnon gains full power?

A good guess is that The Plague is the chaos that will reign down upon the Earth if Agamemnon reaches its true form. However, I don’t know how this would be shown in a game about dressing up in cute clothes. We’re hopeful that the upcoming Halloween Update will give us answers, but nothing is for certain.

On the surface, Dress to Impress seems like a simple fashion game that anyone can play and enjoy. However, next time you’re getting ready to slay the runway, don’t forget about what’s going on underneath the floorboards.