Tips & Strategy

How to teach Prêt-à-Porter, money and upkeep, which cards carry an engine, planning for the shows, player counts, and the videos worth watching.

Advice, not rules: where anything here disagrees with the rulebook, the rulebook wins.

Teaching and a first game

• Teach the year first (four quarters of two Working rounds and a show), then the nine locations, then the Exhibition with the rulebook’s example on p. 18.
• New players most often get wrong: no-pawn abilities resolve before the pawns (two Contracts after), Upkeep is paid every round, and Quality, Trend and PR tokens vanish after each show while Prestige stays.
• In a first Exhibition a small Collection is fine: keeping Cash to build your company pays off at the next shows.
• Read the calendar together at the start: every show’s categories are visible from round I.

Money and upkeep

• Every card you add costs Upkeep every month; an early engine without income leads to Loans that cost 28 for 20. Count your Upkeep before each purchase.
• Credits at the Bank are cheaper than Loans: use them when a Collection is sure to sell at the next show.
• Accountants and Retail Outlets turn the Upkeep phase into income; the Investment House turns spare Cash into VP, but Cash is points too — invest only what you won’t need.
• Abilities that need no pawn are extra actions: Sales Representative, Creative Designer and similar cards are cheap ways to do more each round.

Collections and the shows

• Collect Designs of one Style, ideally of your Clothing Type (+1 Trend each). Style-changing cards let you grow a Collection with stray Designs.
• Buy Materials for the Designs you will show; Quality from purchases counts even for Materials you don’t use.
• Aim at the categories at the top of the coming tiles: PR, Trend or Quality cards help most in the quarter that judges them first.
• Prestige multiplies your sale: a large Collection with a few Prestige can beat a small one that wins more.

Player counts

• With 2 players only 1st place scores in most categories — it is cutthroat; with 3–4, second places pay too.
• With 4 players locations take 3 pawns, and Prestige is worth 3 VP: shows matter more.

Host game

Start with the year and the next show’s categories, then show the three Action Pawns and resolve locations in order. On turns 1–3, ask players to budget the coming Upkeep before committing purchases. Keep the current collection and its needed Materials visible; let players decide whether to expand or save Cash.

Rehearse a discounted Material purchase

Suppose a Material normally costs 2 and your effects give a discount of 2 at that location. The piece still costs 1: the minimum applies to each Material, so two pieces cost 2 rather than becoming free. Check the location’s buying limits separately; a discount does not change what it lets you buy.

Only after paying for the purchase do you take that location’s Quality reward. Keep Cash for the coming Upkeep as well as the Material bill. Material purchases.

Sources

• Learn to Play: Pret-a-Porter — BoardGameTeacher.
• Prêt-à-Porter Tutorial & Playthrough — Getting Games.
• Jason’s Board Game Diagnostics of Pret-A-Porter — The Boardgame Mechanics.
• Prêt-à-Porter (Third Edition) | Playthrough | slickerdrips — slickerdrips.
• Prêt-à-Porter Rundown — Rahdo Runs Through (the older edition: amounts in thousands, cubes instead of spools).
• Portal Games’ card almanac for every card’s exact wording.

One video lets a discount make a Material free; the rulebook sets a minimum price of 1.