By Marion Hume
“There’ll be an episode about the metaverse,” said Imran Amed, founder and CEO of The Business of Fashion (TBOF), the luxury industry’s leading source of well … everything ... when he hired me to work on a TV show last year.
“Er, I’m not sure,” I squirmed, envisaging having to talk to sad-sack gamers with bat avatars at 4am. “I don’t know what the metaverse actually is …”
“You’re in it,” he cut in, “every time you’re on Zoom.” And there I was, thinking entry required a VR headset. Or at the very least, a filter that gave me rabbit ears.
In Roblox’s virtual Gucci Garden, players could try on and purchase virtual Gucci items. Credit:
If you know nothing about the metaverse, rest assured, I didn’t either. Think of it as a massive expansion of the online world we already know – a socially connected, immersive, interactive experience accessed through technology ranging from game consoles to PCs to mobile phones and, like our real-world lives, processed through our human consciousness.
I had no clue either that gaming, from which the metaverse has largely grown, is a business worth $US100 billion a year. Nor that it’s as likely to involve as many ways to get dressed as chasing dragons through a maze with a bazooka. One third of the world’s population actively engages in gaming, making it the planet’s biggest source of entertainment, way surpassing television, streaming and movies.
Brands need to grab the attention of the next generation of customers wherever they are.
No wonder fashion wants in. The term “metaverse” dates back to the 1990s, when it was coined in a sci-fi novel by American writer Neal Stephenson called Snow Crash. Yet for the Gen Z cohort, who of course weren’t born back then, such is the fusion of physical and digital spaces that many consider it “realer than real”. Therein lies the next clue as to why luxury’s embracing it. Brands need to grab the attention of the next generation of customers wherever they are.
Take Louis Vuitton, which last year launched a game in which a cute mascot, Vivienne, bounced through technicolour sky-scapes. Or Gucci, which opened the virtual gates to a playful, gender-free Gucci Garden that, for the two weeks it existed online courtesy of big-game name Roblox, was somewhat like wandering through the magpie mind of the brand’s idiosyncratic creative director, Alessandro Michele.
Louis Vuitton’s Vivienne mascot took the brand into a gaming space, while Balenciaga collaborated with Fortnite.Credit:
Balenciaga, meanwhile, partnered with Fortnite to bring the first-ever high-fashion “skins” into a game that has more than 300 million users. Skins equals outfits. In the early days of gaming, these were skull suits and invisibility cloaks. Now they include striking sweatshirts, available in an immersive virtual store which, should you choose, can lead you on to the brand’s website to purchase twin items for your human form.
Brands also benefit from virtual tributes not actually designed by them. One is Nook Street Market, inspired by the multi-brand global retailer Dover Street Market. What would be shut down by a lawyer’s letter here on Earth is welcomed with a happy smile in the Animal Crossing virtual world, because it’s all about connecting with future customers.
This is about both engagement and selling. While in the real world, you can splash out on Gucci sneakers you simply wear, in the digital one the least you might expect is that they can also burst into virtual flames. As for prices, there are entry points as low as $US8 ($11).
So, is digital clothing the future of fashion? Only if you don’t mind walking around (IRL) in the emperor’s new clothes.
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