[Metaverse Masterclass] How Luxury Fashion broke into the Metaverse
By: Metaverse Summit
Tags: Innovation, Metaverse, Games, Fashion, Branding

Luxury fashion has always been about pushing the limits of creativity and finding newer ways to engage with the end customer, but Gvasalia found a revolutionary format to showcase that creativity while connecting with Balenciaga’s target audience. The dystopia Balenciaga created for Afterworld demonstrated how digital realms (Metaverse) can offer a kind of escape. This was the first taste of the potential fashion and luxury brands have in the metaverse.

Since 2020 has been a time of great distress; with many of us facing new feelings of constraint and isolation. It is games like Nintendo’s Animal Crossing that transported players away from their mundane zoom meetings and daunting housework to another world. More than a distraction, Animal Crossing allowed people to travel vicariously to different islands and socialize with friends from all over the world. Players were able to connect both on Nintendo’s online platform as well as Discord to have a full experience, e.g.: I would be playing my character in Italy, and visiting my sister’s island, but she was physically located in Australia. It also gave players the opportunity to dress up in designer clothing as a way to express themselves freely. While fashion and gaming collaborations are not new, cue EA Games’ The Sims and their collaborations with H&M and Moschino in 2007 and 2019, respectively. It is the ability to connect with one another, not only online but through other platforms such as social media, forums and livechats that has allowed a kind of synergy between fashion and gaming. Still, today only a handful of brands have ventured into this segment, most notably Louis Vuitton and League of Legends for the 2019 World Championship held in Paris. Other brands slowly followed suit, starting with Valentino and Marc Jacobs with Animal Crossing, Gucci and Pokemon Go, and more recently Balenciaga and Moncler for Fortnite.

Luxury brands’ late entry into the gaming sector was not a lack of vision, but rather the lack of complimentary between the two industries. Many would assume that fashion could only exist in dress-up games, yet they have completely neglected the profitable skins segment on all online games’ platforms. According to Forbes, 69% of Fortnite players spend money on the game (Fortnite is actually free to play, but you can buy battle passes which offers more bonuses during the gameplay), and the average expenditure per player is about US$85.In 2018, almost 60% of Fortnite’s revenue came directly from skins. It wasn’t until 2021, when brands such as Ferrari, Balenciaga and Moncler decided to be part of the Fortnite repertoire. Even then, it was Louis Vuitton that pioneered luxury’s entry into esports. The brand had been involved with sports in the past — since 2010 it has designed the trophy case for the FIFA World Cup — so its 2019 announcement that it would be creating the case for that year’s League of Legends World Championship in Paris should have come as no surprise. After all, Louis Vuitton was known for its unexpected collaborations, teaming up with cult streetwear brand Supreme in 2017. This time, it worked with Riot Games (the developer of League of Legends) to dress hip-hop group True Damage in Louis Vuitton skins for their opening ceremony performance at the championship. Following the success of this alliance, Louis Vuitton created a League of Legends capsule collection of 40 pieces designed by womenswear creative director Nicolas Ghesquière.

(Source: Louisvuitton.com, Nov 14, 2019)