WHICH LUXURY BRANDS ARE ON THE METAVERSE?

Virtual luxury fashion items are bought and sold as crypto assets (NFT).  With the trend of spending real money on digital fashion, famous fashion giants are joining this new game.

Which luxury brands are on the metaverse? / ph: Gucci

Last summer, the Ralph Lauren fashion brand launched its first digital collection on the Zepeto platform. Buyers can choose to buy from 50 pieces of clothing to change for their virtual characters. It is reported that above 100,000 products have been sold.  The price of each virtual fashion item ranges from 0.57-2.86 USD.

OTB Group, which owns fashion brands such as Diesel and Maison Margiela, established Brave Virtual eXperience in November last year - this company specialises in research and invest in the metaverse segment. By the end of this year, the company will deploy about 40 metaverse projects with the first project being launched in March.

Last June, Gucci sold a 4-minute film as an NFT (a form of digital asset) for $25,000.  A month earlier, this fashion giant’s Dinoysus virtual bag was paid 350,000 Robux - a digital currency used on the Roblox platform. This amount is equivalent to over 4,000 USD, more than the value of the bag in real life.

Balenciaga, Gucci's sister brand under the Kering Group, is also collaborated with the popular game Fortnite, some characters in the game are wearing armor, coats and sunglasses of this fashion brand.

Prada, Adidas, Balmain and Dolce & Gabbana are other fashion names entering this virtual market.

Sportswear giant Nike takes another step into the metaverse by paying an undisclosed amount to buy a virtual sneaker designer called RTFKT.  Nike also creates its own digital environment on Roblox where it can test new products before the actual release.

Louis Vuitton has no plans to launch any virtual luxury products anytime soon.

Metaverse also creates a potential risk for luxury brands, especially for business models that rely on huge profit margins to support their marketing campaigns.  

The push to release digital products too aggressively has risks turning the brand into a mass-market brand, and reduce the value of limited edition branded items.

Additionally, legal pressure could increase as NFT trading is not allowed anywhere in the world.