The fashion Gamification of market on the metaverse will grow by $6,61 billion by the year 2026….
Fashion Gamification is only begin
Fashion… Metaverse… Wearing but not really wearing clothes… What does this mean ?!! What if holding a fashion asset is not what you want in 3 years? How about having a different closet, with high-end luxury – digital?
Many questions need an answer. You can find the explanation by wondering how fashion can evolve. But how can fashion be part of fashion games? By choosing what you want to wear also on the gaming and virtual worlds. Changing again and again. Finding what you want to wear…YES, fashion is a game that can be played in real life or in the virtual one. So let’s play!
The gamification
It all started on social media, from Instagram trends to Snapchat filters. Social media in general pushes people to increase their creativity. Getting the attention of the public has become a challenge. New opportunities have arisen allowing new ways of representation for the fashion online industry.
To understand this online, we need to analyze what happened in the past years.
- Covid has pushed people to stay at home.
- Being fashionable at home became useless and people wear more simple clothing.
- The market moved online during this period.
- Gaming became a way for people to outsource their boredness
In the UK, 62% of its adults played video games during the pandemic. Imagine how high this number can be counting the whole world!
Online orders were high before the end of the lockdown… but nothing compared to how much was spent on virtual clothes for games.
It may sound silly but being fashionable virtually is important. Our avatar is now as important as having the new trendy bag.
Another view of this market is the sustainability part. Clothes bought online, are coded and represented as pixels, therefore the definition of fast fashion is not applicable. No fabrics or waste can finish in landfills. The gamification of fashion is called clean fashion to a certain extent. If you don’t want your pants or accessories anymore, you put them back on the market or just don’t use them anymore, no carbon emission, and no materials used for nothing.
The democratization of fashion is also happening through games, prices are lower and you can access luxury brands without paying thousands.
Now, where can we buy all those creations? You may have asked yourself what for reading this first paragraph. If you play video games and even if you don’t you can definitely find something that could suit you.
Brands and games, more than a love life
In this paragraph, we will talk about brands you know and maybe their partnership with games you actually play. Understanding why you would be interested to buy clothes for your skin is easy. It is exactly the same as the one justifying the new Zara items you just bought. Your willingness to buy depends mostly on your relation to video games and to what extent you give importance to them. One would argue that the generational difference is playing, and it is. However, luxury brands going virtual are giving incentives to move the usual habits of buying and wearing clothes. New trends are a good way to stay trendy. It’s the reason why the market is growing so fast.
The SIMS
The Sims is a really famous game. You can have infinite babies, change your career 6 times within your lifetime, and also the only place you will ever have your salary paid daily… But before everything else, the Sims have marked their age by creating a real sims style. From the dress, everyone knows to the weird accessories, the clothes needed some at some point some update, and EA figured out exactly how.
They made a collaboration with H&M, Gucci, Diesel, and Moschino…but that’s not all. Ikea is on the list for the collaboration. You can enjoy having the same desk you are playing on. Mac, the makeup brand also participates in this virtual swift.
If you play the sims a lot and you want to recreate real scenarios, or you want your real house to look like your virtual one, you would mostly be willing to buy those collections.
Louis Vuitton and League of Legends
League of Legends is a fantasy game in which 2 teams of more or less 8 people are fighting each other to try to destroy the enemy base named the “nexus” in the game.
You can buy skins which are accessories you can add to your avatar while playing. For the LOL championship finals in Paris, Louis Vuitton created a full skin collection with other digital assets that were used during the final.
Fortnite with Moncler and Balenciaga
Fortnite had its golden period but even if the trend is not as high as it used to be, it stays a huge game with an impressive number of users. The reason could be linked to the constant evolution and new opportunities of the game, especially from a fashion point of view.
Fortnite is not anymore just about surviving until the end and winning but also showing that you own things justifying your level of implication. Translation: your skins could be seen as your skills as well. Running faster with the Balenciaga Triple S or being less cold with a Moncler jacket…. why not.
Prada and Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy is a really well-done video game where missions are assigned to you in order to save the world. It is a really creative and innovative game. Sharing the same value, Prada released a skin collection for this game. marking again the virtual world a fashionable place.
Burberry and Honor of Kings
The Honor of Kings is a type of battle arena game where you play a fantasy avatar. You can change your skin depending on what you want to wear and how you want to be seen. Burberry has created 2 skins to add for one of the characters named Yao. Yao is in the game the spirit of nature, therefore matching with the Burberry SS21 collection.
GTA and MISBHV
Los Santos, GTA, Mickael, another game that marked the spirits implemented a collection of assets and clothes with MISBHV. Keeping its gangsta style, GTA is trying to keep its customers by adding some new opportunities to the game. However, with what happened with GTA6 files, one can’t be sure of the future of Rockstar games.
Fashion gamification or fashion transformation
Most criticism comes from the virtual part of it all. Even if it’s hard to understand the incentives people have to buy virtual clothes understanding the trend does not mean being part of it. Therefore let’s dig a bit more. If you didn’t find any relation or positive link between you and video games why not look a bit more at the virtual existence of clothes on the metaverse or on social media?
Last year, in Venice, Dolce Gabanna released a “one-of-a-kind” collection named Collezione Genesi. The collection is 9 pieces of clothes designed by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana. The collection is the first NFT collection from a luxury brand that makes a real link between the metaverse and the metaphysic meaning you can actually have the chance to visualize the dress on you as well.
One could argue the usefulness of an item but from a design point of view, new ways of designing have been created and that’s a revolution.
You can create patterns and materials that are not possible in real life, increasing by infinity the number of possibilities without even having to try and waste fabrics.
Online virtual clothe stores
If you want to develop a life and a fashion style on the metaverse, as well as increase your originality on your social media post, DressX and XRCouture can help.
Those 2 websites are online websites for the sale of virtual clothes that you can hold and keep in your wallet along with your virtual asset as NFTs. Some designs are closer to fantasy than others but some are completely wearable for a social media post. Not a lot of people can find incredible pieces to post on Instagram so why not try…
A link with escapism?
How far can this go? This virtual shift could be linked to the pressure the external environment is having on us. Political, environmental, and social issues have been brought to a high degree. Every solution is mostly about escaping instead of fighting it. Innovation could in fact help to solve those problems. Is the solution shifting to virtual ?… Not sure. While virtual creation is of course not only the answer to every world issue but mostly to the innovation it can allow, it should be remembered that the virtual world is not an easy escape because as the saying goes reality hits harder if you try to escape it.
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