Earlier this year, Jade spent £5 on a Gucci hand bag. The 16-year-old didn’t buy it in-store, but at the Gucci Garden — a virtual space hosted on video game Roblox that simultaneously recreated the brand’s real-life Florence pop-up shop. Although she doesn’t wear it IRL, her avatar does while Jade plays games with her friends on the platform. ‘We love it,’ she says. ‘It’s become almost like a competition for whose avatar is best dressed.
Jade and her pals are not alone. A global survey of more than 3,000 consumers has found that 47 per cent are interested in digital clothes, with 87 per cent having already purchased some form of digital fashion. Whether buying Balenciaga’s digi-fashion line on Fortnite, or shopping at Selfridges’ virtual store hosted on Decentraland during the inaugural Metaverse Fashion Week, Gen Z are stylishly populating the multiverse en masse.
