What people wear and their sense of style constitute a significant way in which individuals express themselves, says Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, which changed its corporate name to Meta last October.
Thus, Meta Platforms, through high-end clothing items for its avatars, will make it possible for users to more effectively express themselves and connect with other people, the company says.
Balenciaga, Thom Browne and Prada are the first three designers to cooperate with Meta on the development of the digital fashion experience.
Meta said digital fashion items would cost between $2.99 and $8.99.
“Digital goods will be an important way to express yourself in the metaverse and a big driver of the creative economy. I’m excited to add more brands and bring this to VR [Virtual Reality] soon too. Eva Chen and I tried out some of the new looks from Balenciaga, Prada, and Thom Browne – a change of pace from my terrycloth sweater,” Zuckerberg said.
Chen, the platform host and also the head of fashion partnerships at Instagram, said Balenciaga is “hotter than hot. And then Prada, you can do either your ‘traditional’ Prada or your ‘Hypebeast’ Prada.”
Chen said she was delighted to see “a lot of brands that don’t exist physically exist in the metaverse” and that this was in addition to asking luxury designers to develop collections for the metaverse.
“To see the fashion work we’re doing in the metaverse with that kind of high-quality stuff is really cool,” Zuckerberg said of the partnerships, noting that he hopes a digital fashion marketplace will help inspire more designers to create garments they may not have been able to materialize in the physical world.
“A lot of the dream here is to make it accessible to anybody,” Zuckerberg said.
The launch of the Meta Avatars Store is scheduled to begin this week in the United States, Canada, Thailand and Mexico. It’s anticipated that other brands will soon join the shop. Avatars on Meta platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, will be able to wear clothing that has been purchased by users.
In March, the first Metaverse Fashion Week featuring luxury brands and digital-native designers took place.
“Made possible using exclusive new tech that converts 2D product images into 3D experiences, Fashion Week offers an immersive shopping experience where buying virtual clothing in Decentraland also sees a physical twin shipped for your real wardrobe,” a Fashion Week statement said.
Produced in association with MetaNews.
