Key Takeaways:
- Across every fashion segment – but particularly in the premium and luxury markets – brands and retailers seek to tap into a desire as old as human communication: storytelling. Today, immersive experiences offer a new way to tap into that historic need.
- While digital product creation and 3D strategies have focused primarily on the design, development, and engineering of new products, these same workflows and pipelines can create assets and environments that cater to consumers’ expectations for a heightened brand experience.
- This possibility space is not, though, something that brands and groups should invest in blindly or speculatively. To resonate with discerning shoppers, sidestep the recent hype cycle, and justify their cost, immersive experiences and cross-media partnerships need to be defined by utility and purpose.
As I was preparing to write this article, I found myself having to explain to my twin 10 year-old daughters what immersive experiences actually are – which is a question I’m sure readers of this report have also wrestled with. The best analogy I could come up with was that of playing pretend in a world that feels like you’re in a dream. Sometimes your dreams are vivid and realistic, sometimes they can be fantastical and surreal, but you are very much in the middle of them, exploring, doing things and interacting with the elements of the world you’re in.
And as long as there have been stories and artworks, people have shared a desire to bring people inside them – to allow readers, watchers, viewers, and listeners to live their creations in that same dreamlike way. This desire to create and share immersive experiences with others is as old as it gets: 17,000 years ago, a Paleolithic tribe in Lascaux, in southern France, painted huge animals (bulls, horses, felines, stags) on the caves’ sandstone walls and animated them through the flickering of their fireplaces. What we know today as static artworks were, at the time, the most immersive way of imparting themes and stories and ideas.
Another example of what is in fact just a different way of storytelling were the Medieval mystery plays, which were performed in multiple adjacent ‘stations’, between which the standing audience could wander at their leisure, thus maintaining full autonomy over their experience, and turning observers into agents. Fast forward to the now world-famous MSG Sphere in Las Vegas, where this concept is taken to the extreme, with audiences able to be immersed in a dome of content as varied as a concert (U2 was the opening act there when it launched in September), an immersive wildlife documentary, or a Formula One viewing party.
The road from cave art to LED dome was a long one, but the thread unifying all the steps along that journey is a clear and simple one. And at every juncture, the same conclusion has been reached: entertainment, art, music, work – everything is enhanced when people are welcomed inside it and empowered to really experience authorial and artistic intent.
But what does all this mean in the world of Fashion and Luxury?
Before we start, we have to recognize that our wider society is undergoing a massive digital disruption, which has dramatically changed the way we communicate, work, shop, and live our daily lives – and fashion is one part of that far-ranging transformation. All-in-all, today’s consumer is more connected, better informed, more discerning and overall more eager to engage in new types of experiences because wider distribution of technology has made those experiences more accessible, more inclusive, and more readily available. Not universally available, but certainly a long way from having to physically travel to a cave or an open-air theatre to experience something new.
But with the speed of technology evolution, the expectations of the next generation of shoppers are changing too. Now we have seen, over the past couple of years, the incredible rise and dramatic fall of public interest in Web3 and Metaverse initiatives, and that’s coloured the way people think about what it means to “step into” an experience – mostly for the worse. But while this points to the fact that this global infatuation was built on shaky foundations and technologies that still needed plenty of time to mature, it doesn’t mean that our generation of consumers is not hungry for powerful experiences that are digital and immersive in nature. They just need to be designed properly, and built on the realistic, proven, foundations that already power wildly successful real-time experiences in other sectors.
And if we look at recent data, the numbers certainly point in the direction of ongoing demand for immersive experiences even after the Metaverse fallout has settled.
A 2023 study from Salesforce found that 80% of the customers they interviewed say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services. This is a major development, because it is not enough for brands to just create great products anymore, they now have to think about creating whole ecosystems around their product offering.
Kristin Maa, senior vice president of growth at Saks Fifth Avenue said in a recent interview: “The future of luxury engagement is going to be about customisation that is dictated by the consumer, meaning a customer being able to express themselves, give feedback and have more control and input in the way they experience brands, rather than brands pushing a narrative onto them.”
Luxe Digital, too, found that Affluent Millennials and Generation Z consumers are driving 85% of the global luxury sales growth -now representing over 30% of all luxury spending. And what’s becoming clear is that these younger, affluent shoppers have different expectations when it comes to retailing. They want an experience that is personalized and seamlessly integrated both online and offline, physical and digital. According to a 2023 BCG x HighSnobiety report, they want “Stories over product; knowledge over possession; community over crowds; participation and experiences over observation.” And if you think that sounds familiar to our long, species-wide history of wanting to step inside stories and sensory experiences, well, you’re not alone.
A 2021 Bain & Co report predicted that Online will become the single biggest channel for personal luxury goods in the coming years, making up 28%–30% of the global market in 2025. And, according to Salesforce again, 74% of customers expect to be able
to do anything online that they can do in-person or by phone. And most tellingly, according to HighSnobiety and BCG, the #1 reason for the New Luxury consumer to follow a brand is to ‘live in the universe they have created.’
Finally, the team at The Interline have observed, several times over the last few years, that both the fashion and gaming sectors have started to recognise the potential to reach new audiences by tapping into each other’s customer bases. According to those articles and a range of other industry sources, it’s widely predicted that both fashion and gaming solution platforms will eventually offer integrated ecosystems that share common assets and file formats, which will enable designers from both worlds to coexist and share digital assets seamlessly. And, if anything, the consumer demand is already far ahead in that regard.
Which brings us to the announcement, this past June, that LVMH and Epic Games signed a strategic partnership to transform the historic group’s creative pipelines and customer journeys through the use of the technology giant’s ubiquitous Unreal Engine and associated tools.
Toni Belloni, LVMH Group Managing Director said in a statement: “The partnership with Epic Games will accelerate our expertise in 3D tools and ecosystems, from the creation of new collections to ad campaigns and to our Maisons’ websites,” he added.“We will also engage more effectively with young generations who are very much at ease with these codes and uses.” This commitment signals a major shift in how luxury brands view 3D digital technology – now an integral part of their end-to-end go to market strategy, and a signal of just how much emphasis these organisations place on digital assets and experiences.
But let’s take a step back and talk about the tech… I assume that the majority of the audience for this report knows exactly what real-time technology is, but in the spirit of inclusivity, let’s clarify this term:
3D visualisation refers to the process of representing 3D content on your device. Over recent years 3D visualisation has gained great popularity, and evolved into one of the most essential methods of producing high-quality, photorealistic content. Numerous industries – ranging from films, games, engineering, architecture and manufacturing – are taking advantage of that technology to bring ideas to life. And 3D visualisation technology has come a long way since the days of MIT’s Whirlwind computer in 1951. Better hardware performance and better rendering engine technology (a lot of which comes from the videogame sector) have, over the years, led to an incredible improvement in visual quality for 3D objects, scenes, and characters that are rendered in real-time.
And there’s also a crucial distinction to be made between real-time rendering, which means that visual frames are being in generated on-device for instant viewing (at target refresh rates from 24 to 120 hertz) as opposed to offline rendering, which refers to more accurate, time-consuming calculations that create frames over the course of minutes, hours, or days depending on complexity, and those frames are then compiled and played back to create motion. For a simpler distinction, think the difference between a videogame and a CG movie.
(There is also a growing movement towards cloud-based real-time rendering, where high-spec computers in datacentres do the local, real-time frame creation and send their output as video streams to lower-powered consumer devices, which relay the user’s inputs. This is a way to achieve top-flight real-time graphics on handheld devices and other clients.)
With technologies like Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 and the other tools in the UE ecosystem, you can interact with 3D images or scenes (as you would in video games) that appear to be moving in real time, with a degree of realism never seen before. Real-time 3D streamlines everything by placing the user in the virtual environment and letting them navigate it – just like in your dream – as opposed to presenting them with content that has been pre-rendered or pre-animated.
For fashion’s purposes, you can now simulate the behavior of a person and the garments they are wearing in real time, as opposed to having to wait for an animation to be completed and played back.
So how successfully have fashion and luxury brands engaged with this technology ?
We all remember when, in late 2020, Balenciaga, one of the pioneers in this space, showcased the company’s FA’21 collection by publishing a video game, Afterworld. They also scanned their outfits and made them available in embedded iFrames powered by Sketchfab, another web-based real-time visualisation platform that helps bring real-time 3D content to the masses. You were able to examine, in your browser, the outfits from any angle and zoom in on details, which you couldn’t always do with traditional product photography.
A year later, Balenciaga partnered with Epic Games’ Fortnite, one of the most popular game franchises out there, to launch a capsule collection that bridged the gap between physical (items like hoodies, t-shirts and hats were available for purchase) and digital (Balenciaga skins, emotes and accessories were available for purchase in-game). This launch was nicely capped with an incredible OoH (out-of-home) activation – a 3D anamorphic billboard that captivated crowds in London, New York, Tokyo and Seoul.
Gucci has been among the most active fashion brands exploring the worlds of gaming and Web3. According to a December 2021 statement by Gucci, a “‘Digital First’ imperative and ‘test and learn’ approach” are key to the brand’s business strategy. At the end of 2022, they launched the Gucci Vault on the real-time web platform the Sandbox, making it the first major luxury brand to build its own world on the metaverse platform. This heavily stylized and playful activation was meant to appeal to a younger demographic of gamers who would then build an affinity with the brand.
Last year, in Milan, newly appointed Creative Director Sabato De Sarno unveiled Gucci Ancora, his first fashion show for the House. Users can play three mini games to win limited edition goodies within the creative neighborhood of Brera, where art and fashion come together. As a participant, you are invited to be part of the Gucci community and get to experience Milan Fashion Week even if you’re on the other side of the planet.
This past June, I was fortunate to be able to attend the VivaTech conference in Paris, where LVMH’s booth, called the Dream Box, showcased various inspiring interactive projects from its most active Maisons. This is also where the partnership with Epic Games was announced.
Fendi, to present to the public their omnichannel approach, created a playful experience built for a mixed-reality headset. This experience extended the physical boundaries of the Fendi headquarters in Rome, through the representation of live digital shopping nights and virtual styling tools to AR marketing campaigns.
Louis Vuitton showcased a six-minute interactive and immersive experience they created using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 and Z-emotion’s Z-weave 3D technology for digital garments. The experience was a beautiful digital recreation of the 2023 men’s Fall/Winter fashion show styled by Olivier and Michel Gondry. The whole experience was made available for the public to play and explore with a joystick on custom-built video arcades. Those who missed the in-person fashion show had the opportunity to relive it in an incredibly immersive way.
Even Sephora, LVMH’s beauty Maison and retailer, understands the power of interactive experiences and launched the Sephoria virtual beauty event during the pandemic. Sephora has a unique, playful, and socially driven approach, and allows attendees to discover the latest trends and exclusive products through hands-on experiences and interactions with many of Sephora’s brands, beauty icons, and surprise guests no matter where they live.
Real-time virtual shopping experiences are the holy grail of the fashion and luxury world. If done right, they have the potential of completely redefining the e-commerce shopping experience. One of the key unlocks is the ability to have access to an incredible amount of data – in real time. In 2021, L’Oreal launched an intriguing connected device that prints lipstick for its Yves Saint Laurent line. Customers upload a photo of their outfit to the YSL app, which generates a few colors to match. After using augmented reality to finetune the colors to get exactly the shade they desire, the customer presses a button, and the device prints a few drops of the lipstick. But because this is fundamentally an app, each screen tap, each tweak, and each action by the customer is a touchpoint that yields an incredible amount of insights. L’Oreal captures data on all these interactions and sends the information to product design and development, marketing, sales, allowing them to see what works and what doesn’t. The amount of real time data generated is enormous.
Virtual shopping platform Obsess, one of a handful of successful platforms, shared that brands have seen a 109% higher average session time in their virtual store vs traditional e-commerce site. Brands have also experienced up to a 25% higher add to cart rate after visiting a virtual store. Of course, the experience has to be absolutely worth the time spent online, or the customers won’t come back.
The challenge for brands is to create a virtual shopping experience that is so compelling that their customers will feel comfortable making purchasing decisions without seeing, touching, smelling or trying the product on. It’s one thing to gamble on a $25 tee-shirt, but when it comes to a luxury item that can cost a whole paycheck, the stakes are different. The shopping experience has to offer a value proposition that is unique and irreplaceable, it has to elicit an emotional response that will transcend the digital gap. It has to bring storytelling to a level such that the audience has to forget about the things they can’t do and let themselves be transported in a world that is created just for them. This requires an absolute commitment to visual quality and fidelity that today’s tools and pipelines fortunately enable.
But as logical and compelling as they are as extensions of the virtual shopping, gamified brand experiences, and digital storytelling are not the only benefits brought by the adoption of real-time 3D and game engines. There are logical, tangible, and measurable reasons why digital product creation combined with real-time visualisation will bring value to a brand’s go-to-market strategy:
A more sustainable and agile product creation process – at scale: All the benefits brought by digitalising the product creation process can only be realised, season after season, across whole collections (if not the whole product offering) through the use of real-time technology, given the sheer volume of data to be processed.
A more personal brand connection with a broader, demanding audience: High quality digital experiences (like virtual try-on) and engaging, context sensitive product presentations allow customer interactions to be tailored to elevated individual expectations.
Innovative and personalised product experiences: Digital assets and platforms, augmented by realistic material simulation, unlock high-value interactions like virtual try-on and product customisation.
Valuable data captured in real time: Throughout the product life cycle, from concept to consumer, valuable data is attached to the product as the digital twin informs product, marketing and sales teams in real time.
More inclusive & global communities: Digital assets unlock experiences that reach broader audiences and allow brands to build communities well beyond the traditional geographical and social confines.
It is therefore becoming increasingly clear that luxury and fashion groups have an incredible opportunity, in the near future and with the right technology choices and thoughtful investments, to create powerful, seamless and inclusive experiences for brands and consumers, to connect in a meaningful way that carries through the long-standing human need to bring people into the stories we tell, and to straight-up redefine the rules that govern the sacred triad of Product, Brand and Audience. But the value proposition of these experiences has to be clear to the discerning customer, and it has to justify the investment. Without clear utility and purpose, they risk ending up on the pile of short-lived, gratuitous experiments that have defined the NFT / Metaverse era.
And speaking of experiments, brands need to start thinking about platforms rather than pilot projects – persistent destinations rather than individual activations – if they want to build meaningful, lasting, real-time relationships with their most discerning followers. The most immersive experiences and the best stories won’t be brought to life any other way.