Key Takeaways:
- Fashion brands are increasingly recognising the value of tapping into the gaming universe to expand their reach and connect with younger demographics, with cross-industry partnerships redefining audience engagement and storytelling.
- Interoperability is a hurdle still to be overcome, and there is a clear need for universal standards and solutions to easily transfer digital assets across platforms.
- By embracing gaming culture and providing new avenues for self-expression and consumption, brands are not only expanding their reach but also redefining the value proposition of fashion in the digital era.
As two seemingly disparate worlds collide – fashion x gaming – a new narrative of innovation, creativity, and demographic evolution emerges. On September 7th 2023, hosted by the Epic Games Innovation Lab in London as part of the Digital Fashion Week series, three panellists, Sallyann Houghton of Epic Games, James Gaubert of Republiqe and Tracy Greenan of AURA sat down with Noelle Reno to discuss Games x Fashion — Unpacking the audience and the value proposition. And I wanted to recount that discussion – and draw some conclusions from it – for The Interline’s DPC Report, because the synergy between these two industries could potentially shape the futures of both of them.
Understanding that fashion is a means of expression and that games are a rich visual playground, the panellists discussed the synergy between the two industries and explored the potential benefits and challenges for fashion designers. Taking centre stage in the conversation was audience engagement, but also the Web3 concepts that inherently emerge, such as the value of collaboration and innovation, the panellists unearthed the challenges such as interoperability especially in the context of utility and functionality.
With some of the panellists discussing their personal experience and successes, it is becoming clear that fashion designers are embracing the vast potential of the gaming universe, not only top luxury brands but also many independent designs are discovering the importance of expanding their brand into the Metaverse.
Successful partnerships between luxury fashion houses like Gucci and gaming giants such as Roblox illustrate this as the gaming industry’s established audience engages with both high-fashion brands and new digital assets from all designers, while the fashion world reaches previously untapped demographics.
In this discussion of Games x Fashion, we delve into the intersection of two industries, each bringing its own creative and cultural capital, and together forging a new outlet for fashion that redefines audience engagement, value propositions, and, ultimately, the opportunities for designers.
Who are the Gamers?
Let’s start by taking a look at some demographics to understand the potential that the gaming industry holds. Roblox, with 65.5 million daily active users, is a virtual universe where imagination thrives. The platform hosts a predominantly youthful player base, with kids and teenagers as the primary market. The Sandbox, with 4000 daily players, is focused on user-generated content, while Zepeto (with 1.5 million daily users) is focused on social simulations and self-expression, catering primarily to teenagers and young adults. In the ever-popular world of Fortnite, with 44.7 million daily users, battlegrounds are shared by a blend of children, teenagers, and young adults.
Collaboration and Openness
Gucci’s collaboration with Roblox is an excellent example of the convergence of fashion and gaming. In Gucci Garden, the brand introduced exclusive virtual items inspired by its real-world collections. Digital avatars transform into mannequins and, as they move around the game, absorb elements of the exhibition, turning themselves into unique digital artworks. The result: Roblox users acquire exclusive branded virtual items. By embracing the gaming world, Gucci not only expanded its audience but also connected with a younger demographic, demonstrating that the intersection of luxury and gaming is a space ripe for exploration. It allowed Gucci to tell its brand story and to educate a new audience on its values, history and tradition. This collaboration serves as a beacon for other fashion brands looking to fuse creativity and brand values with the gaming culture.
Innovation and Interactivity
As far back as 2020 Burberry, a pioneer in merging innovation and interactivity in the fashion and gaming landscape, partnered with Google on an augmented reality (AR) shopping experience that allows users to experience their latest collections through AR filters. Users can virtually try on outfits from Burberry’s runway show, creating an interactive and immersive connection between the brand and its audience.
Interoperability
Interoperability still presents some challenges to the fashion industry, with universal interoperability remaining far in the distance. What is interoperability? It is the ability to move digital assets (e.g. virtual fashion) seamlessly between different platforms. This still requires a sophisticated toolset across gaming platforms, although some tech companies are providing unique solutions where assets can be parsed through their software to be usable in different games. The Fabricant is one example of a company that is addressing this issue, as their digital clothing designs, created using universal 3D file formats, can seamlessly transition between various gaming platforms. By prioritising interoperability, The Fabricant has ensured their digital fashion reaches a wide-ranging audience across different virtual worlds and highlighted the need for a universal approach to digital design.
Utility and Functionality
Prada is a prominent example of a fashion brand embracing utility in their digital clothing line. Their recent collaboration with League of Legends featured exclusive digital outfits designed to be both stylish and provide in-game functionality. An interesting example of this is where one Prada-designed skin grants players an enhanced gaming experience with unique visual effects. This strategy of adding utility to digital fashion understands the gaming audience’s desire for tangible benefits, emphasising that fashion in the gaming industry can offer both style and utility.
Four years ago (which is a long time in digital fashion history), Prada designed an exclusive collection for the 2019 League of Legends’ World Championship Finals, building on the success of this partnership, Prada’s clothing items and accessories were made available for purchase within the League of Legends game itself. It not only capitalised on the fashion industry’s growing fascination with gaming but also harnessed the massive global audience of League of Legends, showcasing Prada’s luxury style and commitment to innovation. This relationship between the fashion giant and one of the world’s most popular esports was a pioneering move, and shed light on the potential for fashion brands to explore new markets and new relationships with the gaming community.
Audience Engagement
Like Prada, In 2019 Louis Vuitton also successfully engaged the gaming audience by thinking beyond traditional fashion presentations. They ventured into the gaming world with a League of Legends in-game collaboration, they created an opening ceremony and even designed a custom trophy case for the League of Legends World Championship. By engaging the audience in these unique ways, Louis Vuitton tapped into the gaming industry’s immersive and interactive nature, resonating with a tech-savvy and fashion-forward audience.
In 2020, Gucci became the first luxury fashion brand to create a digital presence on Roblox. This collaboration allowed players to purchase and wear digital Gucci virtual assets, promoting the brand name in gaming and offering their existing audience a new way to buy and collect Gucci assets. Additionally, Gucci partnered with Tennis Clash, a mobile sports game, in 2021 to create in-game Gucci outfits for players to style their avatars, showing the brand’s adaptability to different gaming platforms and audiences. These strategic moves have enabled Gucci to access the expansive gaming audience and establish a foothold in the virtual fashion market.
The New Era of Games and Fashion
By unpacking the audience and analysing the value proposition of fashion in the gaming industry we can discover a new realm of creativity, technology, and audience engagement. Fashion is always about so much more than ‘clothes’. It is about self-expression and story-telling. Fashion designers who are successful understand the story that they are telling and the role of their customers. Gaming is built upon some of these same concepts of story-telling and self-expression, so conceptually the two industries are well suited. But the gaming industry also offers something new – a young audience that can be cultivated, expanded experiences and of course digital assets are usually less expensive than their physical, so independent designers can sell more at a lower price. We can clearly see from the success stories that brands are successfully expanding their reach, forging meaningful connections and providing immersive opportunities for their traditional consumer. Games and fashion, two seemingly different worlds, have converged to usher in an era of creative symbiosis and reimagined value propositions.