Valentino's artistic collaboration with Meta: a move to redefine virtual fashion aesthetics?

Published: July 20, 2023

min read

Luxury fashion brands are notable for their metaverse endeavours. As the fashion world is more associated with trends, most of the renowned fashion brands, such as Gucci, Nike, Louis Vuitton, and Adidas, have joined the metaverse trend long ago and are coming up with interesting initiatives to attract audiences in the virtual world.

As the metaverse paves the way for experimental approaches on multiple levels and beckons users towards an immersive experience, luxury brands keep exploring it and creating buzz among tech-savvy younger audiences about this whole new world.

There is no chance you have not heard about Beauty Week, which happened at metaverse a few months ago. Right?

Among many who ventured into the metaverse, Valentino is the latest luxury brand to join the list to keep up with the world uniting fashion and the metaverse.

And recently, this Italian fashion house has partnered with Meta to let people using Meta platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, and Meta virtual reality experiences, bring designer looks to their digital avatars.

Valentino had curated six looks for the collaboration's initial release, using pieces from the brand's most recent collections.

The six outfits for the initial release are now accessible on the Meta Avatars Store, and a second drop will be announced soon.

It is also noted that Valentino has collaborated with Web3 fashion platform Unxd to help the brand with its metaverse and Web3 projects.

What does it mean for CIOs?

Without any doubt, the metaverse is still in its early stages. And with the sudden boom and popularity of generative AI technology, attention towards the metaverse indeed slowed down.

However, brands are constantly striving to find a way to push their metaverse dreams to the next stage, as the metaverse can offer massive opportunities for them to connect with their audiences at a deeper level.

Especially the super genius idea of brands to use AI technology to drive the growth of the metaverse is mind-blowing. Needless to mention, recently even Meta announced its plans to use generative AI tools to simplify VR environment creation and chase its metaverse dreams at a fast pace.

And now, Valentino’s artistic collaboration with Meta again reiterates that brands are fiercely finding ways to tap into the potential of the metaverse so as to increase their impact on their target audiences.

In our opinion, this Italian fashion brand’s partnership with Meta will benefit it in various ways:

It is well known that there are billions of people using Meta's platforms worldwide. Thus, by providing an option for users to dress up their avatars in Valentino's branded looks, the brand could reach a wide range of audiences that it could not have reached via conventional marketing channels. This way, this collaboration will significantly enhance Valentino's brand exposure among audiences.
As the metaverse is still new, there is plenty of curiosity surrounding immersive experiences, avatars, NFTs, etc. Thus, integration of Valentino's branded looks into avatars will be more likely to create buzz and excitement among users on Meta’s platforms. And as more people try on the dress and share their avatar looks with their friends and family on social media platforms, the brands will have the possibility of receiving more user-generated content. This will help them drastically with organic promotion and word-of-mouth marketing.
As Meta platforms can provide granular data on how users interact with the virtual fashion items and branded looks, such as the number of avatar dress-ups, the specific collection they engage with the most, and so on, it will help Valentino gain deeper insights into the audience's preferences and interests. This, in turn, will help the brand tailor its metaverse strategies and initiatives and continuously improve its metaverse offerings.
By the day, the metaverse is getting more crowded with a variety of brands and experiences. At this point in time, collaborating with a tech giant like Meta to offer unique virtual fashion experiences will indeed help the brand differentiate itself from others and position itself as an innovative player in the luxury fashion industry.

More importantly, it has to be noted that Meta has recently added the capability of using digital avatars to represent themselves on video calls. And now the tech giant has made an artistic collaboration with Valentino.

So it is clear that Meta is ramping up its steps towards metaverse dreams. And we believe this new collaboration holds all possibilities to redefine virtual fashion aesthetics and take the physical world way closer to the world of the metaverse.

Author

Pete Johnson

Pete is a MarTech expert guru with a knack for getting diverse MarTech solutions work for brands. He has a wealth of experience in working with a plethora of MarTech platforms that dive Personalized Omnichannel Experiences. When he's not at work, you can find him playing basketball or listening to jazz.