Growing up in the 80s, playing Nintendo was a formative experience for Virgil Abloh. Now, fashion has become his “real-world game”, he says, but video games have made a fashionable, somewhat nostalgic comeback. The designer of Off-White and artistic director of Louis Vuitton men’s, Abloh says that he is now taking a closer look at gaming culture and what it can mean for fashion, particularly as the industry explores digital ways to connect with customers.
“My brain is turned on to listening and participating, being a part of the community, which I think is the most important,” he tells Vogue Business. Part of the appeal — in addition to the nostalgia — is the sense of community that games create, especially at a time when “our physical existence is already emerging in the digital space”, he says. He’s intrigued by how the aesthetics of gaming culture might influence real-world fashion.
Both Louis Vuitton and Off-White have already made appearances in the gaming orbit: this October, Louis Vuitton continued its partnership with top video game League of Legends, which was announced a year ago, and Off-White designs have appeared in video game Animal Crossing. In August, Louis Vuitton’s Spring/Summer 2021 show in Shanghai included larger-than-life video game characters. Last year, Louis Vuitton men’s debuted a retro-looking game called Endless Runner inspired by the Autumn/Winter 2019 show. As far back as 2015, Louis Vuitton used Final Fantasy XIII character Lightning in its Spring 2016 ad campaign.
Video games and esports have become fashionable playgrounds for luxury brands looking to connect with a new, digital-first generation. The trend has picked up over the course of the pandemic. This Monday, 7 December, an avatar version of Donatella Versace descends on virtual festival Complexland, where attendees can buy a new Versace Trigreca sneaker. And on Sunday, 6 December, Balenciaga debuted its Autumn/Winter 2021 collection as a video game that imagined that the future of fashion by 2031 would be digital and gamified. Meanwhile, both Gucci and Burberry have created custom branded video games.
The games market is expected to grow almost 20 per cent to $175 billion this year, with China and the US representing about half of the world’s games market in terms of consumer-generated revenues, reports market intelligence firm Newzoo. Almost 3 billion people globally — or 71 per cent of internet users — now play video games on their smartphones, according to a July report from marketing insights firm WARC. Uptake is highest among Gen Z and Asian consumers, which lead in esports viewership (the term referring to the competitive, often professional, sector of video games). Video games make most of their revenues from in-game purchases. Fortnite, for example, made much of its 2018 $2.4 billion in revenue by selling avatar skins to its 200 million users (including some from Nike). Roblox, where people spend hundreds of dollars on in-game items, is now worth an estimated $8 billion.
Thus, video games and gamers present a largely untapped opportunity for the fashion world. In addition to creating physical designs that speak to the aesthetics of the culture, designers can create and sell digital goods within games, where the appearance of players is perhaps as influential on one’s social standing as it is in the physical world. This dynamic is well-suited to Abloh, who has been celebrated for bringing a fresh point of view to luxury fashion, driven in part by streetwear and tapping into the zeitgeist of popular culture. While Abloh’s not ready to formally introduce his contribution, he is closely watching the space. Given his influential standing in luxury fashion, this stands to accelerate a culture that was mostly out of view to fashion until quite recently.
If he were designing for video games, Abloh says his “out-of-the-box” perspective would translate into how he envisioned digital garments, meaning they wouldn’t be literal representations. “The reason why my career was called a ‘disruptor’ or whatever, how I made a name for myself, wasn’t doing anything other than coming to the industry with a different set of tools,” says the former architect. “It’s exciting to think about the digital space and what is designed currently and what could be. I would hope that in the digital sense, there were no buttons on a garment that served no function.” He pauses. “You could equally be nostalgic of the physical world, which is a different set of ideas.”
Abloh has recently become close with Jens Hilgers, an early and influential proponent of the esports industry and founding general partner at Bitkraft Ventures, which is the first venture capital fund dedicated to the sector. A year ago, Hilgers implored the design community to deliver the “Off-White of gaming”. This year, he invited Abloh to discuss video games at the annual tech conference Web Summit in early December. The two would not confirm what a future potential partnership might entail.
“Video games are moving into the focus of the time that we spend with friends. You increasingly start to see the world around you — outside of the video game — with what you take away from that world,” Hilgers says. “What influence does that have on what we wear? It gets exciting when Virgil sees the impact, trends and the fascination of video games and can transform that into something that equally is exciting to represent on the street.”
For luxury brands, video games can also be gateways to new customers. Fans of a brand, particularly younger ones, might be more inclined to spend $3 on a Louis Vuitton in-game accessory than $3,000 on a real-life bag. There’s an opportunity for luxury brands to appeal to these players, and Abloh doesn’t buy into the gamer stereotype. “Digital space makes us one community, and there is no preconceived notion of type of gamer. Gaming isn’t just a teenage boy in Middle America — the definition of ‘game’ is wide and vast,” he says.
Hilgers is preparing for an “inevitable” future in which fashion brands design for multiple video games and share revenue with the game’s producers. “All of a sudden you develop an affinity to a certain brand or designer that puts forward a decorative item in a game. That allows the creatives, the Virgil Ablohs, to unfold their creativity in a virtual world, and the video game publisher to increase pricing,” he says.
Brands have begun experimenting with selling digital clothes in games. Drest, for example, digitises real designer clothing, and players can pay to access more designs. Aglet, a Pokémon Go for sneakerheads, sells virtual Nikes, Jordans, Adidas and Yeezys. Tommy Hilfiger just signed with Skinvaders, a Portuguese startup that helps fashion brands digitise designs and convert them to be used across multiple video games; it has also recently signed DKNY, VF Corporation and Marine Serre. “Everyone is talking about skins, but every single initiative so far has been a marketing stunt, so after a couple days it means zero. Brands are interested in showing real dollars for their intellectual property,” says founder Gonçalo Cruz, who is also co-founder of Platform E, which helps brands implement 3D design.
“It is the future,” says Hilfiger, whose brand has set out to digitise its entire supply chain. The eponymous designer sees a big commercial opportunity for digital fashion in games. “We are always looking to keep the Tommy Hilfiger brand eternally useful. To continue on that road, we need to show up wherever the consumer is spending the majority of their time. Young people are enjoying the competition, the journey and the surprises.” He adds that it’s crucial for brands to be authentic. “You can’t just put it into a video game and think it will work — the consumers really know the difference.”
To that end, Abloh is still navigating what his digital designs might be, saying that he’s working to understand the existing culture before jumping in. “I don’t have preconceived notions, but I don’t have interest in just bringing my creative prowess from physical to digital. I think it’s more interesting to be a part of the community and embrace what’s happening technologically.”
He also doesn’t rule out a digital-only fashion show. “This year is the year that fashion has had to think outside the box. It’s different, when you talk about fashion shows, it’s always trying to replicate an official, formal feeling that happens when you sit front row, but — again — I don’t believe in rules and I believe in modernity more than I believe in convention. So I can’t call it. I’m always thinking; I love when everything is evolving.”
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Fashion’s new playground: Esports and gaming
