Unraveling the Hype Behind Fashion's Dive into the Metaverse

Cover Art by Abigail Seguin

CGI, AI, and VR have become concepts that are now integrated into our understanding of the world on a daily basis. A few years ago, companies raced to use these tools to better perform their business functions in their operations, strategy, and marketing plans. Specifically, marketing and advertising agencies have hired new analysts to focus on CGI and AI integration to optimize their services. 

No industry wants to be last in embracing any new technological trend, and the fashion industry is no exception. From CGI product placement, AI generated brand management plans, and even clothing line launches in virtual reality, we are witnessing a shift in how consumers admire new trends and buy their products. But hold on a second…maybe these new technologies aren’t truly helping to reach the audiences that we think they are. Maybe key players in the fashion space are rushing to embrace a new way of marketing that consumers aren’t ready for. 

These aforementioned concerns came to light through a relatively quiet event, occurring in the VR headsets of users during 2022 and 2023, called Metaverse Fashion Week. “High fashion has gone virtual,” according to the Metaverse Fashion Week’s website in 2023, with a diverse range of designers, artists, and name brands in attendance to promote new products (MVFW, 2023). Some of the most notable brands that were part of the event were Adidas, Coach, DKNY, Tommy Hilfiger, and Cristobal Balenciaga. The event lasted 4 days, and held a mix of runway shows, immersive experiences, shopping, and even after parties. 

This event was unfortunately a failure in many aspects. Jay Peters, a writer for The Verge who covers technology and virtual worlds, described the event as “lonely, difficult to navigate, and pretty boring (The Verge, 2023).” Clearly, Peters and other attendees have provided tough criticism that speaks on faults with Meta and with this concept as a whole. Disregarding the technological failures and the inexperience of the brands in this sector, the most prominent problem was the loneliness described, mostly due to the lack of attendees and the bizarre energy of the entire event. 

On the issue of absent attendees, it was reported by Decentraland that only 26000 people attended the event, drastically down from the launch event in 2022 which had around 108,000 attendees (MusicAlly, 2023). As those who follow virtual reality, NFTs, and Crypto know, the entire space has performed terribly this year and has lost the trust of many consumers. With the instability of these industries in mind, it is difficult to see why fashion brands would waste time, materials, and funding to market these products in the Metaverse. Brands can chalk this up to an interesting idea with the wrong timing, as VR in general needs to make many strides to get the large amount of viewers expected for large events held in the Metaverse. 

Getting more specific into the intersection of fashion marketing with virtual reality, there is an obvious failure in targeting the correct segments of consumers. With such a relatively niche audience of people who regularly use virtual reality in 2023, and the personalities of the people

who do, there is a disconnect in this marketing strategy. The 30 year old male gamers who make up a high portion of metaverse participants are not interested in high fashion, and segments like this would never be marketed to in the physical world. There is also no tangible evidence out there for the conversion rates of getting attendees of the event to purchase brand products, and even if there was, the numbers would not be very great. With the continued rise of Facebook Marketplace, the emergence of the TikTok shop, and the dominance of Amazon, online shopping is at an all-time high. Using technology to promote new fashion styles, clothing lines, and direct-to-consumer shopping is far from the problem, but the metaverse method is not working. 

If the Metaverse fashion week makes a return in 2024, the user experience and promotion for the event will need a major overhaul. Yet, there is a reason that the event probably won’t return at all. Fashion brands and brand managers must pivot to other experiments using newfound technology that better suit their strategic and marketing needs. Low turnout, improper targeting, and lack of event promotion are problems that cannot be ignored, and the benefits of marketing using virtual reality cannot exist until virtual reality markets itself. 

References

https://mvfw.org/ 

https://www.theverge.com/23668846/decentraland-metaverse-fashion-week-2023 

https://musically.com/2023/04/06/only-26000-people-attended-decentralands-metaverse-fashion week/#:~:text=Only%2026%2C000%20people%20attended%20Decentraland's%20Metaverse%20Fashion%20Week,-by%20Stuart%20Dredge