Meta launched an online store that will let Facebook, Instagram and Messenger users buy digital clothes for their avatars. The first brands are Prada, Balenciaga and Thom Browne, with clothes such as a motocross kit and suits.
Mark Zuckerberg said that more brands would be added soon.
“Digital goods will be an important way to express yourself in the metaverse and a big driver of the creative economy,” he says.
With digital garments or virtual stores, gamers can purchase a branded hoodie for their characters in Fortnite. Last year, Balenciaga partnered with Fortnite to release skins of the clothing in the game.
Despite the big names in Meta’s launch, the news dropped quietly this afternoon, and the company didn’t immediately respond to a request for more details. Meta says the store will launch “soon,” though information on how users will access the store wasn’t immediately available. Hopefully the digital clothes will cost less than the real thing. In a livestream today, Eva Chen, director of fashion partnerships at Instagram, previewed one look featuring a cropped T-shirt, low-rise jeans, and a white belt, outfitted on Zuckerberg’s avatar.
“I don’t know if I would have been able to pull of that,” he said. I agree!
