Meta brings fashion to the metaverse in partnership with luxury brands

Meta is bringing luxury fashion into the metaverse with the announcement of a digital fashion marketplace dedicated to its virtual avatars. Outfits of three high fashion brands – Balenciaga, Prada, and Thom Browne – could be worn across Meta-owned platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.

Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram‘s director of fashion partnerships Eva Chen hosted a livestream to break the news, Reuters reported.

“Basically, it’s a clothing store for your Meta avatar. We already have a bunch of different free clothing … but we also wanted to create this marketplace,” Zuckerberg said. “A huge part of how people express themselves is through what they wear and fashion.”

The metaverse fashion project starts in a partnership with three high fashion brands – Balenciaga, Prada, and Thom Browne.

“Balenciaga is hotter than hot. And then Prada, you can do your ‘classic’ Prada or you can do the ‘Hypebeast’ Prada.” She continued that she is excited to see “a lot of brands that don’t exist physically exist in the metaverse,” Chen said.

“To see the fashion work we’re doing in the metaverse with that kind of high-quality stuff is really cool… A lot of the dream here is to make it accessible to anyone,” Zuckerberg also added.

A Meta spokesperson said avatars would be priced between $2.99 and $8.99, much less than the real outfits by those designers. Prada’s Matinee ostrich leather bag, for example, sells for $10,700.

Meta’s Avatars Store will begin rolling out in the U.S., Canada, Thailand, and Mexico next week, with more brands set to join the store. Any outfit purchased can be worn across Meta-owned platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.

As reported in April, Meta is trying to develop its own token to support its ambition of connecting users through the metaverse. More tokens may be developed as Meta builds a metaverse, the report outlined.

Despite Meta recently giving up on its plans to create the Diem stablecoin, it’s reportedly still interested in creating tokens for use within the metaverse. According to the FT report, Meta is exploring a centralized in-app token similar to ROBUX for the game Roblox. In other words, this likely wouldn’t be a cryptocurrency.