The haute couture of designer Julien Fournié invites itself into the metaverse<

Video game designers "know how to make avatars, but it's not their job to make clothes"... To remedy this, French designer Julien Fournié has propelled haute couture into the metaverse - the future virtual world on which digital giants, including Facebook. In mid-December, the Parisian couturier, who dresses wealthy clients in Asia and the Middle East, catapulted his elite fashion into the metaverse via the battle royale game PUBG MOBILE, allowing players to acquire clothes and accessories inspired by the Nutcracker ballet for their avatar.

"We all talk about the metaverse, but we don't know aesthetically what form it will take," says Julien Fournié, 46, a gamer since the age of eight and whose latest haute couture collection was already inspired by video games. “In these virtual places, we embody characters with identities (…). We're going to give people 3D clothing transformation ideas so they can embody themselves in the metaverse,” he explains.

crazy imaginations

Julien Fournié wants to offer "crazy imaginations" to people deprived of entertainment because of the Covid-19 and to bring more sophistication to the world of geeks. Video game designers “know how to make avatars and skins (appearance of a character or an object), but it's not their job to make clothing. This steering wheel will never exist in real life,” says the designer. He therefore asked his first workshop to create fabric volumes and then made video recordings to improve the quality of the virtual images. Engineers also "took their heads off" to reproduce the shimmering sequins that change shade depending on the light, he recalls. “The geeks, the engineers who model all that, don't have a feminine sensibility (...). We want to make the aesthetics of the virtual more elegant, finer, more fun”, underlines Jean-Paul Cauvin, general manager of the Julien Fournié house.

The task is all the more important as there are more and more female avatars and characters in games today. Balenciaga made a foray into the wildly popular Fortnite video game last September, bringing apparel and sneakers to more than 250 million players; Gucci launched on The Sims and the Roblox video game platform; as for Ralph Lauren, he dresses Snapchat avatars in his outfits...

Rolled by a homeless shelter today...lotta folks out there tryin to steel my look.

— FD'sbacknowwesellincrack Fri Apr 05 00:32:17 +0000 2019

For American futurist Cathy Hackl, a metaverse expert, it's no surprise that major fashion brands have been pioneers in moving to platforms. “Clothes on an avatar is something that we can understand and translate into virtual spaces (…). Direct avatar access is becoming the next direct-to-consumer opportunity.

play and communicate

Especially since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, we spend more time on video games, not only to play, but also to communicate, underlines Emmanuel Longère, technology expert at Fabernovel, a product creation company and of digital services. “The health crisis has accelerated this subject. This concept of the metaverse, which has become popular again today, is a response to how to spend time together on virtual worlds other than by videoconference,” he explains. For the younger generations, their virtual image is “extremely important” and they evolve their character in “gigantic virtual worlds” that are video games, he adds.

A space of absolute freedom, according to Julien Fournié, for young people who may feel misunderstood by their relatives or in search of their sexual and gender identity. For brands, presenting virtual products on platforms serves to gain notoriety among young consumers and offers opportunities to reduce design costs and rethink distribution channels. Eco-responsible, say fans of virtual fashion. “These are energy-intensive technologies,” warns Emmanuel Longère, however.

Source: AFP