In February, Gucci announced that it purchased land in The Sandbox metaverse, and yesterday launched its first event. The Gucci Vault Land event will be available for two weeks until November 9.

At the same time, Gucci has released eight voxel digital collectible garments available on The Sandbox. Or, as Gucci put it, “Within the experience, Vault will feature a selection of digital collectibles to portray its ongoing quest for precious wonders.”

Additionally, existing Gucci Vault NFT owners, such as SUPERGUCCI, will receive a special Aura NFT wearable device.

The Fashion Business Opportunity in the Metaverse

Taking a step back, the ongoing experimentation by fashion brands in the metaverse is not surprising. Fashion, and especially luxury fashion, is a status symbol. While some may wear it for themselves, most want to dress to impress. For now, nobody sees you when you use social networks. But over time, social media is likely to migrate to the metaverse. So how you dress your avatar will matter.

The latest research shows that people spend nearly two and a half hours a day on social media. That’s considerably more time than they spend socializing in real life. Logically, in the future, people may choose to spend more money dressing their avatars than they do themselves.

Morgan Stanley estimates that by 2030, luxury goods in games, the metaverse, and NFTs could represent 10% of the market or a €50 billion ($50 billion) revenue opportunity. It is also a high-margin one because there is no need to physically produce and ship the goods.

toe in the waters

But for now, two things affect the fashion brands participating in the metaverse. First of all, there are only a few people in the metaverse. For now. So Gucci doesn’t want you wandering around their Gucci Vault when it’s mostly empty. Instead, he’s exploring the metaverse with events, bringing people together at the same time. And The Sandbox is running in-game missions that earn Gucci Vault Boxes to keep people engaged.

This is not the first experience of the Gucci metaverse. Last year he held a two-week Gucci Garden event on Roblox. He has also partnered with the game Tennis Clash and the Korean virtual worlds and chat app Zepeto.

That leads to the second challenge. Luxury fashion brands are notoriously fussy about production values ​​and details. The Sandbox is currently a voxel format: those pixelated characters. In contrast, the production values ​​of Zepeto and Roblox were much higher. To its credit, Gucci has managed to gloss over that and is willing to experiment.

And it’s not the only one. During New York Fashion Week, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) announced a collaboration with The Sandbox. In December, he’s planning a metaverse showcase that will include Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Oscar de la Renta, and several other famous brands.

Meanwhile, these incumbents face competition. Web3 is notoriously a major disruptor. If they are willing, fashion brands should be able to easily embrace and benefit from the metaverse. But it is more likely that they will meet the competition of web3. For example, The Fabricant is a new web3 fashion brand that has Vogue as a client, and Nike acquired RTFKT. Where incumbents have millions of existing customers, challengers are experts at building online communities and leveraging web3 culture.

So brands like Gucci must be willing to experiment as it has. The luxury house already has several non-fungible token (NFT) collections under its belt, including a collaboration with SuperPlastic for SUPERGUCCI.