Gucci, Roblox Partner to Debut New Digital Experience

Need to Know

• Gucci will launch a virtual two-week art installation within gaming platform Roblox’s metaverse.
• The Gucci Garden features multiple themed rooms within Roblox, as well as the opportunity for visitors to view, try on and purchase digital Gucci items for their avatars.
• The installation will also transform Roblox avatars from rectangular figures into more humanoid mannequins, whose bodies will reflect their surroundings as they enter each Gucci-themed room.
• Gucci and Roblox will share revenue for digital clothing items purchased within the platform.

Analysis

Gucci is expanding its digital reach with a new partnership that may seem unexpected for the major fashion house.

On Monday, the Italian luxury fashion retailer launched a new experience within Roblox, the gaming platform, that will allow users to purchase digital Gucci items directly within the game.

The experience will be presented within Roblox as a two-week art installation called the Gucci Garden, and is modeled off Google’s real-life Gucci Garden Archetypes, which was a physical recreation of 15 Gucci campaigns that launched earlier this month. Within the Roblox version, users can explore themed rooms that are also based on Gucci campaigns, such as Gucci’s 2020 Cruise line.

When users enter the Gucci Garden’s virtual lobby, their Roblo avatar will transform from the familiar rectangular form into a humanoid, genderless mannequin. As they progress through the space, the mannequin will reflect elements of each Gucci-themed room’s unique aesthetic on its body — for instance, according to a writeup about the installation in Vogue, the colorful zig-zag lights of Gucci’s Tokyo Tribe room may become a patterned sleeve.

Users will be able to purchase digital clothing from Gucci for their avatars, which will only be available for limited windows each day. Gucci and Roblox will share revenues from these purchases. The prices have yet to be determined. This marks only the second time Roblox has offered clothing for purchase within the platform: the first, within a virtual Lil Nas X concert hosted on Roblox, garnered sales in the seven digits.

“Working with a partner like Gucci that wants to enable people to express themselves seemed like a perfect fit,“ Roblox vice president of brand partnerships Christina Wootton said of the partnership. “They are so forward-thinking. They were open to working with the community, open to what would work well and to listening and experimenting. They understand that even though you have this massive brand, you have to enter a new platform authentically, and it has to be organic.”

The Roblox partnership is not the first tech-forward initiative to come from Gucci in recent months, as the changing fashion and retail atmosphere brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic led it and other brands to experiment with virtual customer engagement. In July, the fashion brand debuted an AR try-on lens with Snapchat, which allows customers to try on and purchase four styles of shoes directly within the Snapchat app.

Virtual try-on capacities have proven popular for retailers and brands alike throughout the pandemic, with retailers such as Whole Foods, Asos, and Brookfield, the shopping mall operator, debuting online try-on tools over the last year, as have brands including L’Oreal and Dior. Last week, Walmart acquired virtual fitting room platform Zeekit to offer online try-ons for all of its apparel, including in-house and private brands.