Would you buy Valentino for your Bitmoji?

To become a Vogue Business Member and receive the Technology Edit newsletter, click here. As luxury prices continue to climb, there’s a new way to get your hands on affordable Valentino couture: via Snapchat, for your Bitmoji. Today, the Italian luxury house is dropping a collection with the avatar platform Bitmoji, which lets users create digital cartoons of themselves and pick and change their outfits depending on mood and season. It’s the maison’s second digital fashion venture of the year, after introducing designs for Meta avatars in July. At the time, Valentino said it was taking “a step forward toward commerce in the metaverse”. Now, it’s going further. To start, there are five pieces from Valentino Resort 2024: a crepe dress, embroidered blazer, Valentino Garavani Alltime bag, denim trousers and Valentino Garavani Rockstud pumps. Then, in December, new styles will be added to the collection. The digital fashion collection is for sale, rather than available free for download as most Bitmoji clothes have been so far. It marks a new revenue stream for Snap, which acquired Bitmoji in 2016 for more than $100 million. Items are priced between 80 and 1,100 Snap Tokens, which can be purchased in packages of 80 ($0.99), 250 ($2.99), 500 ($4.99) and 1,100 ($9.99). Snap first experimented with charging tokens for digital fashion last year for its Adidas drop, which was available for one week. The Adidas ‘Into the Metaverse’ track jacket went for 250 tokens, or $2.99. For comparison, Meta sells its designer digital fashion in a slightly tighter price range; pieces typically range from $2.99 to $8.99, with brands including Prada, Balenciaga and Thom Browne in the mix. The Meta digital collections were first introduced in July 2022. Seventy-four per cent of Snapchat users dress their Bitmoji in the brands they dress themselves in real life, according to Snap. “We know that behaviours in our fashion marketplace often mirror the real world, like dressing up for a holiday party, a day at the beach, or the first day of school,” says Geoffrey Perez, global head of luxury at Snap Inc. “Some occasions call for wearing something special, and many Snapchatters want their digital selves to stand out. It’s partners like Maison Valentino that give people this option and excite us as we continue to test and learn with new opportunities including content and digital goods.” Fashionable Bitmoji users have become used to shopping the platform’s digital closet — including past brand collaborations — for free, which could make the token plan a tougher sale. Bitmoji has previously released free collections from Ralph Lauren, Off-White, Levi’s and Carhartt. Valentino’s drop features the most garments a collection has included to date, largely due to Snap remodelling Bitmoji into 3D characters. This makes the clothing faster to create because Snap no longer has to make everything twice (in 2D and 3D), consolidating its production pipeline. In February of this year, Valentino announced a partnership with Web3 fashion platform Unxd to spearhead its metaverse and Web3 projects. Consumers remain keen on digital fashion, according to a recent Roblox report. In the first nine months of this year, Roblox says it saw 165 billion total avatar updates (up 38 per cent this year), and its users purchased 1.65 billion digital fashion items (up 15 per cent), indicating that appetite for virtual fashion is alive and well. The main target audience for the collection is Gen Z, Perez says. “We’re excited to work with Maison Valentino to bring their iconic, luxury pieces to our largely Gen Z community, with 85 per cent of the 13- to 24-year-olds having a Bitmoji avatar in the US.” Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.

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