Meta will offer virtual clothing for real money at an avatar fashion boutique.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Friday that Meta Platforms, the company that owns Facebook, will open a virtual apparel shop where users may buy fashionable garments for their avatars. In a live video chat with Instagram’s head of fashion, Zuckerberg said that virtual clothes created by the fashion houses Balenciaga, Prada, and Thom Browne will initially be for sale.
They would cost between $2.99 and $8.99, according to a Meta representative, far less than the actual clothing created by such designers. For instance, the Matinee ostrich leather purse from Prada costs $10,700. According to Zuckerberg, he wants to grow the shop into an open market where developers may produce and sell a broad variety of digital attire.
As Meta progressively links the platforms together and moves toward creating an immersive “metaverse” of shared, interconnected digital worlds where users may congregate, avatars have emerged as one method for connecting user identities across Facebook, Instagram, and its other services.
Although initially, the virtual costumes would only be accessible on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, Meta said in a statement that users of the company’s virtual reality headsets build create avatars to play video games, attend workout courses, and participate in conference calls.
The business updated its virtual reality avatars last year to make them more expressive and three-dimensional, and starting in January, it made them accessible on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.