How Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Off-White are defying Covid-19 and reuniting with fashion fanatics on Nintendo’s Animal Crossing
Quarantine-friendly Animal Crossing: New Horizons, by Nintendo and available on Switch consoles, is a game in which the player embarks on a journey on a deserted island – and can create their own styles
The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted fashion week calendars as well as prevented fashion-deprived shoppers from getting their spring/summer style fix thanks to social distancing. Some, however, have taken to the virtual realm to show off their best styles this season, via the quarantine-friendly Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Animal Crossing, produced by Nintendo and available on Switch consoles, is a social simulation game where the player embarks on a journey on a deserted island and creates everything from the sketch – think tools, homes, memorabilia and, of course, fashion.
Owing to its function of customised fashion, game enthusiasts have created their own styles and shares for the global community to download. While user-generated luxury fashion replicas for Animal Crossing have flooded social media, Net-a-Porter took things a step further and embraced the trend.
The luxury e-tailer collaborated with an impressive line-up of contemporary Chinese fashion designers including Shushu/Tong, Calvin Luo and Short Sentence to create avatar skins inspired by their spring/summer 2020 collections, available to buy via Tmall.
Net-a-Porter might be the first to jump on the Animal Crossing bandwagon, it’s not the first luxury brand to associate with gaming collaborations. Nicolas Ghesquière, Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of women’s collections created an avatar skin for the multiplayer online battle game League of Legends in October 2019.
Luxury labels’ attempts to collaborate on video games produces a way to reach out to homebound consumers and create a space of escapism on the virtual gaming universe.
Fashion publications such as GQ China quickly followed suit and created a GQ China island with virtual goodies to grab. The publication shared the access codes on its Weibo account and publicised it on its GQ Lab WeChat account. If you also long for a quarantine-friendly fashion wardrobe fix on Animal Crossing, check out some of our favourite trends and designers to follow.
