The British department store chain Selfridges is opening a virtual department store in Decentraland, an environment in the ‘metaverse’, where shoppers can buy NFTs and watch digital fashion shows.
70 virtual designs
The metaverse is becoming more and more of a shopping destination: on the occasion of the Metaverse Fashion Week, which took place from 24 to 27 March, British department store chain Selfridges has opened a virtual shop there. It shows digital designs from more than seventy brands, artists and designers. It is said to be the first department store in the metaverse and, according to Selfridges itself, hovers at the interface between fashion and technology, the company said on LinkedIn.
The initiative is an extension of earlier technological steps taken by Selfridges: earlier this year, the British department store chain partnered with fashion brand Paco Rabanne and the foundation of artist Victor Vasarely, where unique designs were made available for sale both physically and – in limited editions – digitally as NFTs.
Brands join
Originally, the project’s main aim was to attract more visitors to the London physical shop, but now Paco Rabanne and Fondation Vasarely’s NFTs are also available in the Decentraland department store. Visitors can buy them with crypto coins.
Selfridges is not the only physical retailer to go digital for Decentraland’s Metaverse Fashion Week. Fashion brands like DKNY, Privé Porter and Charles & Keith also opened a virtual shop for the occasion. They also showed their designs in an elongated virtual fashion show, which ran non-stop throughout the weekend.
