French luxury leather goods company Longchamp has chosen a progressive and playful platform to launch its new bag collection. The well-established designer brand has turned to The Pokemon Company and its AR developer Niantic to showcase a backpack that Pokemon Go gamers can wear just in time for this years Paris Fashion Week.
Starting on October 2, Pokemon Go trainers can rock the luxury bag whilst scavenging the digital world, but the bag is also released physically for the fashionable gamer that doesn’t want to be outshone by its digital avatar. The virtual bag is completely free for users to wear, but the physical bag probably will probably set you back a couple of hundred euros. For the physical world, the Pikachu-clad backpack is released together with four other Pokemon-inspired bags.
A convergence between fashion and gaming is nothing new, but it should be further encouraged. Millennials and Gen Z’s are spending a great amount of time, money and effort on their digital appearances via various avatars online. Last year Louis Vuitton alertly released an in-game capsule collection for the tactic game League of Legends and thereby set a standard for mainstream fashion brands to be shown in both digital and physical environments. For fashion brands, expanding into the digital sphere will be met with a huge demand from gamers and will cut down both expenses and environmental footprints. It should be a no-brainer.
