Hi all!
Today, in 2022, we are not at all surprised that our Fortnite avatar wears signature sneakers from Travis Scott, and later we ourselves wear the same pair for a walk. Games have long become a huge media generating crazy profits. It is not surprising that fashion houses and mass markets are trying to grab a piece of the money pie and release entire collections inspired by video games or, on the contrary, integrate their items into virtual worlds.
Which is strange, because a couple of decades ago the fashion media didn’t give a damn about our hobby, but now Lacoste boutiques are stylized like Minecraft, and from every kiosk a T-shirt with Huggy Waggy is looking at us (brrr…). Believe me, the path that led us to the dominance of merch with this blue face is very interesting, and to track it, you need to turn your gaze a little back. To be precise, in 1978.
Long before humanity came up with the idea of expressing itself through dancing in Fortnite, a seemingly unobvious thing was invented, which ultimately began the very path whose results we are now on. In 1978, Tomohiro Nishikado added a rating to his game Space Invaders. And this insignificant step, by modern standards, completely tore down the wall of anonymity in slot machine halls and gave players something that they did not have before – a name. Now every mother’s shooter could set a new record and proudly show it off in his local circle.
Yes, it didn’t give players a special alien skin or guarantee them a T-shirt with the name of the game, but it did give them something more – an assertion of individuality.
At the beginning of the 80s, it was much easier to express oneself in the real world than in the virtual one. The streets were filled with many subcultures, strikingly different from each other: skinheads, punks, metalheads, and hippies in some places. And each of them had her own style, her own fashion, her own clothes. What clothes were in the games at that time?? Well approximately –
It wasn’t until consoles took over from slot machines that there was a breakthrough in character development and detail. All thanks to improved technical capabilities. Looking ahead a little, I will say that both sides were an absolute winner. Fashion houses received new space to sell and promote their collections in the virtual world, and developers were no longer burdened by the conventions of the real world and could create whatever they wanted.
From games to fashion
For the most condensed yet comprehensive picture of how clothing has evolved in video games, look no further than the characters in the Final Fantasy series.
In 1987, the first part of the series was released and the characters in it look like this:
And 23 years later, in 2010, Final Fantasy XIII was released and the characters looked different:
And two years later they appeared in the fashion magazine Arena Homme+. And not in their own outfits, but as models of the Prada clothing line.
Unfortunately, the clothes did not fit so impressively on real models.
As the editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine explains this decision:
Our spring release has a fantasy feel to it, and having a visually stunning video game like Final Fantasy helps us bring that idea to life. Prada is the world’s leading fashion brand, which is dedicated to creating something unique and incredible. I’ve always been interested in the impact of video games and their place in society, and the amount of work we put into this project blows my mind. We are incredibly pleased with the result.
Max Pearmain
The conquest of the fashion world by the Japanese series of games did not stop there, and in 2016, Lighting became the main face of the spring-summer collection from Louis Vuitton. By choosing a virtual heroine, the fashion house killed two birds with one stone: a video game character as a model is fresh, and besides, she is also a strong woman.
The advertising campaign was quite large-scale. We released a TV commercial and many billboards that looked at you in shopping centers and the subway.
29 years have passed from the release of the first game to becoming the main face of a fashion collection. 29 years is a huge period of time for the gaming industry. Many titles and characters have already become cult. Based on them, films and TV series are made, and thematic festivals are launched.
In the second half of the 2000s, fashion collections inspired by cult games began to appear.
Thus, in 2007, Cassette Playa presented a line of clothing inspired by Sonic:
At the same time, games and fashion companies begin mutually beneficial cooperation. If before this developers respected designers, and designers respected developers, now they are releasing joint collaborations.
Symbiosis
Here’s an example of Diesel’s work:
Sim Outfits
And Devil May Cry characters . Personally, I like these bows better than Sim’s 🙂
But the clothing line www.casinofunbet.co.uk did not go beyond the virtual world, unlike the collaboration with Moschino.
The Italian company integrated its line of clothing (including previous seasons) into the game and filled the shelves of boutiques with it. (Wait, it turns out that Sims did this before Fortnite?)
Have you heard about Mon-Qlo?? Most likely not. This is the fruit of Uniqlo’s collaboration with Capcom, Monster Hunter to be precise. As part of the collection, you could purchase T-shirts and skins for characters (only if you complete special quests from the store).
The idea as a whole was successful, so something similar, but at a much higher price category, appeared as a result of the joint collection of Louis Vuitton and LoL. The scope of the collaboration is amazing. In addition to skins for the game and a capsule (small) line of clothing, the Sorcerer Cup was developed for the world League of Legends tournament.
The Louis Vuitton x League of Legends Collection. (The Washington Post illustration; Louis Vuitton)
The Louis Vuitton x League of Legends Collection. (The Washington Post illustration; Louis Vuitton)
The collaboration is truly significant, taking the collaboration between fashion houses and video games to a new level. Looks like this is the right direction .
And then last year two more giants decided to pull off a deal. Balenciaga and Fortnite are releasing, in my opinion, an absolutely shitty clothing collection. Skins – ok. But what is sold on the company’s website is quiet horror. We take basic things and put the names of the game and company on them. Ready. You’ve got a shitload of money.
The logic can be understood. The main obsession of children in the West is Fortnite. What will rich parents buy for their children?? Certainly. Clothes with the name of their favorite game. Here’s a link for you to check out.
A couple of years ago, Igromir gave away T-shirts with Fortnite. The quality is so-so, now I wear it like a home T-shirt, but even it looks cooler.
Just a week ago, Dior released a collaboration with Gran Turismo, in which you can apply the livery to the De Tomaso Mangusta supercar, as well as get a full set of clothes for your pilot.
My personal favorite is a collaboration between tech clothing brand Acronym and Death stranding. Sam Porter’s main costume from the game was designed by this German brand. Kojima invited Errolson Hyo to his studio with an offer to collaborate. Their work aroused admiration for each other, so their symbiosis turned out to be very fruitful. As a result, after the game’s release, Acronym introduced the J1A-GT jacket, which cost $2,000 apiece. Why standing? Yes, because they were all sold out in just a couple of minutes.
The “Death Stranding” variant of Acronym’s flagship J1A-GT jacket (The Washington Post illustration; Acronym)
These are just some of the video game collaborations. Now that mass markets are ubiquitous, a very large number of clothes are being produced, inspired by virtual worlds. (The same Uniqlo has about 10 collections). Let me just attach N number of these under the spoiler and you can read them if you wish.
Uniqlo x Animal Crossing
Vans x Nintendo
Adidas x Pokemon
Nike x PlayStation
Nike x PlayStation, but with Travis Scott
Xbox x Adidas. In general, collaborations between sneakers and games are quite an interesting topic. If you’re interested in learning about it, let me know in the comments.
From fashion to games
We have already looked at how video games influenced fashion, let’s look at how real designers inspired developers when creating certain characters.
Clothing, and in particular fashion, play a huge role in video games, as they create the integrity of the work, help the player immerse himself in the virtual world and, if necessary, indicate the place and time of action. As an example, the clothing of the Downall residents from Dishonored has a Victorian era flair. And the costumes in BioShock Infinite coincide with American fashion of the 30s. By the way, I wrote about this in one of my blogs.
It’s even cooler when, in addition to all these functions, the in-game outfit has a real prototype. For example, I don’t understand anything about high fashion. For me it’s too expressive and surreal. But the designers and artists of Deus Ex: Human Revolution seem to understand and are even inspired.
For example, the costume on the poster looks like the work of Gareth Pugh.
I hope the fashion for such outfits never returns.
Gamification of fashion
For the modern generation, games are the same media space as television and the Internet. So video games from fashion houses are now perceived not as something innovative, but simply another means of promoting products. For example, Gucci has its own Gucci Arcade platform, where you can try out games inspired by the 70s and 80s. Currently there are 8 games presented. You can try the web version yourself.
True, the first time I started the game it immediately broke)
Burberry has something similar. They released their Doodle Jump with a fawn, the main prize of which is a down jacket.
And the Chinese generally have their own atmosphere. They’ve been playing on messenger for five years now. Several fashion companies have released games adapted for WeChat as an experiment. They are not of particular value. Throwing horseshoes in the decorations of the Hermès house and searching for identical cards from Dior cannot be compared at all with what Balenciaga pulled off.
Death stranding – walking simulator? Nonsense. Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow – here’s a walking simulator. No. FASHION walking simulator. Only we need to walk not along the catwalk, but through various virtual spaces populated by NPC models presenting looks from the autumn collection. The game even has cutscenes and staging. At one time I managed to touch Afterworld – an interesting experience, but only if you consider it as a game from Balenciaga.
Even rappers are now making games to promote their clothing line. For example, A$AP Rocky together with Mercedes made a game in which you have to cut the highway on Mercedes to the tracks of Rakim. From the scenery – clothes. https://asaprocky.com/
Future
Today, the collaboration of fashion houses with games may still be a novelty, but it is already clear where the vector is heading. The industry is developing towards virtual and augmented reality. You can already try on sneakers in the Gucci app by simply pointing your phone camera at your foot. Perhaps soon we will be like in GTA, going into a virtual fitting room, choosing an outfit for ourselves, and only then ordering the things we like to take home.
Or a quirk of the last year – NFT. Because what difference does it make for the modern generation to buy clothes for themselves or for their game character?. Standing out in a game can be just as cool for someone as it is in real life. After all, self-determination and self-expression are still as important as they were in 1978. It’s just that the rating table doesn’t seem to be enough for this.
Blog written in a Uniqlo x Street Fighter T-shirt
Best comments
Adam Jenson, by the way, is also wearing a coat from Acronym, it seems
The designers of Deus Ex went further and, in collaboration with Square Enix, Razor released their own prosthetic model like Jensen’s. This series of games was fucked.
There seems to be a slight inaccuracy in the article: in the story about the LOL Cup from Louis Vuitton, the football cup is depicted, not the LOL Cup.
It turned out very interesting, thanks for the blog)
About The Sims series – In the second part there was a collaboration with H&M
I just thought it would be nice to write an article about games and fashion, I went to blogs and HERE IT IS. And she’s quite cool. The only thing that was waiting for the entire article was the most famous case of the integration of fashion and games: Vivienne Westwood’s boutique in Final Fantasy XV (and the wedding dress for Princess Lunafraya from her) because in fact this is the only case when some designer is directly mentioned in the game and directly appears in the plot (by the way, Vivienne’s choice is probably due to the fact that for the Japanese she is a cult fashion figure on the level of their own cult designers like Ray Kawakubo from Comme Des Garcons, because Vivienne’s punkish-playful style appeared in probably half of the Japanese subcultures of the 80-90s and few Japanese in their youth did not print her Mickey Mouse prints on their T-shirts), and also all the costumes (at least the main group of heroes) in the fifteenth final were designed by the Japanese brand Roen, which in itself is not that great noticeable, such a typical Japanese boyish Americana,but they did their best for the game, Noctis and the guys look stylish.
I also quickly remembered Gucci x The North Face x Pokemon Go, in my opinion this is an ideologically cool collab, because TNF is an outdoor brand, and Pokemon Go is just a game about partying in the area. The same thing happened with Prada and Riders Republic, because few people know for sure, but Prada is increasingly aiming towards the high-fashion analogue of all sorts of outdoor brands like Arcteryx and therefore they have more and more windbreakers and other utilitarian things made of nylon, and what better way to show this than through integration with a game about extreme sports in the mountains (albeit an extremely lousy game)?
And once again, a great article, I’m waiting for a sequel about sneakers, because, unlike fashion, I’m not at all savvy there, except for the aforementioned collab with Travis (it’s strange, by the way, that you didn’t mention the Travis and Playstation merch dedicated to the release of sneakers, it seemed to be quite funny) and the original sneakers of 2006, to which Travis’s dunks refer, I don’t know anything.
Well, at least Final Fantasy XIII was good at something.
Thanks for the info 🙂
The topic of the article is unexpected. Well written. Thanks for the interesting material!
P.S.: Silent Hill 2, without the "S" at the end. Only Kojima had Hills.
Thank you. Didn’t know DS jackets were so expensive. It would be cool to buy one for yourself.
Damn, it really is a jamb. I’ll fix everything now. Thanks:3
Embracer Group bought Deus Ex from Square Enix, there is hope that they will revive the franchise.