According to Roblox’s “Metaverse Fashion Trends” report for 2022, the fashion world has embraced the immersive digital world – and customization is the name of the game for Gen Z in particular.
People of this generation want not just to explore the metaverse but also to signal something about themselves in it, and they want options: cool options.
For Gen Z users, the avatar represents:
- a fantasy character of their own creation (45%)
- an aspiration (37%)
- a hidden aspect of themselves (36%)
- them as they are (29%)
- an idol (20%)
“Cool” clothing and accessories can be more important on Roblox than in life (42%). Fashionable dress is usually imperative in the metaverse (76%), and wearing brand-name merchandise virtually is exciting (66%). Fashion inspiration can come from within the metaverse (51%), from the real world (45%), from brands (33%), or from brands and creators specialized in digital (32%). Mood (53%), impulse (42%) and their metaverse destination (37%) inspire people’s choices, as do the metaverse company they keep and real-world weather and seasons (all about 25%).
All of this translates into sales. Most users will buy digital clothes (about 75%), paying a monthly $5 (31%), $10 to $20 (30%) or $50 to $100 (12%). About a quarter of users own more than 50 articles of virtual clothing.
Real money, then, has entered the virtual world – and, with the recent talk about central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), might be on the verge of going digital itself. But we are heading through the looking glass in other ways as well.
At least among Roblox’s Gen Z users, equal majorities (70%) are in matters of design taking virtual inspiration from the real world and real-world inspiration from the virtual. At its fashion show this autumn, Roblox observes, “Coperni designers cited Roblox avatar shapes that inspired some of the numbers from their latest collection, and Loewe sent pixelated garments down the runway.”
Roblox’s main conclusions are as follows:
- Digital fashion has risen in prestige and popularity in tandem with Gen Z’s use of “immersive social spaces”
- Half of Roblox’s users change their avatar’s clothing weekly at least, and 40 percent consider the metaverse a more important place for self-expression than the real world
- Through their avatars, users react to others, as in the real world, on the basis of their looks and dress
- About half of users dress their avatar to express individuality (47%), feel good about themselves (43%) and make a connection with peers
- 70 percent dress their avatar as they dress in the real world
- Almost three-quarters will buy digital fashion, and more than one-quarter have spent $20 to $100 or more on a digital item
- Two-thirds are excited to wear brand-name items virtually, and almost half experiment with clothes they wouldn’t wear in the real life
- Most want the broadest variety of skin tones (70%), body sizes (64%), and hair colors, textures and styles (70%); most also believe the design of digital clothing should be “inclusive”
Roblox reports that in 2022 more than 11.5 million creators have designed more than 62 million clothing and accessory items on Roblox – for a 25 percent increase year-on-year. (The company introduced Verified Badges for notable creators in September.)
By the company’s count, “there are at least 200 times as many creators designing clothing and accessories on Roblox as there are fashion designers creating physical collections in the United States” and “at least six times as many creators as the estimated 1.8 million people that are employed in all of the U.S. fashion industry across manufacturing, textiles and other fashion items.”
Karlie Kloss, the American runway model, is quoted in the report as saying: “Fashion designers in the future won’t just be sewing, they’ll be coding.” Historically this would be a return to, and reversal of, the origins of computing. Some of the earliest programs were punched cards fed in series into looms for the manufacture of patterned cloth. Now reproductions of cloth patterns are making their way into programmed environments that mimic the three-dimensional, “real” world.
Also quoted is Daniel Drak, assistant professor of strategic design and fashion communication at Parsons School of Design, for whom “this ability to easily create digital fashion and make it available to a global consumer audience allows many more individuals to get creative and experiment with designing and sharing their own fashions.” In other words, the metaverse lowers the barriers of the real world, such as the cost of materials, skill in sewing or drafting, and the means of public exposure.
For Cathy Hackl, chief metaverse officer and co-founder of the “innovation and design consultancy” Journey, “the world’s next Coco Chanel is probably a ten-year-old girl who is currently designing avatar skins on Roblox.”
But a number of name brands are on Roblox, among them Gucci, Fashion Klosette (Karlie Kloss’s outfit), Burberry, Tommy Hilfiger, Carolina Herrera, Forever 21 and, as we’ve reported in the past, Puma and Nike.
To compile its report, the metaverse host drew behavioral data from its platform for January to September 2022 and surveyed a thousand Gen Z users in the U.S. aged 14 to 24. Its collaborators were the Parsons School of Design and the pollsters at Momentive, the maker of SurveyMonkey. The data were “balanced for gender” against the U.S. Census Bureau’s “American Community Survey.”
