Gucci just bought real estate in the Metaverse

Gucci and The Sandbox, a metaverse and gaming platform based on virtual real estate sales, have announced the start of their collaboration to bring the Gucci Vault project presented in Milan last September into the metaverse. The Sandbox is a kind of virtual world with 30,000 active users per month, of which users can buy digital "plots of land" to be developed at will, creating gaming experiences and exchanging virtual currencies to sell, create and exchange equipment – it is precisely here that Gucci Vault will build an immersive digital store where it will be possible to buy NFT,  live immersive experiences (from what the brand said to Vogue, there should also be a maze of some kind) but also giving visibility to emerging designers and, presumably, also buying the reconditioned vintage items already present in the Vault e-commerce. 

Although Gucci is not the first brand to enter The Sandbox (adidas preceded it last November), its interest in the metaverse has not really had equal in fashion, both physical and digital. In addition to announcing this project by also creating an ad hoc Instagram page for Vault, Gucci was the first luxury brand to sign an NFT, with a video of the Aria collection auctioned through Christie's in May, and its Gucci Garden experience on Roblox where a virtual bag was sold for over $ 4,000. In addition, the brand recently collaborated with Superplastic on a collection of 500 NFT of 1.5 ethereum each distributed in three drops and accompanied by physical ceramic sculptures – a project so successful that the third drop was postponed to protect the NFT from bots that automatically bought them in a way no different from that in which they sold out the sneaker releases of the past in a few minutes. Moreover, Gucci recently posted a job offer for a manager of its Discord server, mentioning that the role will have a lot to do with NFTs.

The news also confirms how gaming ecosystems such as The Sandbox and Decentraland are starting to become increasingly important spaces for brands and designers as they allow you to build immersive experiences in retail spaces and for digital events (imagine a Gucci botique that does not have to obey the laws of physics or the limitations of space) but also to sell products ranging from secondhand bags to works of art up to the NFTs of each type. Already at the end of March, a Metaverse Fashion Week will take place on Decentraland where see-now-buy-now formats will be experimented with but also hybrid shows halfway between physical and digital fashion and virtual events. And even creative agency Al Dente, which collaborates with brands like Louis Vuitton, Versace, Chanel, and Omega, began its real estate expansion in The Sandbox to probe the ground and start bringing its activities into the metaverse.