Meta Platforms, the company that owns Facebook, is introducing a digital apparel store where users can buy designer costumes for their avatars, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
To begin, Zuckerberg stated in a live video stream alongside Instagram’s director of fashion that virtual ensembles made by fashion giants Balenciaga, Prada, and Thom Browne will be available for purchase.
They will be priced between $2.99 to $8.99, according to a Meta spokesman, which is far cheaper than the actual outfits by those designers. The Matinee ostrich leather purse from Prada, for example, costs $10,700.
As Meta gradually connects the platforms together and steers toward developing an immersive “metaverse” of shared, linked digital worlds where users may assemble, avatars have emerged as one means for Meta to integrate user identities across Facebook, Instagram, and its other services.
Users of Meta’s virtual reality headsets create avatars to play video games, exercise, and engage in conference calls, however the digital costumes will initially only be available on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, according to the firm.
Last year, the business revamped its virtual reality avatars to make them more emotive and three-dimensional, and in January, it made them available on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.
