Chanel, the French fashion house, has been conspicuously absent from Metaverse developments. While Gucci and Balenciaga have created digital assets such as NFTs (non-fungible-token)
Chanel Makes Its First Metaverse Move For The Virtual Reality Experience 'Le Bal De Paris.'
Chanel, the French fashion house, has been conspicuously absent from Metaverse developments. While Gucci and Balenciaga have created digital assets such as NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and skins for gaming platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite, Chanel has made little noise in the virtual fashion space.
Balenciaga launched a Metaverse Business Unit last year, but Chanel's President Bruno Pavlovsky told Vogue Business, "Chanel will never be the first." The Metaverse is a digital revolution. We'll probably come with our own contribution when we're ready.' As a result, demand for the brand's products has been growing. And believe it or not, the heritage of this item goes back to Louis Vuitton! As far as I'm concerned, that was when everything started to fall into place.
Le Bal de Paris
The Bal de Paris, created by Blanca Li, is a virtual experience that mixes music and dance with participants from the audience actively taking part alongside two main dancers, all clothed in Chanel. 'I knew what I was looking for, as I do with all of my stage shows... In a statement, Li explained, "Virtual reality just gave me a lot more freedom to imagine and be creative in all of these aspects."
'After seeing state of the art in the VR section at the Venice International Film Festival in 2018, 'In 2018, I chose to work with BackLight Studio, who had a good history of creating real-time full-body awareness avatars for location-based applications, and we began working together after seeing state of the art in the VR sector at the Venice International Film Festival.'
Toni Racklin, the Barbican's head of theatre and dance, joined the mission to create a virtual reality show about four years ago, along with producer Etienne Li and visual creation director Vincent Chazal. 'Trying to immerse real dancers and spectators together inside a virtual reality show was something completely unprecedented, existing only in my imagination,' they explain. The Grand Palais has unveiled its new vision for the future, with Le Bal de Paris winning the Lion prize for Best VR Experience at the 78th Venice International Film Festival.
Experience in Chanel's Metaverse (Le Bal de Paris)
Attendees wearing VR headsets and body-tracking sensors are transformed into characters, actively exploring a series of fantastical virtual worlds while following a love story acted out by the Blanca Li Dance Company. Chanel has a long history of involvement with performance, particularly dance and opera. Gabrielle Chanel was a patron of Serge Diaghilev, the founder of the revolutionary Ballets Russes company in the twentieth century, and the designer also created costumes for numerous ballets, working with figures such as Vaslav Nijinsky and Serge Lifar. Chanel has been a patron of the Paris Opera Ballet since 2021, having previously supported its dance season.
Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow
Although Balenciaga created a video game titled Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow for their A/W 21 show, few brands have been able to maintain control over the environments in which their digital creations are displayed. The first-ever Metaverse Fashion Week, held earlier this year on Decentraland, featured brands such as Etro, Tommy Hilfiger, and Philipp Plein, but the four-day online event was widely panned for its glitchy, lo-fi aesthetic.
Le Bal de Paris works hard to ensure that this does not happen with Chanel. 'The costumes are a key element because each spectator can choose his Chanel outfit for the duration of the story...BackLight had to work very hard to make the fabric movements feel real and beautiful,' Li explains. The experience maintains Chanel's reputation as a high-end French couture house, transporting guests to a grand ballroom and the cobblestone streets of Paris.
Barbican's Backstage Theatre Space
On a Saturday afternoon, I attend the hour-long performance; each day, there are approximately eight group slots. We are led into the Barbican's backstage theatre space, along with twelve others. Blanca Li dancers strap body-tracking sensors to my wrists and ankles before instructing me to put on my VR headset, which transports me into a dressing room with red velvet curtains. The human companions I have now have rabbit-like or fox-like metallic heads, which go nicely with the Chanel suits on display. While I'm walking around a makeshift room in the Barbican, I'm reaching out my hand to 'activate' and try on Chanel gowns and suits at Le Bal de Paris. 'I wanted an incredible haute couture costume collection by a fashion designer, and I asked Chanel, which has a timeless elegance and audacious identity that matched the concept of my show,' Li explains.
Chanel avant-garde silhouette
I chose a long white column dress with a black dropped waistband - an iconic Chanel avant-garde silhouette - with the house's camélia flower motif, which was first introduced in the 1920s. Simple yet elegant, it's intrinsically Chanel, and house ambassador Kristen Stewart wore a sexier, sheer version to the Cruise 2023 after-party earlier this month in Monaco. Wearing Chanel, albeit in digital form, is an experience in and of itself as a brand far beyond my and most other ordinary people's budgets.
I can see the dress ripple as I twirl my hips when I look down. I see my companions dressed up and transformed all around me. We all appear noticeably more elegant than we actually are. Isn't it exciting that one woman says she never wears high heels? At this point, I can only compare it to being inside a video game, where you can be someone or something you would never be in real life.
We're probably only taking about ten steps forward in real life, but in our alternate reality, we're walking down a long colonnade lined with harps. We look up to see an endless starry night as the moon glistens on the water around us as we hurtle towards a golden lift at the far end of the room. The sound of a party grows louder as the lift takes us up until the doors open onto a massive ballroom. We are led into the center of the room on a platform, high above a slew of dancers. Leaning over the balustrade, the effect of the space is so real that I get dizzy. A grand moving staircase is reminiscent of Hogwarts magic.
This is the first act of three. Music continues to run as a narrative throughout the experience as we follow the lead protagonists who dance their way through proceedings, which are soundtracked by a classical waltz orchestra scored by Tao Gutiérrez and echoing late 19th century ballrooms. We board a boat for a ride across a lake before entering through a massive set of garden gates straight out of a fairytale. We wind our way through a maze and take a train to the streets of Paris, eventually arriving at 'Mimi's' nightclub in Paris to the sounds of jazz and Cancan dancing.
Chanel's virtual costumes
Chanel's virtual costumes are lovely, but they lack the detailed craftsmanship of a Chanel bouclè jacket or embroidered couture gown. However, it doesn't really matter at this point. Visitors to Le Bal de Paris come for the 360-degree experience, and Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel's late artistic director, was a master world-builder.
He established a precedent for fantastical, real-life fashion shows by transforming the Grand Palais in Paris into spectacular new worlds that influenced how the public perceives 'fashion.' These cinematic runway shows included feats such as a 265-tonne iceberg for A/W 10 and a giant supermarket for A/W 14, as well as paved the way for the annual traveling cruise shows to destinations such as Dubai and Monaco, where his predecessor Virginie Viard held the brand's most recent adventure. Chanel has been able to create virtual versions of their designs and house them in a fantastical world only possible in the digital space by supporting Le Bal de Paris without undermining their brand image.
Final Words
Since 2015, Chanel has gradually increased the prices of their handbags, at an average of 71 percent since before the pandemic. Desirability and exclusivity are important for Chanel, and it's worth noting that Le Bal de Paris is a ticketed event with a limited run. However, after delaying their entry into the Metaverse in order to protect their authenticity, Chanel's participation in Le Bal de Paris demonstrates how fashion brands can still engage in virtual developments while maintaining their core values. Let us know if you have any related experience.
All Rights Reserved. Metaverse Fashion Week. MVFW 2023
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