Gucci is expanding its footprint in Web3 and the metaverse through a collaboration with renowned NFT issuer Yuga Labs.
The collaboration piqued the interest of the crypto community because Yuga Labs is the author of the well-known Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC).
Yuga Labs
Furthermore, the team acquired CryptoPunks, Meebits, and 10KTF last year and is presently developing Otherside, a gamified metaverse.
Gucci’s announcement tweet depicts an Ape hand grasping a bottle with a white label depicting a Koda (an NFT avatar from Otherside) and the phrase “Gucci Yuga Labs” beneath it.
Continuing to explore the Metaverse, the House comes together with @yugalabs. Stay tuned as a new narrative takes shape, blurring the boundaries between the physical and digital. pic.twitter.com/v60mzcgqqY
— gucci (@gucci) March 27, 2023
The account for Otherside shared the same teaser, saying:
“In a place where worlds collide, we appear.”
According to Business of Fashion, the two businesses signed a multiyear agreement to collaborate within Yuga Labs’ Otherside metaverse and its 10KTF collection.
According to Gucci’s senior executive vice president, Robert Tryfus, the agreement will give the fashion house “an active role in Otherside and 10KTF’s ongoing narrative.”
It may bring the brand closer to Otherside, he added, as both businesses work to integrate metaverse and fashion.
Previously, 10KTF collaborated with Gucci on the Grail collection, allowing owners of specific NFT collections to overlay the ensembles onto their avatars.
Meanwhile, Yuga Labs debuted its Second Trip for its Otherside universe as a new “metaverse” experience just days ago, on March 25, following last summer’s First Trip.
Gucci’s meta-path is expanding
Gucci is no stranger to the realm of the metaverse. In 2021, the company collaborated with the hugely popular Roblox platform to develop the Gucci Garden, a virtual world.
As previously noted, Gucci began accepting cryptocurrency payments in North American stores in May of last year.
Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), Litecoin (LTC), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Dogecoin (DOGE), and several US dollar-pegged stablecoins were among those included.
Gucci’s president and CEO, Marco Bizzarri, stated at the time, “Gucci is always looking to embrace new technologies when they can provide an enhanced experience for our customers.”
Then, in August, BitPay announced support for ApeCoin (APE) and Euro Coin (EUROC), and Gucci became the first merchant to take APE through BitPay.
Yuga Labs is an ApeCoin contributor, a member of the ApeCoin DAO, and uses ApeCoin as the main token in its initiatives.
The premium label debuted NFT collections, including the “SUPERGUCCI” and “Gucci Grail” collections.
It also bought virtual property in The Sandbox (SAND) metaverse in order to build its “own virtual world.”
Meanwhile, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Adidas, Coach, and Tommy Hilfiger will all be present at this year’s Metaverse Fashion Week, which begins today, as will digital fashion companies like DressX and The Fabricant.
The events will take place in Decentraland, a virtual reality platform built on the Ethereum blockchain, as they did last year; however, they will now also be available on the metaverse platform Spatial and through Over, a decentralised augmented reality (AR) layer that seamlessly overlays virtual assets onto the physical world.
To read our blog on “Metaverse, a $24 bn project died slowly by CEO Zuckerberg,” click here
