Velvet Labs: What Machine-A’s VR spin on London Fashion Week means for brands and retailers
Runways have never been short of innovation. Back in 2019, London Fashion Week was already dishing out VR headsets to audiences. But in the heat of a pandemic, the claustrophobic formula of models, designers and celebrities desperately needed a pivot.
So, what did brands and retailers do? They retrofitted the runway for our handheld devices.
Top of the pile (groan!) for me was Machine-A, a luxury boutique in the heart of Soho, which showcased new collections through a VR experience of its store. A QR-led treasure hunt in the nooks and crannies of London gave eagle-eyed city dwellers an opportunity to virtually transport themselves into the property and explore luxury pieces making their debut.
I’m just on the edge of London, so these QR codes were unlikely to be plastered around my local suburban high street. But its Instagram account offered a fallback, and as we’re exploring the stickiness of virtual experiences for our Velvet Labs, I decided to try it out
Once the filter was launched, an open door propped up onto my screen. I then had to take physical steps to venture inside, manoeuvring my phone to explore each quarter in depth. I instantly knew this wasn’t an experience that can match being in-store because, frankly, it just doesn’t feel natural. But time could change that.
Machine-A also uses tappable widgets to engage users; displaying quotes from brands on their hopes for the ‘future of fashion’. For anyone with a vested interest in this industry, this is a neat little toy.
Although the cold and sterile visuals mirror the shop’s interior, the experience doesn’t attempt to replicate any of its in-store offerings. There are no shoppable moments, no AR try-ons, and no customer service chatbots. Instead, it’s a short and sweet taste of what’s to come if the fashion ecosystem goes ‘phygital’.
Virtual experiences have been at the underbelly of retail for some time. But for those concerned about how both online and offline can continue to reap the benefits, Machine-A might have just found a solution. Offering consumers an opportunity to virtually browse a store’s layout through their phones – largely in the same habitual ways they’d do before the pandemic – bridges the two effortlessly.
Ideally, this is the first step in what our genius client Simon Hathaway, MD EMEA Outform, calls the digital handshake: retailers sharing customer data across their digital and traditional bricks and mortars estates, via our mobile devices to improve the overall shopping experiences. (In fact, Outform’s research found that 83% of us are already using our phones in-store to browse, so bringing VR interactivity in-store seems like a natural progression. The next step will be integrating commerce functions for a quick check-out.)
Exclusivity – for all
The real genius in Machine-A’s virtual store is its inclusivity. Luxury shopping has always discouraged potential shoppers who felt excluded by its high-brow nature. But emerging technologies like VR can encourage consumers to explore environments where they didn’t feel they belonged.
This should expand outside of retail too. London Fashion Week curators would be wise to create a limited number of virtual seats so that young fashion nomads – where attending such an event is a pipe dream – can watch collections as they’re presented on the runway in real-time.
Machine-A’s QR-led experience is a tidy add-on for London Fashion Week. A bit like a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy to support the launch of a film. But there’s no reason for the retailer not to leverage this into a permanent alternative for its shopper base.