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Japanese fashion label Anrealage is known for its avant-garde exploration of technology and the future of the physical world. In February, designer Kunihiko Morinaga dressed drones. Last year, his “photochromic” fabrics, which change colour when hit by ultraviolet light, went viral, thanks in part to a custom piece worn by Beyoncé during her 2023 Renaissance World Tour. Now, the experimental designer is trying a new form factor: mixed reality.
Today, Anrealage becomes the first brand to debut on the new Syky app for the Vision Pro, Apple’s splashy mixed reality headset that debuted in February. This is the first Apple Vision Pro (AVP) fashion app that features fashion inherently designed to be experienced only digitally. Previous AVP experiences — for those including luxury retailers Mytheresa, and brands Gucci and Balenciaga — required brands to retroactively digitise pieces that were made for the physical world. In other words, metaverse fashion is coming to the most significant metaverse device yet.
To begin, the app focuses on aesthetics and storytelling, rather than sales. The app opens with an open-air courtyard that mimics the Syky website, with wisteria branches draping over arches and columns. Similar to the Gucci and Balenciaga apps, it is formatted as a wide screen that appears to be floating in the wearer’s own environment, rather than a fully immersive virtual reality experience. Additional details lean into the magic of mixed reality, however, with purple blossoms and a butterfly extending beyond the screen, lending a feeling of both digital immersion and familiarity.
From this setting, a floating Anrealage ‘Pyramid’ dress appears, hovering upon a metallic circular platform that is evocative of Alexander McQueen’s shows — a key reference in the design of the experience, notes Syky art director Andrew Winglee. The dress, which is a new, digital-only version of Beyoncé’s piece, floats closer to the viewer, who is then able to rotate the three-dimensional dress and view it in incredibly high detail. They can manipulate two robot arms (reminiscent of McQueen’s Spring/Summer 1999 show, where robots sprayed a dress worn by model Shalom Harlow) to change the material and appearance of the garment — a digital-only upgrade that references the designer’s work in colour-changing materials.
Wearers can also select from a number of nearby floating orbs to watch short films featuring the designer and his work, filmed in a high-definition 3D format specifically formatted for the AVP. Syky, to begin, is skipping the sales angle in favour of simply showcasing the brand in a way that maximises the setting. Future plans include archways that serve as additional portals into custom-built designer spaces, where visitors can experience digital extensions of ateliers, fashion presentations and retail.
“When we presented the chance to collaborate with him, he was very excited. It’s just a natural progression for his work,” Winglee says. “The thing that he really wanted to convey is the ability to bring fashion into people’s faces — people who might not have access to his shows or his work. They can experience a fashion show moment in their living room. And that’s what got him excited.”
This blend of digital content in the physical world is how Syky founder and CEO Alice Delahunt envisions the future of spatial computing, offering a window into a designer’s world that extends beyond the two-dimensional screen of today. “I firmly believe that our day to day will be more of a mixed reality experience versus a totally immersive one, and I think building and growing that muscle, in terms of how you create and build, is a really helpful thing to do,” she tells Vogue Business during a preview of the app. “There’s something quite incredible about seeing your space and seeing a garment and the extra additive details coming to life and not necessarily overtaking you, but being supplemental. There’s something innately human about that, versus disappearing into totally technological worlds.”
The partnership was initiated by Nicola Formichetti, an avant-garde stylist who joined as Syky’s artistic director in January, tasked with curating collaborations and drops like these. Morinaga’s work checks a number of boxes for Syky’s entrance into spatial computing. The designer is known for experimental works that bend perceptions of reality, and while he often designs digitally, this is the first project in which the final form factor was intended to remain digital. Additionally, Anrealage is recognised in the traditional fashion industry, having been a finalist for the LVMH Prize in 2019 and having shown at Paris Fashion Week since 2014. He is also based in Tokyo, and Japan is a notably tech-friendly market.
The timing of this project is interesting. It’s early days for both the Vision Pro and digital fashion, but the recent tech hype cycles have created a pattern of anticipation and recalibration that places a lot of pressure on new technologies to reach mainstream adoption quickly. Apple just opened up availability of the device to international markets including parts of APAC (China, Japan and Singapore) and Europe (Germany and France), plus Australia, the UK and Canada, after only being available in the US since February. This comes amid reports that sales have been less than anticipated; market intelligence firm IDC reports that sales are dropping in the US, and that international expansion could supplement that.
The appeal of the $3,500 device, which could see a more affordable counterpart in the coming year, depends on the quality of the content — similar to how the iPhone’s success relied on the ubiquity of its app store, Delahunt points out.
At the same time, mainstream interest in metaverse fashion and NFTs has waned (Syky primarily sells digital fashion as NFTs, often with a physical counterpart), and brand participation in digital fashion has largely pivoted to gaming. Meanwhile, innovation budgets have transitioned from the fantastical to the practical, often through the lens of how artificial intelligence can create efficiencies out of view of the customer.
Syky was built with spatial computing in mind, so it makes sense to build on the AVP early on — especially because Syky’s audience overlaps with AVP owners. (Apple typically works closely with those developing first-of-their-kind apps for the Vision Pro.) While traditional luxury brands and retailers are hoping to capture a new tech-savvy and affluent customer via the device, Syky’s audience is already more closely aligned with that of AVP, making collectors of digital fashion also likely proponents of mixed reality. This overlap could be an advantage for Syky, or it could mean that it’s preaching to the choir, presenting a challenge in scaling the digital fashion audience to the mainstream.
While this is the first digital fashion native to come to the device, traditional fashion, beauty and retail early adopters have thrown their hats in the ring. Elf Beauty, Alo, J Crew and Mytheresa have all opened virtual stores, working with virtual store tech company Obsess. Gucci introduced an embellished version of its short film profiling new creative director Sabato De Sarno, while Balenciaga just introduced an app that features fashion shows and playlists.
So far, most augmented reality and virtual reality experiences can suffer from software issues, physical comfort challenges and occasionally disappointing content, which create barriers to mass consumer adoption, says Molly Burke, senior retail analyst at advisory Software Advice. Being able to shop or draw inspiration from brands in an immersive way that goes beyond what they can experience on existing digital platforms could be helpful, as could a more personalised shopping experience, she adds. “If brands want consumers to shell out money for virtual reality hardware, they’re going to have to give them more.”
Delahunt, who is former chief digital and chief content officer at Ralph Lauren and a former Burberry exec, likens this period to previous eras in which new devices, such as the iPad and iPhone, and new technologies like avatars and augmented reality, came to fashion. “It’s truly just the beginning. And, alongside Apple, we’re building muscle, so we feel really proud of that. To bring designers into that from the early stages, it’s like building the early stages of the internet and building your e-commerce sites.”
Syky hopes to be the bridge for brands and designers, having already formed a Syky Collective for emerging designers and brokered partnerships with physical brands and influencers, shown via Syky’s marketplace and physical events during global fashion weeks.
More AVP projects are planned. Delahunt says that while the ultimate execution of the AVP in fashion is yet to be understood, its potential is bankable. “When you think about the iPhone 1, it didn’t have an app store or a front-facing camera, but if you had one, you ultimately understood this is inevitably a version of the future — but we can’t comprehend what that entirely is.”
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