At Avatar Fashion Store, Meta to Sell Virtual Clothes for Real Money | Investing News

(Reuters) – Fb operator Meta Platforms is launching a digital clothing store where by users can buy designer outfits for their avatars, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg reported on Friday.

Digital outfits built by fashion brand names Balenciaga, Prada and Thom Browne will be obtainable for buy to get started, said Zuckerberg, speaking in a dwell video clip stream with Instagram’s head of fashion.

A Meta spokesperson said they would be priced in between $2.99 and $8.99, a lot fewer than the genuine outfits by people designers. Prada’s Matinee ostrich leather bag, for illustration, sells for $10,700.

Zuckerberg said he hoped to establish the shop out into an open up marketplace exactly where builders can develop and market a large array of electronic apparel.

Avatars have emerged as a single way for Meta to website link user identification throughout Facebook, Instagram and its other expert services, as it significantly ties the platforms alongside one another and steers toward making an immersive “metaverse” of shared, interconnected electronic worlds in which people can gather.

People of the firm’s virtual fact headsets set up avatars to participate in video clip video games, consider workout courses and participate in conference phone calls, even though initially the digital outfits will be accessible only on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, Meta said in a statement.

The company redesigned its digital truth avatars previous calendar year to be extra expressive and three-dimensional, then manufactured them out there on Fb, Instagram and Messenger starting up in January.

(Reporting by Katie Paul and Ahmed Farhatha editing by Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)

Copyright 2022 Thomson Reuters.