Digital Identities & Luxury Brands in Cyber Spaces
A few years ago, “luxury x gaming” felt like a weird PR stunt you’d see once, screenshot, forget, and then go back to your real life… where handbags are physical and “skins” are something you moisturize.
And now it’s… kind of everywhere?
Think about it, have you ever bought clothes for a ‘you’ who doesn’t technically exist?
Not for you you. But for an avatar of you?
Maybe you curated an outfit for your Bitmoji, or spent some coins in Club Penguin.
Twelve-year-old me, clutched to my allowance like a war bond, and handed it all to Nexon so my Maplestory character could roll the randomizer-dice on a new hairstyle. And I did it again. And again. And again. Until I got the rare one I wanted. The one that made my little pixel-chibi feel… correct.
Not better.
Correct.
As if the hair wasn’t an accessory, it was a key. A proof. A signal.
A version of me that only existed inside this digital world, and yet somehow mattered enough to justify an entire childhood economy.
So when luxury apparel companies partner with online games now, I don’t see it as a weird “metaverse moment.”
I see it as a return to something we’ve already been practicing for over a decade:
Buying into our digital identity.
The only difference is that now, it’s being done with Balenciaga-level budgets and brand strategy decks instead of my poor mother wondering why I’m turning my birthday money into virtual “NX Cash”
There are two sides to “fashion in cyber spaces” that are worth talking about:
The marketing logic (why luxury is here, why it works)
The identity logic (what it reveals about us… and where it’s headed)
Let’s start with some context:
Luxury Fashion is Flirting With Video Games (and it’s both hot and a little terrifying)
Coach recently launched a collection inside The Sims 4 (customizable items pulled from their ready-to-wear line) and their marketing lead basically said what we were all wondering out loud: we’re here because Gen Z is here.
This sparked a lot of controversy.
Meeting your audience where they are at isn’t a new tactic, and luxury also isn’t newly entering cyber or digital spaces.
One can argue that buying an expensive weapon in a combat-style game or even purchasing articles of clothing to level-up their character’s ‘aesthetic’ would be considered as ‘luxury items’.
Luxury is following attention into the places where people actually socialize, and in 2026, these places happen to look like Roblox and Fortnite and Minecraft.
And if you zoom out, it makes a disturbing amount of sense.
Games As The New Mall
Luxury has always been about three things:
identity
status
belonging
For teens, the mall used to be a place where those three things got performed publicly. Now? The performance is happening in digital worlds that function like hangout spaces… where you’re not just playing, you’re being seen by your friends.
So when luxury brands show up inside games, they’re not “innovating.” They’re doing what they’ve always done: showing up wherever social life is happening, and selling status symbols people can wear inside it.
It’s pretty much an inevitable next step for physical apparel brands to be turning digital: millions of players, massive revenue, and a generation that doesn’t neatly divide “physical life” from “digital life.”
Luxury didn’t change.
But the catwalk did.
How our digital appearances impact our identity
Character building as a Identity Building
When you enter a game that lets you choose a character or build an avatar, what do you do?
Do you try to make them look like you?
A slightly improved you?
A fantasy version of you?
Or someone else entirely?
Every option is a peek into someone’s personality.
For me, whenever I’m playing a game where I have to pick a character, I almost always pick the most muscular one. And if there isn’t a muscular option, depriving me of my rightful himbo path, I’ll pick the one with the most eyes or most arms.
Is it just that I want to be built like a refrigerator because the world feels flimsy? Or because I’ll never have giant-troll arms as a 5’2 lady?
But because I bring up the gym a lot to my online friends, when a friend from New York came to visit me last year, a mutual online friend of ours asked him if I was actually buff in person! (Thanks Adon for saying yes 😂)
The avatar choice isn’t random.
I brought the question to 22 online friends (all of whom I’ve met from video games). I asked them how they would choose to customize their video game’s character’s appearance. 14 of them said ‘it depends how I’m feeling’ and of those, 6 of them used the word ‘cute’, and 5 of them used the word ‘cool’ in their answer. 2 used the word ‘good’.
4 of those 14 said they like to incorporate an element of humour (examples included a funny chin and a hairstyle resembling a palm tree. One answer used the word ‘shock value’ and ‘bazaar’. The last used the descriptors of ‘fantasy’ and ‘expressive’.
2 of the 21 (both male) said they would create the most extreme character. One described creating the ‘weirdest/creepiest’ version of a character imaginable. The other described their extremism was typically in the form of a monochromatic character (the example he gave was all black with red eyes).
2 of them (both female) said they make their character as pretty as possible, but surprisingly, both also mentioned in certain instances, they have funny-looking characters ones as well.
2 of them (One male, one non-binary) mentioned making their characters look like their favourite anime characters (One saying their character of choice is “a source of comfort and aesthetic inspiration”).
One of them (male) mentioned that the stats of their armour dictated what they would wear.
What surprised me the most was that only ONE of them (male) said they typically make their character look like a digital version of themselves.
The Loin Cloth Problem:
Now, my fiancé is a big gamer. We actually met through a mutual friend in an online game, which is either romantic or a red flag… but it proves the thesis: games aren’t just entertainment.
They’re social life.
Anyways, right now, his game of choice is World of Warcraft. When he was getting into it, a friend of his gave him armour that he described (with sincere disgust) as basically a tiny loin cloth. He was grateful for the gift, but he hated how it looked. So he immediately went hunting for new pants.
And I found this whole situation fascinating because in person, clothes are the least of his worries. He will wear his old, grey sweatpants to work every day and think nothing about it. Meanwhile, I’m the person who thinks about my outfits like they a geopolitical strategy. But in the game? The loin cloth bothered him. Which tells me something important: We don’t only care about how we look in the physical world.
We care about how we look where we feel most witnessed.
Your avatar is both aesthetic AND a social presence. It’s your body language in a place where your real body isn’t available. It’s a layer of identity you can edit when you can’t edit your face, your voice, your posture, your vibe.
So when luxury sells skins or digital bags or runway looks inside a game, it’s not “selling fashion.” It’s a new way selling social confidence in environments where social life is increasingly bustling.
And that is both exciting and terrifying.
The Politics of Body Sliders
The first time I really clocked how loaded digital identity can be wasn’t a runway collab. It was Bitmoji.
I was with a friend when we discovered it… and yes, we were probably a little old to be that excited, but I wanted to have fun with my tiny cartoon self. Let me live.
There were (no idea what it looks like as of now) around three body types to choose from. As if the designers had never met a human being before. My friend got visibly annoyed because he couldn’t make himself larger to accurately represent his body.
His reaction was definitely warranted. He was bumping into a boundary that shouldn’t exist:
“You can be here, but only in the shapes and colours we allow.”
But his reaction stayed with me. Because it revealed something most people don’t articulate until the moment a “fun little avatar creator” refuses to recognize them.
Digital identity tools aren’t neutral.
They carry values.
They decide what’s normal, what’s available, what’s “acceptable” to depict.
And luxury is stepping into these worlds at the exact moment we’re realizing that a digital body can be just as politically charged as a physical one.
Then there’s The Sims… the girl’s original gateway drug of virtual selfhood.
I got Sims 3 as a distraction gift from my parents when I was in grade 7, recovering from mouth surgery. And I did what any kid would do: I made my family.
I was so proud. Like, “look mom, I built our entire existence from scratch.” And she peered over my shoulder and said: “That is NOT what I look like… but I’m flattered you think so.”
Because of course my Sims family looked barbie-ified and objectively better to societal standards, and more symmetrical. That’s what these tools do: they don’t only represent you. They shape what you think counts as a “enhanced” version of you.
So when a luxury brand shows up inside these systems, it’s not just selling digital clothing.
It’s participating in the production of the ideal.
Children as the Future Consumer
When luxury shows up in Roblox and Fortnite, it’s not only reaching a younger Gen Z. It’s reaching Gen Alpha… Kids whose first “Gucci moment” might be a virtual item, not a store.
Limited edition items in games like Roblox have become cultural and influential touch points for younger users.
That’s brilliant brand-building.
It’s also a little unsettling when you remember: these are minors being socialized into luxury as identity before they can even drive.
Luxe brands are playing the long game: you don’t need a 17-year-old to buy the bag today. You need them to build an emotional relationship with the brand and bag’s symbol NOW—so when their spending power catches up, the brand already lives in their identity AND triggers nostalgia.
Why this is Dystopian
Let’s not pretend this is innocent.
If games are becoming our third places, and luxury is moving in, that means our social infrastructure is being branded.
The digital mall becomes the digital town square. The act of “hanging out” becomes inseparable from commerce. Identity becomes an interface layer you can upgrade.
Which raises questions nobody wants to stare at too long:
What happens when selfhood becomes increasingly modular AND increasingly monetized?
When the easiest way to feel like “yourself” is to buy the correct visual signals?
When belonging becomes a purchase, not a relationship?
When a kid’s first encounter with luxury isn’t a store they can’t enter, but a game they live inside?
That’s social capitalism.
And if you think that sounds dramatic, please remember: I was twelve years old giving my entire allowance to Nexon so I could roll for hair until the rare one appeared.
We’ve been primed for this.
We’ve been practicing for this.
We’ve been paying for this for over a decade.
But also Why this is Exciting:
There’s something kind of beautiful about it, if you let yourself admit that.
Digital fashion can be play.
It can be creativity.
It can be self-expression without the physical gatekeeping of price, location, body type, or occasion.
It can let someone participate in an aesthetic world they love without needing to own a $3,000 item IRL.
Especially if the item is designed the way they should be virtually:
not as “digital spaces,” but as a real channel where real people hang out
aligned with the game’s community and logic
Aligned with the player’s values, sense of self, or personality
Gamers aren’t a captive audience.
They’re a co-authoring audience.