See the Blizzard’s World of Warcraft in a whole new light and a whole new way with Spectral Sight from K-luxury brand, Gentle Monster.
Esports, the term itself, was scoffed at, at the start of this millennium. If you had revealed your love for video games in the year 2000, you would have stood a very real chance of being ostracized as an “introverted man-child.” And yet, it is one of the fastest-growing industries the world has ever seen, with recent estimates putting revenue earned through sales beyond the $250 billion mark by the year 2025.
Esports has a massive online audience of around 456 million people who tune into live streams, Discord conversations and generally engage with video games and content surrounding them. Video games have truly broken into the mainstream in the last decade or so, a fact reflected by the rapid increase in the female percentage of gamers. It wasn’t going to be long till video games became a part of our normal lives. It looks like the fashion industry has introduced the pathway to further normalizing the far-reaching impact of these fascinating virtual worlds.
Fashion & Games: An Affair of Threads
From 2010 onwards, there has been a sustained effort in the video game community to make games more customizable and allow players to control more elements of the gameplay experience to truly make it personal. This has become clearer since the advent of mobile gaming platforms like PUBG that introduce multiple player skins to help optimize the player’s look according to their taste. It is the consumption of such customizations that revealed the true potential of a crossover between video games and luxury fashion.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the latest version of the bubbly, borderline-utopic social simulation game developed by Japanese gaming giant Nintendo. While the game itself is a relatively straightforward, open-ended game that allows players to explore their environment filled with greenery and anthropomorphic animals, it is the customization aspect that ties the thread between fashion and video games. With its “Pro Outfits” feature, the game lets you customize your avatar’s look with apparel from some of luxury fashion’s biggest names, like a Prada bob, a Supreme t-shirt, and entire outfits from Dior, Gucci, and Chanel.
Louis Vuitton partnered with Riot Games to design a custom outfit for one of its characters for the League of Legends online championship, which drew 100 million global e-spectators.
However, with World of Warcraft, Gentle Monster takes the opposite approach; it takes an in-game novelty and brings it to real life. As a brand, Gentle Monster is known for its very successful collaborations. Whether it’s with Kris Wu or BlackPink’s Jennie, the collections always make a mark. The WoW X Gentle Monster collaboration will probably be no different in living up to the noise it creates!
The “Spectral Sight”: Gentle Monster’s collaboration with Blizzard
South Korea has always had a strong relationship with technology, so it stands to reason that the country is an esports hub. South Korea is one of the only countries in the world to have an Esports Authority and an entire academy dedicated to training future pro-gamers in the Game Coach Academy in Seoul. Esports teams are revered and held on the same pedestal as athletes. Now, the South Korean connection with esports becomes deeper as the young South Korean luxury brand Gentle Monster collaborates with one of the biggest massively multiplayer online RPG games, World of Warcraft.
Gentle Monster and WoW’s developer Blizzard have come together to announce the launch of the Spectral Sight shades inspired by the recent WoW expansion pack, Burning Crusade Classic, and named after a spell in the game. Of course, fans of the original WoW are going gaga by the pack itself, as it is a faithful recreation of the original World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.
Gentle Monster x World of Warcraft “Spectral Sight” Design
The sleek, unconventional design of these shades is classic Gentle Monster, who has made a name for themselves through their whimsical, out-of-the-box designs. This pair of shades pays homage to the character Illidan, a mainstay in WoW lore.
The green tint of the lenses is reminiscent of the fey magic that courses through Illidan’s veins.Â
The structure of the shades resembles Night Elf armor, a beautiful, semi-frameless pair with jagged edges (that reflect Illidan’s corruption), a gracefully curved nose bridge, and sleek, silver arms that continue the motif of fluidity that runs throughout the design.
In addition, it comes with a glasses chain that has the companies’ logos on it. The entire set is part of a promotional giveaway event that will choose winners at random.Â
The package comes with 30-days prepaid time for the WoW Expansion Pack “The Burning Crusades Classic.”
A Hype That’s Worth Your While
The gaming world has been growing rapidly since the global pandemic ensued and is more than likely to keep growing well after it is over. Gentle Monster is the latest in a line of luxury brands to truly embrace the strong wave of Esports. This collaboration is a sign of great things to come for the gaming industry, as it signifies esports’ acceptance as a mainstream commodity. They have definitely upped the ante when it comes to gaming-specific item drops, and it can only get better from here.
