The French fashion house will let us attend the Paris Fashion Week showing from the front row.
Balenciaga is the latest fashion brand to jump into the 360-degree VR video game, letting fans from around the world view their runway show in real-time through a VR live stream – available through a dedicated app.
The free Balenciaga app is currently available for Android and iOS devices, giving you two options to experience the scheduled live stream in either 360-degree video or if you have a Google Cardboard viewer, “VR mode”.
Although Balenciaga has made a habit of live streaming past seasons on the runway (desktop viewing available at live.balenciaga.com), this is the first time the brand is experimenting with streaming in VR. The 360° live stream kicks of March 6th at 2:30am PST / 5:30am EST.
Screenshot of Balenciaga 360° live streaming app.
For fashion fans, this Balenciaga Fall Winter 2016 showing in Paris will also be the debut collection of Demna Gvasalia, who was hired to replace Alexander Wang as the house’s artistic director in October.
In recent months, it seems 360° live streaming of fashion shows have become quite a common occurrence, where almost every major Fashion Week has some designer giving their fans this unique immersive access experience. 360-degree live streaming helps engage fans like never before, democratizing the often fashion elite attended shows with a tool that can let anyone access these hot ticket events.
The fashion industry has been quick to experiment with virtual reality and continues to evolve with the medium.
Brands like Tommy Hilfiger and 7 For All Mankind created in store VR experiences to give shoppers another way to experience their new collections. Last year, TOMS brought fans closer than ever to their core mission of Giving Trips through an in-store VR experience on Gear VR headsets and H&M previewed Gear VR experiences to music lovers at Coachella.
TOMS Giving Trip in-store VR experience.
From the fashion publication side of things, we have seen Elle Canada take us behind-the-scenes of a cover shoot in VR and InStyle give us unique access to their cover shoot with Drew Barrymore in VR. Fashion publication Refinery 29 even created an entire VR series in collaboration with Samsung called “Fashionably Bound.”
Some fashion brands even experimented with creating their own headsets. Dior made a custom headset it called “Dior Eyes” that was made available in store. Rebecca Minkoff captured their runway show in 360° video and sold custom Google Cardboard viewers on their site.
Image Credit: Balenciaga
