What is it with fashion and its fascination with competitive video gaming?

When Louis Vuitton made the leap into the e-sports arena in 2019, it was to design for the 'League Of Legends' world championship. Photo: Louis Vuitton

The pandemic has resulted in fashion shifting its focus from physical to digital. Runway shows for example, have become online extravaganzas. Shopping is now largely something done on your computer or mobile phone.

Another aspect that the industry is trying to integrate itself into is video games. Not merely creating outfits for virtual characters though.

Big fashion labels are also dressing professional gamers.

While we are all currently focused on the Olympics, it should not be forgotten that there is one competitive arena proving to be more of a hit among millennials and gen-Zs: electronic sports or e-sports.

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Fashion’s foray into professional video gaming already started a few years back. In 2019, Armani Exchange named Italian e-sports organisation Mkers as its global ambassador.

The fashion house designed the Mkers official jersey.

It was said to be a first for the e-sports scene, causing great excitement among fans. Mkers has fielded teams in titles such as Fifa, Clash Royale, StarCraft, Street Fighter and Rocket League.

More recently, Japanese streetwear Onitsuka Tiger announced its participation in this year’s Intel World Open. It produced the official uniforms for the event, which concluded last month.

From tracksuits, a T-shirt and other apparel, to shoes with the symbolic colours of Street Fighter and Rocket League (games part of the championship), the designs aimed at breaking the stereotype of gamers being nerds or sloppy dressers.

Fashion brands are clamouring to get their names on the merchandise of video game tournaments. Photo: Onitsuka Tiger

Putting on agame face

The act of fashion trying to work its way into the gaming community comes as no surprise.

After all, e-sports championships are now seen by the younger generation as on par with traditional sporting events.

In 2013, the US started offering P-1 visas (designated for internationally recognised athletes) to professional gamers – though, the process is still quite obscure and results vary from one applicant to another.

E-sports events generate a lot of money too. This year’s Dota 2 International 10 tournament has a crazy prize pool of more than US$40mil (RM169mil). It means the winning team (comprising five people) will snag about US$18mil (RM76mil).

That amount of cash associated with the e-sports scene will of course attract the attention of luxury fashion labels.

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In 2019, Louis Vuitton partnered the League Of Legends World Championship. The result was a one-of-a-kind travel case, which was commissioned to hold the trophy awarded to the world champions in Paris.

In addition, Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of women’s collections, Nicolas Ghesquiere, designed unique champion skins for one of the game’s characters and a capsule collection, plus other digital assets.

While it marked the luxury label’s first big step into the e-sports industry, it had previously designed special trophy cases for traditional sporting events like the Fifa World Cup and Rugby World Cup.

In 2020, Ghesquiere designed an outfit for another of League Of Legends’ character. The marketing visual (shown on the cover) featured Ghesquiere posing with Senna, who was dressed in his “clothes”. He also created a second actual capsule collection inspired by the game.

The influence of gamers

Another luxury fashion label, Gucci, has attempted to tap into the star power of professional gamers.

In June last year, it unveiled a timepiece inspired by Fnatic’s League Of Legends team. The watch had the professional gaming organisation’s logo at the 6 o’clock marker, paired with a black and orange dial and bezel.

Like famous athletes, professional video gamers are also getting their own specially designed watches. Photo: Gucci

As the label described it, “The archival code mirrors both the initials of (founder) Guccio Gucci and the gaming slogan, ‘Good Game’.”

It reportedly sold out within 48 hours of the launch.

Gucci even invited the team members of Fnatic to its Autumn/Winter 2020 menswear show. They were the first professional gamers to attend Milan Fashion Week.

However, it is not the just about fashion reaping benefits from e-sports. The opposite has happened too.

Like how certain streetwear brands has found fame from within the Californian skate and surf culture, e-sports has birthed its own cult labels.

Take for instance, 100 Thieves. This label (a namesake of the gaming organisation) has been dubbed “the Supreme of e-sports” – with Supreme being a now-established, wildly popular streetwear brand.

Think that people who play video games dont have a fashion sense? They have gone on to launch their own clothing labels. Photo: 100 Thieves

For context, Supreme is the kind of brand that can sell out a fashion collection within minutes.

Built at the intersection of competitive gaming and apparel, 100 Thieves was founded in 2017 by Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag, the former OpTic Gaming Call Of Duty captain and 2014 E-sports Athlete Of The Year.

In its first two years, 100 Thieves won multiple e-sports major championships in Call Of Duty, made the League Of Legends and Fortnite world championships – and more importantly, sold out over a dozen apparel drops.

When 100 Thieves opened its first physical retail store in California last year, a long line of fans was seen queuing up. The accompanying capsule collection comprised unisex clothes of mostly casual tops, bottoms, outerwear and headwear

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“My goal since day one with 100 Thieves has been to elevate apparel in the gaming community,” read the statement by Haag at that time.

And he seems to have been successful. Gucci announced a collaboration with 100 Thieves last month.

“The collaboration draws on the shared values of Gucci and 100 Thieves, both companies passionately believe in diversity and self-expression, championing the importance of being able to hold a personal point of view without feeling limited by convention,” the fashion house said of the collaboration in a release.

This only goes to show that we should really dispense with the notion that gamers are nothing but a bunch of awkward-looking people with no fashion sense.

Even if they may not be among the most stylish of crowds, the e-sports community itself is carving out a niche within the fashion industry, something which labels and brands have no qualms of staking a claim to reap the benefits.