The World’s First Animal Crossing Fashion Show Is Here

Nintendo has sold more than 13 million copies of Animal Crossing: New Horizons since its release on March 20. The avatar-style game allows players to create their own worlds and communities –but just as important, players can also design their own outfits. This is why it’s interesting: Unlike other video games where only specific customisations can be made, Animal Crossing allows users to essentially design a garment from scratch, creating the exact hem length, flounce, or pattern on the outfit their avatar wears. Unsurprisingly, the game has quickly been adopted by the fashion community, with dozens of Instagram accounts sprouting up to showcase runway-inspired designs from Dior, Sports Banger, and Louis Vuitton, while brands like Valentino, Anna Sui, and Sandy Liang create custom garments for the game.

Reference Festival, a Berlin-based fashion organisation, is taking Animal Crossing’s fashion potential one step further with a virtual fashion show of Animal Crossing avatars dressed up in current season looks inspired by Loewe, Prada, and GmbH. The show was conceived by photographer Kara Chung, who runs the Instagram account @animalcrossingfashionarchive, and stylist Marc Goehring of 032c. “We met through a mutual friend, curator Evan Garza, who had contacted the both of us for an Animal Crossing piece on Art Forum. We connected on a call right after, and thought it’d be a fun way to collaborate!” Chung and Goehring tell Vogue.

The final show takes the form of a three-minute video, and like a prestigious IRL fashion event, it’s soundtracked by Michel Gaubert. “This is the first all digital fashion show I have worked on, and I approached it the same way I would approach a physical show, which is instinctively,” Gaubert says. “The difference here is that the show is actually a video clip of an incredibly popular video game – and I aimed for a playful, free-spirited fashion moment; fun and games.” Set to music by Joon, the Animal Crossing figures hit the runway in Craig Green, Paco Rabanne, and Chanel looks while an audience of foxes, cats, and a hot pink Birdo-esque creature look on from the front row. “I hope it will reach a lot of people from every horizon, and especially people who may only have a vague idea of what a fashion show actually is like,” Gaubert continues. “It was important for me that the music remain as accessible as the game, the show had to have a fun and enchanting spirit as it is a bit of a sweet little parody—just like Animal Crossing itself is an imitation of life which connects a lot of people these days, for the same reasons.”

All-in-all, the final video is not that different from a real fashion show. Although, who’s to say what’s real nowadays? As Goehring describes it, putting together the event was quite similar to prepping a physical fashion show or shoot. “To be honest, [we prepared] very much like a normal pull in the first stage when working on a shoot: I went through my favourite collections of the season and picked the looks,” he says. Of course, as in any fashion editorial, there were a few wrinkles. Now, instead of working with PRs to determine which looks would be available for a shoot date, Goehring worked with Chung to select looks that would translate well to the aesthetic of the video game. “You have to really think about which specifics you can delete from a look and what you pixelate, so that in the end it remains this one specific look which everybody knows – and it’s recognisable!” he continues.

For Reference Festival, staging a virtual fashion show on a popular video game is an extension of the organisation’s non-traditional approach to fashion events. (Last year, the group debuted a 24-hour fashion festival-turned-party.) “I believe that the future of fashion is a broad field of many aspects, and that anything virtual and engaging, and gaming in particular, are among them,” Reference Studios founder Mumi Haiati tells Vogue. “An intention of the first edition of our festival was showcasing new formats of presenting fashion, innovation at its very core—a subject that has now become more important than ever. With the second edition we will carry on doing so and push the idea even further. Gaming specifically adds an aspect of community which of course is a most significant factor in contemporary communications.”

So will specific brands follow suit and stage their own Animal Crossing runways? Can we kiss dreams of Milan Fashion Week goodbye and instead pray we can find a Nintendo Switch? Let’s not go quite that far. Goehring says replacing IRL runway shows isn’t the point. “It’s just a fun project between two fashion industry related gamers. High-five, Kara!” he cheers. To Gaubert, the video represents a joyous escape from the physical world. “You can live your life in a game as you like while being stuck at home, and you can wear your favourite looks from Undercover, Prada, and Raf Simons as you buy turnips or plant red mum flowers in a gender-free environment.” Doesn’t that sound like a little slice of paradise? Though like anything good these days it comes at a cost. The Nintendo Switch gaming console is sold out globally, making it harder to score than a Supreme box logo tee. For now, this fashion show video will have to do.