Shinsegae Department Store, Industry-First Lacoste × Metaverse Game Minecraft Popup

Cross-Genre Collaboration in Sports×Art
Limited Editions Popular Among MZ Generation Customers
Shinsegae Department Store's March Golf & Sportswear Sales Up 25% YoY

Shinsegae Gangnam Store Lacoste × Minecraft Popup.

[Asia Economy Reporter Yuri Kim] Shinsegae Department Store announced on the 28th that it will exclusively introduce the collaboration between the fashion sports brand Lacoste and the metaverse game Minecraft on the 7th floor of the Gangnam branch until the 6th of next month.

This pop-up store features a theme where visitors can explore a virtual world implemented within the real world, including a Lacoste tennis court photo zone decorated with Minecraft props for photo opportunities. Products commemorating the collaboration are also prepared. Visitors can find a collection featuring Lacoste's iconic crocodile logo rendered in pixel graphics. Representative products include printed organic T-shirts, fleece hoodies, and organic fleece sweatshirts.

The world prepared by Lacoste and Minecraft can also be experienced within the metaverse. In Minecraft’s virtual world, 'Croco Island,' a city, forest, beach, and tennis court centered around a large crocodile are constructed, offering a combined online and offline experience including a flagship store for game players’ shopping.

Recently, collaboration products between seemingly unrelated genres have been gaining attention. Collaboration items spanning industries, such as T-shirts featuring artists’ paintings and golf wear co-created with luxury car brands, are popular among MZ generation (Millennials + Generation Z) customers. Since last year, designs collaborating with art and sports have been recognized as differentiated content, increasing demand especially among MZ customers who seek unique experiences and products.

The pop-up store of the fashion brand JuneSi, launched on the 8th floor of Shinsegae Gangnam branch since the 18th, attracted attention by recording sales exceeding plans by 10%, featuring popular artists like Min Kyung-hee and Altime Jo who personally painted artworks on jackets, T-shirts, and hats.

The 'Live Drawing' event, where artists draw directly in the fashion store, and the 'Artist Curation Service,' where artists personally explain products collaborated with artworks, have been praised as new content never before seen in department stores, gaining popularity among customers in their 20s and 30s.

Beyond collaborations with artists, collaboration genres are diversifying to include automobiles and metaverse games. Last month, the products introduced through a pop-up store at Shinsegae Gangnam branch by Descente Golf and the Italian car brand Maserati incorporated designs of Maserati’s popular car models into clothing. The unprecedented golf wear designs and limited edition elements stimulated purchase demand, gaining popularity among customers who buy for collection purposes.

Thanks to the popularity of collaboration products, the department store’s fashion sector is also recording strong performance. From March 1 to 22, Shinsegae Department Store’s sports and golf wear category grew by 25% compared to the same period last year.

Choi Moon-yeol, Fashion Director (Executive Director) at Shinsegae Department Store, said, "To satisfy the diverse shopping demands of future potential customers in their 20s and 30s, we are discovering and introducing unique collaboration products in the fashion genre," adding, "We will continue to lead the industry by presenting differentiated online and offline content."