Luxury fashion house Loewe has launched a new line of clothing and accessories that may appeal to those of the digital persuasion. Loewe’s new SS23 collection aims to provide a “real world glitch” with its pixel-heavy fashion (opens in a new tab) sure to catch some double-takes in the real world. Even more eye-catching than the fashionista photos are the real-world prices of these digital goods, which start at $590 for a t-shirt and go up to $3,400 for a bag.
According to Loewe, “the digital world is decontextualized” with its latest line. The digital-physical collection includes such delights as a $2,500 pixelated hoodie, $2,500 pixelated pants, an $1,850 pixelated top, and a $3,400 pixelated bag.
The collection also includes some (relatively) cheaper items, such as a pixelated denim jacket for $1,450, a pixelated denim skirt for $790, and a pixelated pair of jeans for $990. The cheapest item is a white graphic tee for “only” $590. Creating a complete outfit from the collection will easily cost you over $9,000 – and you still need to buy some shoes and underwear.
Loewe does not neglect the packaging either. Customers will receive products from the SS23 line in limited pixel print bags (while supplies last).
Gamers are used to seeing pixelated characters and objects in games, especially in retro games and emulated classic titles. Pixelated graphics also came back into style a few years ago, when we saw a wave of stylized flat/2D titles – a trend that prompted gamers to demand sharper integer scaling in their graphics drivers.
The pixelation effect in Loewe’s new SS23 collection looks more like what we saw in classic 3D titles in the early 2000s, although the edge weight gives off some Borderlands-style vibes.
In 2023, graphics similar to the Loewe SS23 collection will mostly be seen by those running demanding modern titles on iGPUs in “potato mode”. You may also see similar graphics if the VRAM on the GPU starts to run low, as this can sometimes render objects and scenes with low-resolution (or no) textures, resulting in blurry or pixelated images.
This is far from the first time pixels have hit the runway. Japanese designer Kunihiko Morinaga notably featured pixels in his FW11 collection for Anrealage, and other designers such as Burberry (opens in a new tab) and Akris have pixelated prints in their current collections.
