Louis Vuitton finally gets into NFTs with $41,000 digital trunks
Although NFTs are not destined to become the mainstream success story that many thought they would be, perhaps they have a place as luxury goods offered exclusively to luxury customers. That seems to be the point of view proposed by Louis Vuitton, which is finally entering the Web3 with its first digital collectibles: a limited edition of digital trunks priced at €39,000 (over $41k) apiece.
Louis Vuitton’s VIA Treasure Trunk are not NFTs in the sense of Bored Ape Yacht Club’s NFTs: while the latter delivered randomly generated images of monkeys wearing hats and smoking pipes, Louis Vuitton’s digital collectibles are meant to be as exclusive and tasteful as LV’s real ones – the product of the world.
Therefore, every VIA Treasure Trunk owner will receive a matching physical Louis Vuitton trunk upon purchase, adding a tangible incentive beyond the desire to collect rare NFTs. Louis Vuitton is also promising VIA Treasure Trunk customers “access to subsequent digital keys that unlock digital collectibles” that include “new, limited products and experiences” such as “immersive drops” scheduled to happen “periodically throughout the year,” according to a press release release.
Launching June 8 on Louis Vuitton’s website, the LV VIA Treasure Trunk collection aims to fulfill a promise made in the early days of the NFT hype: digital collectibles can be just as desirable (and expensive) as IRL goods .
Louis Vuitton naturally first entered the metaverse with Louis gamea mobile game that debuted in August 2021 as part of the luxury house’s Louis 200 anniversary celebration.
The infinite runner style game itself was not built on the blockchain, however Louis game hid 30 embedded NFTs built exclusively for Louis Vuitton by archetypal NFT artist Beeple.
But Louis Vuitton never delved deeper into the metaverse until the VIA Treasure Trunks program in June 2023. When asked by Highsnobiety to explain the timing of this NFT launch, a Louis Vuitton representative declined to comment.
Meanwhile, rivals like Gucci leaned heavily on web3 connections, sold off unique NFT art, and even doubled down on the metaverse by entering into a “multi-year partnership” with Bored Ape Yacht Club parent Yuga Labs on March 27, 2023.
Luxury NFT projects aren’t terribly new either: web3 tech company Ledger has tapped Fendi and AMBUSH for collaborative crypto wallets, and Prada still regularly releases one-off NFTs.
But the idea of NFTs being a market primarily explored by the world’s biggest fashion houses is new and exciting, because it gives the digital collectibles the inherent exclusivity and expensiveness of luxury goods. There the NFTs overlap with the world’s wealthiest consumers, the same people already spending thousands (or millions) on the art market.
The NFT market is not dead either, although it has shrunk significantly from the 2021 highs. Even if the demand for virtual collectibles was zero, the beauty of luxury is that it is essentially recession-proof and always in demand.
And are $41k NFTs any wilder than Louis Vuitton’s leather pizza boxes or $87k foosball tables?
