The Interview: It's Metaverse Beauty Week! Here's everything you need to know from its Founders
Metaverse Beauty Week kicks off today, with events taking place from 12-16 June for brands and consumers to experience beauty through a series of virtual web3 experiences.
The first-of-its-kind beauty festival will see participating brands host a suite of immersive experiences that look to "redefine the future of beauty in our virtual lives". As part of this, consumers are invited to explore ‘phygital’ converged experiences, wearables and gamified activations from a variety of brands spanning the beauty and wellness sectors.
In this interview with TheIndustry.beauty, Bridey Lipscombe and Cat Turner, Founders of Metaverse Beauty Week, speak all about the festival, the brands involved, highlight moments and what they hope it will achieve.
What is Metaverse Beauty Week?
Metaverse Beauty Week is the world's first web3 beauty festival dedicated to challenging beauty standards in the metaverse. It exists across a multiversal structure from Spatial, Decentraland and Roblox, as well as IRL components at Flannels X on London's iconic Oxford Street.
How will it work?
The programme runs across six days; five are dedicated to playful experiences in the metaverse worlds, and the final two are IRL consumer experiences where AR blends the digital and physical worlds.
Why have you started it?
We were inspired by Metaverse Fashion Week last year - and as beauty experts we wanted to explore how this would translate into deeper digital experiences for global consumers to enjoy. For us, it's about embracing these unknown frontiers to educate and inspire the beauty industry and consumers alike.
What do you hope Metaverse Beauty Week will achieve?
We hope it inspires more ambitious metaversal experiences, more blended world (IRL/IVL) executions by creators and brands. We're also focused on highlighting important topics that are not justly addressed in web3 presently such as; accessibility, representation and self-expression.
What can visitors expect?
They can expect different executions across each three worlds and IRL, with a daily programme aimed at highlighting different subjects from 'Redefining Beauty' to 'Subverting Beauty Norms'.
What are some of the beauty brands and experiences involved?
We have a deliberate mix of large-scale and independent brands to give multiple access points and show how executions large or small can be impactful. These include Glossybox, Clementine, Valdé Beauty, Lottie London and more.
One of my personal favourite experiences is the one we've created for Lush. This sits across both Decentraland and Spatial with different executions for each space - in Spatial you can transport to space, unlocking a wearable space suit whilst immersing in one of the three larger-than-life bath bombs for a sensory experience you could only achieve in web3 - its fun, playful and very authentic to the brand.
Along with the aforementioned Lush experience, we have a stand out multi-level gaming experience for Neutrogena in Decentraland. Hosted by their brand ambassador, Kerry Washington, in NPC (non-playable character) format, will guide players through the Skin's Vitals game taking users from the dynamic barrier of the skin to the cellular level - highlighting key skin aggressors along the way. This really is a first-of-its-kind experience for consumers to play with the brand in this way before trying out its Skin 360 tool - which gives them personalised skin analysis and product recommendation.
How will Metaverse Beauty Week benefit beauty brands?
The brands we have involved are all pioneers in the space - they are bravely taking on this unknown environment to see how their consumers - new and current - can interact with their brand, storytelling and communities in ways they've never been able to do before.
How do you feel about the launch of Metaverse Beauty Week?
Full of anticipation! Excited to see what we learn, and how we can continue to shape the best possible web3 experiences for the beauty industry in the future.
