Sandy Liang Hosted a Pop-Up in Animal Crossing
The New York-based designer made QR codes available so visitors could wear her covetable fleeces in the game.
Even if you couldn't head to a party with all of your friends this weekend, you could meet up with them in popular Nintendo video game Animal Crossing — and if you knew which island to head to, you could even pick up some new designer gear from the in-game Sandy Liang pop-up.
On Saturday, Sandy Liang became the latest designer to embrace Animal Crossing for its fashion offerings. The New York-based creative partnered with Paige Rubin, head luxury buyer at What Goes Around Comes Around and fellow Animal Crossing enthusiast, to make versions of Sandy Liang designs in the game.
"Getting together with our pals isn't possible in the same way right now, so we wanted to find some small way to get dressed up and have fun," Liang said in a press release.
Visitors could mingle and take selected designs — including some for her coveted fleeces — from Sandy Liang's island shop, while others were made available via in-game creator codes. Though the designs were made available for free, visitors were encouraged to donate to the charity Give Directly if able.
To promote the event, Liang also posted images featuring the designs in the game to Instagram, commenting that creating the digital lookbook was "oddly just as time consuming as a real lookbook shoot."
Liang is the latest to join a cohort of fashion creatives finding solace in the game, and her free event – and freely offered design codes – are in keeping with the current tendency toward crowd-sourcing and sharing resources. Only time will tell if other brands start to try and monetize Animal Crossing players' appetite for fashion, but for now, Liang and others seem content to simply have a way to stay in touch and have fun with fans.