Released slightly over a year ago (on 20th March 2020), the Nintendo Switch title "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" proved extremely timely. Arriving in a pandemic while millions of people all over the world were in a lockdown, it became a success with players of all ages.
Many adults who had never played videogames before or who were skeptical about gaming, turned to the title to create their own virtual space, relax, meet old friends or find new ways to virtually socialise and travel while living in a perennially socially distanced world.
Yet, while most of us were socialising, buying digital clothes and decorating our mansions on our virtual islands, independent designers, big fashion houses and brands started seeing the potential of the videogame.
Collaborations started and soon there were special digital clothes, fashion shows and even politicians started using the videogame as an engaging platform to reach out to voters.
H&M is the latest one to join the "Animal Crossing" trend and for the occasion it has teamed up with HBO's Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams.
A keen supporter of eco-friendly designs, Williams has a conscious approach to life and she is very careful when it comes to consuming and loves recycling. Besides, she doesn’t support causes that she doesn’t feel passionate about.
Intrigued by H&M's desire to establish a more circular fashion loop and by their pledge to ensure 100 percent of their fabrics are sustainably sourced or recycled textiles by 2030, Williams accepted to become their global sustainability ambassador.
Throughout the year the actor will collaborate with H&M on a new initiative that started with the launch of a platinum-haired digital avatar of Williams that will appear at multiple VR events during 2021.
The avatar - created by the 3D animators at Goodbye Kansas Studio (well-known for designing the Keanu Reeves avatar in the "Cyberpunk 2077" game and for contributing with VFX to Wes Anderson's upcoming film "The French Dispatch") - has made its appearance this week on Nintendo's Animal Crossing.
Adapted into an Animal Crossing character, Williams' avatar will welcome visitors on H&M's Looop Island (available until 20th April).
You should be able to visit Looop Island by requesting a Dodo Code at the official @Looop Twitter account, but if you DM them they may say there are too many requests and just give you the Dream Address (DA-3314-6895-7902) to visit the island at your leisure (please remember that to visit islands or to access dreams you will need a Nintendo Switch Online membership).
Apart from being a marketing tool (check out the various H&M flags and signs scattered around the island), Looop Island has an eco-friendly purpose: once you arrive, you can get from the terminal on the left of your bed (if you've arrived from your dream state like I did with my avatar as showed in the images in this post) two designs - a white dress or a T-shirt, both accessorised with a purple scarf (purple is the theme colour of the island) inspired by the ensemble donned by Maisie's avatar.
The items are free and they will then appear in your Pro-design app on your smartphone and you will be able to use them also once you’re back on your island from your dream.
You can now start your journey through the island, but first pick up from the ground some items that were left for you, such as a red balloon (meant to match the colour of the H&M logo, but ending up looking like the sort of accessory Pennywise out of Stephen King's It may like...), a striped swimsuit, a pinwheel and ten cupcakes, then follow the sign and, next to the Able Sisters shop (which is shut), you will discover a Looop Machine, the game's first recycling station.
The name "Looop" is inspired by the retailer's real-life recycling machine that was launched in October with the goal of closing "the loop in fashion" by finding a purpose for unused garments.
If you’re allowed a proper visit to the island, you will be able to leave digital unwanted garments, purchased or made on your island or gifted to you by other inhabitants or friends in "Animal Crossing", on a bench next to the machine. In this way you can recycle unwanted game outfits, re-enacting H&M's in-store garment-to-garment recycling system (that was actually suspended in most countries during the Coronavirus pandemic).
Before moving away from this space check out the Super Mario pipe hidden behind the tree in front of the Able Sisters shop: it will take you directly to an abstract secret space bathed in a purple light that recreates the purple space seen in H&M's advert featuring Maisie Williams.
Then there are other activities you can do on the island: you can walk around the paths, admire the orchards, sit in meticulously furnished open air restaurants and cafes or visit some of the locals (some of them may not be too friendly and will ask you what are you doing there...).
As you walk around you may bump into the avatar of H&M's Global Sustainability Manager, Pascal Brun, whose single catchphrase is just "Looop it!"
Inside the Looop Mansion you will discover a spacious office with posters and adverts on the walls inspired by real H&M ads; the fashion innovation lab with rolls of fabrics on the walls (we would have much preferred to get those designs for free from the terminal rather than Maisie Williams' outfits…), Maisie Williams' apartment upstairs (with some items recreated from her own house and from the items she has on her island in Animal Crossing) and a basement with a runway complete with backstage, lights, a video camera and a small selection of garments part of H&M's next recycled collection.
After doing your little runway show, walk around the glowing forest with its purple hyacinth fields, star-shaped lilac lamps and a romantic full moon.
Once you've finished exploring the island wear your swimsuit, jump in the water and swim till you get to a secluded beach where you will find Williams' avatar outside her tent.
Like Pascal, she has just one catchphrase ("Let's change fashion!"), but on 13th April Williams and Pascal had a debate about recycling and circular fashion and maybe the characters' catchphrases may have been expanded to incorporate more messages about preserving our planet and reinventing the industry.
Before leaving, check out the messages on the board outside the town's village services: if you're on a proper visit you may be able to leave your own message, but if you've landed on Looop Island in your dream, you will only be able to read Pascal's notes (featuring bizarre repetitions, typos and grammar mistakes: "Join the recycling revolution! Drop your unwanted piece of piece of clothing by the Looop machine and pick up our exclusive H&M outfit from Able sisters", "Help us work towards a better fashion future. Together we can close the loop", "Let's change fashion - our goal is for all H&M materials to be recycled or sourced more sustainable by 2030").
Animal Crossing-wise the island is tremendously well designed and detailed: you will love every corner of it, from its hyacinths to its emphasis on green energies, with vast rows of solar panels and wind turbines installed in prominent positions.
That said it has its questionable moments (apart from Pascal's messed up messages...): the museum is more or less a "Day of the Triffids" situation, for example. So, while outside the island is pulsating with orchards and gardens, inside the museum there are no creatures in the displays, one dinosaur is left unfinished and there is no art section, as if Nintendo had grown tired of designing this part for H&M or as if H&M had thought that creating the main areas for the island was enough.
Then there is the entire point of actually "recycling" your in-game clothes: the main point about Looop Island is encouraging visitors to learn about the importance of recycling while playing.
So you may arrive on the island for a visit via Dodo Airlines and drop a pair of digital trousers (you can't drop anything if you arrive on the island from your dreams - and that's bad as most users are offered this option - and if you can't actually do any recycling the whole purpose of the island is undermined), and maybe the next day you may want to recycle a pair of trousers in real life.
If there wouldn't be this educational purpose behind the island, there wouldn't be any need for it to exist. That said, most players use their bells (the island's currency) to buy an assortment of things, including items and clothes they may not necessarily need or that they know they may not be wearing for a long time.
When they are tired of these objects, they sell them in the local shop, give them to another islander or to a friend, in a nutshell, players already recycle their unwanted clothes, so they don't desperately need a recycling point on any island to get rid of them.
So, while as a whole the island is a pleasant experience and the collaboration reconfirms the huge success of "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" (that, according to the latest figures, has so far sold 31.18 million units), Looop Island has its questionable sides.
Critics may see this as another attempt by H&M to greenwash their act, after all the company that has started producing collections featuring items made with a plant-based leather alternative made from cactus plants and yarn made from castor oils, remains one of fashion's biggest polluters and just a few years ago was accused of burning leftover stock.
Some doubts remain about all these collaborations with Animal Crossing: last year Nintendo issued guidelines to those companies that had started using "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" to promote their businesses. Among the other guidelines, the company stated, "Please do not leverage the Game as a marketing platform that directs people to activities or campaigns outside the game (including directing people to a sales page, distributing coupons, sweepstakes, giveaways, requiring consumers to follow social network services accounts, gathering customers' information, or other invitational activities).
You are not allowed to obtain any financial benefit from using the Game (including selling your Custom Design or earning any advertising revenue with the Game content)."
In a way these points seem to be violated by these collaborations with famous brands that essentially use the game as a marketing platform and hope to obtain financial benefits (H&M customers who collect Conscious points by buying the brand's products will get the chance to win a purple bandana neck scarf like the one Maisie's avatar wears in the game, made from 100% recycled materials, so you may argue they are encouraging to buy their products).
One last doubt also remains: what will we actually learn from recycling digital clothes? As soon as England came out of lockdown, queues of people started forming in front of clothes shops and fast fashion retailers, as if we all needed an immediate fashion fix and the lessons learnt in lockdown (i.e. we don't need as many clothes we buy) were already forgotten.
As for the Able Sisters, will they succumb to fast fashion? Well, let's hope not, we have indeed grown fond of the hard-working fashionable porcupines spreading the ideals of slow fashion on our islands.
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