Video Game Chic

In a totally unexpected twist, luxury fashion brand Louis Vuitton has announced a partnership with video game developer Riot Games to design in-game champion skins for the game League of Legends.

In addition to the in-game champion skins, Louis Vuitton will be releasing a capsule collection designed by director Nicolas Ghesquiere and a Louis Vuitton-designed traveling case for the League of Legend’s World’s Championship trophy. This is not the first time Louis Vuitton has designed a trophy traveling case: they also designed a traveling case for the World Cup soccer trophy.

Riot Games stated that eSports is “the next frontier for a lot of brands who have been in the traditional sport space.” This partnership is planned ahead of the upcoming League of Legends World Championship, which ends on November 10 in Paris this year.

This is not the first partnership Riot Games has engaged with outside the video game space. Earlier this past year, Riot partnered with a number of K-Pop stars to release a music video called K/DA – POP/STARS. That music video has already achieved more than 260 million views on YouTube. Riot has also partnered with other music celebrities, such as Imagine Dragons and Zedd.

This is far from the first major partnership in the video game world. For example, recently, Epic Games’ Fortnite featured NFL-branded content. As eSports continues to gain prominence and popularity, it seems only natural for partnerships with brands hoping to reach new consumers will begin to emerge and become more common.

Developments like these are exciting: the video game industry has expanded into many new and unfamiliar areas over the past couple years!  Of course, game companies and potential sponsors should still exercise caution: even the best-intentioned brand deals require careful negotiation and thoughtful contracts.