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Balenciaga is the latest luxury brand to create an immersive experience for Apple’s mixed-reality headset — and the first to bring the runway to Vision Pro.
The first phase of the experience, accessible through a new Balenciaga app, features multiple runway show videos, including the option to watch the spring 2025 Shanghai show in various immersive scenarios and the option to click on a carousel of lookbook images to jump to specific looks. The Shanghai show was captured in 4K resolution using drone views and stereoscopic footage — in anticipation of the Vision Pro experience — which is a higher resolution than the brand’s usual fashion show content. The app also includes music curated by the brand.
This is the first luxury fashion app on the Vision Pro to feature runway shows. In April, Gucci released an app for the mixed reality device that added immersive, interactive elements to its documentary short about new creative director Sabato De Sarno. (Gucci shares a parent company with Balenciaga, meaning that future learnings could be shared at group level.) When the device began shipping this February (it was announced last June), retailers and brands like Mytheresa, Elf Beauty, J Crew and Alo released virtual reality shopping experiences, in partnership with virtual shopping tech company Obsess.
There are future plans for the Balenciaga app to feature additional shows, such as the recent couture presentation in Paris; to add three-dimensional, high-resolution images of future runway looks; and to potentially allow for users to shop Balenciaga’s ready-to-wear pieces. For now, the show experience is limited to a large two-dimensional screen, but features and immersive elements are expected to increase as the Vision Pro matures. It was created in partnership with design agency Atomic Digital Design, which has worked with Lacoste, L’Oreal Paris and Yves Saint Laurent beauty on augmented reality experiences.
‘Who is Sabato De Sarno? A Gucci Story’ introduces the world to its new creative director. On Apple Vision Pro, it also introduces early adopters to a new form factor.
The app, launching today, lands just as the Vision Pro becomes available in France and multiple other countries. The headset costs $3,500 and, until recently, was only available in the United States. This summer, it also became available in China, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Germany, Australia, the UK and Canada.
Given the Vision Pro’s high price point, there is a natural overlap with luxury fashion’s young tech-savvy customers. In February, Mytheresa CEO Michael Kliger told Vogue Business that the potential to attract new customers using the Vision Pro was a key reason that the e-tailer was eager to offer a shopping experience early on.
Balenciaga has been a particularly experimental brand. It recently tested a digital product passport that equipped limited-edition hoodies and sweatshirts with an exclusive soundtrack; only those who scanned an embedded NFC chip could access the music. It also announced a forthcoming product collaboration with hardware wallet provider Ledger, and previously experimented with a virtual runway show during the pandemic.
Mixed reality headsets and smart glasses have become the next competitive tech product, as both fall under the wider spatial computing umbrella, in which digital elements and computers interact with the physical world. In addition to the Vision Pro, there are competing mixed reality headsets from Meta and smart glasses from those including Amazon and Snapchat.
While the Vision Pro was greeted with considerable interest, sales have been somewhat less enthusiastic, according to some reports. In April, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that Apple had decreased the number of units it planned to produce due to soft demand. Releasing the device in further countries is a way of increasing sales for Apple, with more users translating into more eyeballs for brands — making experimental investments potentially more lucrative.
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