J.Crew expands metaverse effort with Apple Vision Pro styling app

J.Crew continues growing its metaverse presence with a new immersive styling experience.

The specialty apparel retailer is leveraging an existing partnership with experiential commerce platform Obsess to launch the new "J.Crew Virtual Closet" app on Apple Vision Pro, a spatial computer that blends digital content with the physical world and is controlled by a user's eyes and hands.

The new experience developed on the Apple visionOS platform allows users to shop J.Crew products in an interactive, ultra-high-definition 3D environment. The J.Crew Virtual Closet utilizes SharePlay, a set of features for shared experiences while on a FaceTime call, to enable customers to chat with J.Crew expert stylists or host group calls to get others' opinions.

In the visionOS environment, J.Crew Virtual Closet users can explore a curated selection of the brand's products while also being able to examine the texture and quality of the materials at higher magnification than ever before. 

Through the app, users can use hand and eye movements to browse a selection of J.Crew items, and mix and match pieces in order to create an outfit and see how it looks on their personal in-app mannequin. The app also features realistic background scenes.

J.Crew Virtual Closet is an extension of the brand's web-based immersive metaverse commerce experiences created by Obsess in 2023. These include an immersive virtual store it initially opened in June 2023 in the form of a virtual beach house with seamless checkout and updated into a gamified, ski-themed, immersive holiday shopping experience in November 2023.

"The J.Crew Virtual Closet is a first for the fashion industry—leveraging Apple's newest technology to immerse shoppers in a hyper-realistic styling experience with our brand," said Halsey Anderson, VP of marketing at J.Crew. "We're thrilled to continue our partnership with Obsess to use this cutting-edge device to bring J.Crew into an exciting new era of spatial shopping and styling. We're particularly excited for our J.Crew stylists to use Apple Vision Pro to work with customers in a more dynamic way than ever before, via SharePlay in FaceTime. This incredible technology, combined with our rich brand heritage of best-in-class service, will provide endless styling capabilities."

"This groundbreaking experience for Apple Vision Pro is setting a new standard for shopping for fashion in the era of spatial computing," said Neha Singh, CEO and founder of Obsess. "The ability to create outfit combinations for different occasions interactively and at a life-size scale in the J.Crew Virtual Closet app is a novel e-commerce utility. In addition, the ability for a J.Crew stylist to style outfits remotely with a customer via SharePlay is the most advanced form of digital clienteling available today."

As of Oct. 28, 2023, J.Crew operates 120 J.Crew retail stores, 154 Madewell stores, and 215 J.Crew Factory stores in nearly every state in the U.S., and maintains a multibanner e-commerce presence.