Avatar Fashion Comes to Non-VR Meta Apps; June News Roundup

Meta's avatars featuring clothing from new fashion partners. Credit: Meta Platforms.

Starting today, users of Facebook, Instagram and Messenger will be able to start dressing up avatars they use on those apps in outfits from brands like Balenciaga and Prada. But this feature won’t be available to users of Horizon Worlds, the social VR platform which recently expanded its reach to users in the United Kingdom. Even though Meta envisions a world where avatars and their accessories move seamlessly between platforms and experiences, your ability to flaunt your avatar fashion within its own set of apps is not starting out with full cross-compatibility.

This is a just-for-now situation, it seems. Meta announced that it expects support for this new Avatar Store for outfits will come to VR “soon,” which presumably means within the next few months. If Meta is smart, it will get there by the time it expands access to Horizon to web and mobile. Otherwise, it would be leaving money on the table.