The rise and rule of Bitmoji Fashion

The Prada Group recently announced their latest partnership with Snapchat: as of November 19th, Snapchat users can unlock 34 branded virtual garments for their bitmojis - snapchat avatars. Top of the list are gen z favourites: the Small Galleria in Saffiano Leather and the MiuMiu wander bag, available for £8 and £5 respectively. Users can also purchase a curated selection of clothes, 14 MiuMiu garments, such as the woollen micro shorts, and 18 pieces from Prada, including the re-nylon baseball cap. Following their success, another 8 bag designs dropped in December, including the Prada Re-Edition 2005 in 3 colors (£5).

These virtual garments are available across app functions such as profiles, stickers, Snap Maps (so users can adorn their Bitmojis with them) and Snap Lenses, so that they can take photos and videos of themselves wearing the items as AR filters. Dubbed the gen z app - Snap boasts a young user base of 60% 13-24 year olds. Whilst the Prada Group has partnered with Snap before to leverage the AR functions as a virtual try-on experience, this focus on Bitmoji fashion is a first for both Italian brands. It marks a move by the Prada Group to court younger audiences, increasing their brand exposure by offering them access to coveted physical items, in digital form. The affordable pricing may not be currently generating much revenue, but Prada and Miu Miu are playing the long game. Their pricing strategy hinges on the conviction that an early digital purchase increases the chances of a physical purchase further down the line.

However, Prada and Miu Miu are not actually the first brands to launch virtual clothes on Snap. Bitmoji fashion began in 2015, a year after the Bitmoji app was born and a year before it was acquired by Snapchat. At the time, users could choose from over 35 new, free outfits from top designers such as Joie and Tanya Taylor to high fashion labels, including Diane Von Furstenberg, Micheal Kors and Alexander McQueen. The next bitmoji fashion bubble occurred in 2020, over on Snapchat, with brands such as Ralph Lauren, Jordan and Levi’s rolling out partnerships, one after the other. In 2023, Maison Valentino released Bitmoji clothing, featuring five items from the Spring 2024 collection. Following the rampant success of this drop, the Maison has since released three more collections. Now, at the tail end of 2024, Prada and Miu Miu have simply joined the ranks alongside Adidas, Converse, Nike, UGGs and Crocs to name a few. 

The novelty is that for the first time, Snap users are able to accessorize their bitmoji with designer handbags. More decorative than functional and instantly recognisable, the designer handbag is iconic: a totem of wealth, status and style. The Small Galleria and Wander Bag, in particular, are trending it-bags, particularly amongst gen z, so associating them to your snapchat self signals a certain degree of fashion acumen and contemporaneity. This points to the evolution of digital self-representation through virtual fashion, from a rudimentary practice with limited options to a much more intricate and layered act that says something about you, your taste, aesthetics and aspirations.

On Pinterest, a board of 138 pins documents ‘cute, aesthetic outfit ideas for your bitmoji.’ Turning to TikTok, we can see accounts entirely dedicated to Bitmoji fashion. Users rack up thousands of likes for their Bitmoji outfit inspo and tutorial toks. Others recreate IRL celebrity outfits over on Snapchat, or help others find a niche item - pointing to the ever increasing desire to create a Bitmoji look that is personal and distinct from the masses. A few weeks after this Prada Group partnership, Versace also dropped their it-bag, the Tag, in six shades. Bitmoji was founded to, in the words of the then CEO,  ‘bring a sense of identity back to digital conversations’. But now it seems that identity and self-fashioning is becoming a pre-requisite for digital conversation. Perhaps dressing the digital self is fashion’s next frontier.