Ralph Lauren, the 56-year-old luxury fashion house, is set to give its brand a new-age Web3 twist. The company’s new Miami Design District store — located in Miami, Florida — has begun accepting payments in cryptocurrencies. This is the first Ralph Lauren store to initiate crypto payments. It does not come as quite the surprise that the brand chose Miami to experiment with crypto, given that the beach town is popularly crypto friendly.
Ralph Lauren has partnered with Bitpay, the crypto payment facilitator, to process crypto purchases.
As of now, the fashion brand has listed Bitcoin, Ether, and Polygon as acceptable cryptocurrencies.
For crypto payers looking for refunds, Ralph Lauren will be returning the amount in the cryptocurrency that was originally used.
Not just crypto, but the New York City-headquartered brand is also exploring NFT rewards for customers.
In partnership with Poolsuite, Ralph Lauren has co-designed around 3,000 NFTs that would unlock party favours at a private waterfront estate in Miami, where a three-day launch event is scheduled for later this month, Vogue Business reported.
Research reports have recently shown that Web3 elements like NFTs, crypto, and the metaverse can bring a twist to the advertising industry all together.
Combining Web3 elements to their day-to-day operations is being looked as a way for these old, established brands to connect with the new-age digital customers.
In May 2022, Gucci started accepting crypto payments in US stores. The Italian luxury brand also now exploring ventures in the metaverse.
Hermès, the 1837-founded French luxury design house, along with Balenciaga and Swiss luxury watchmaker Tag Heuer has started experimenting with crypto payments alongside Nike, Hipster’s Paradise, Aeropostale, H&M, Calvin Klein, American Eagle, Philipp Plein, and Etsy.
The global fashion industry recently came together to close the displays of their spring collections for 2023 in the Metaverse Fashion Week. Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger, Vogue Digital, Aldo, and Coach were among high-end brands that participated in the metaverse fashion event.