In the latter half of 2018, LEGO made quite the splash for Halloween with a lineup of brick and minifigure-themed costumes for children and adults. That was the most prominent push by LEGO into wearable apparel that we have recently covered here in The Brick Show.
But it looks like our favorite toy brand giant has even more in store where it comes to clothing, one that they are combining with, of all things, augmented reality tech with help from social media platform Snapchat. The result is a most unusual clothes store that opened in London before London Fashion Week.
As reported by CNBC, the strange LEGO pop-up shop that was launched this Wednesday, February 13, is actually an empty white room in London. The only feature is a pedestal with a physical icon familiar to Snapchat users: a Snapcode. Scanning that code takes users to an AR platform on their devices where they can buy online a selection of LEGO-themed street wear by the company’s latest garments partner, KABOOKI.
Here we have a sample of the new LEGO casual fashion line from KABOOKI, designed as scaled-up versions of LEGO Wear clothes for kids. This was confirmed by KABOOKI’s Birgitte Holgaard Langer, who added that they also wanted to experiment with an AR platform provided by Snapchat to make their clothing available for purchase online.
Why have Snapchat as a partner for hosting the digital AR LEGO Store? Snap Inc. Director EMEA Creative Strategy Will Scougal says that it’s because the users of their social media platform are among the most frequent users of augmented reality around.
“Snapchatters engage with AR naturally, on average 70% of them play with an AR lens every day,” Scougal explains. Adding an e-commerce element to create the LEGO-KABOOKI online store seems the logical conclusion.
The best part about this LEGO clothing store on Snapchat is that prospective customers don’t even need to go to that empty shop in London. Snap Inc. has saved us the trouble with this photo of the AR store’s Snapcode. Snapchat-using LEGO fans have nothing to lose and perhaps some sweet new LEGO-wear to gain just by checking this out.
