Luxury x Crypto

How to win in a simulation

The Furry Lisa, a digital piece of art created by Murat Yıldırım, is a symbol. It is physically soft and inviting, but it exists only in the digital domain.

Baudrillard would be thrilled. Forty years ago, he suggested we have “replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs, and that our experience is a simulation of reality. The distinction between reality and representation vanishes. There is only the simulation, and originality becomes a totally meaningless concept.”

Reality, symbols and society now have an inverse relationship. Last Fall, Balenciaga launched its Afterworld collection in Fortnite. Since then, Balenciaga’s print ads featuring Justin Bieber look like they came straight from Fortnight. (Baudrillard would have called this “the third order of simulacra,” where the representation precedes and determines the real.)

Luxury has always been in the business of simulation: of making its stories believable by the massive numbers of people. Coco Chanel was an artist; Louis Vuitton was a craftsman; Hermès has inimitable heritage; Ralph Lauren is about American aristocracy; Möet Hennessy has been made according to a secret recipe transmitted over generations. People believe a luxury brand is valuable because others believe it is valuable; the more we believe something’s valuable, the more valuable it…