Balenciaga announces partnership with PUBG video game

Balenciaga remains to be eager on the world of gaming. The Kering-owned luxurious label, which appointed Italian designer Pierpaolo Piccioli as artistic director in summer time, has additional boosted its video-gaming hyperlinks by putting a top-notch new partnership.

Balenciaga has teamed up with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), an uber-popular on-line multi-player game involving 100 gamers in a single session, all vying to be the final one standing. The game was launched in 2017, and its PC model claims to draw tons of of 1000’s of gamers on-line each day. PUBG is particularly in style for cellular play, the place it tots up tens of tens of millions of energetic gamers every month, and is alleged to have generated billions of euros in income, notably by means of the sale of skins, the characters’ outfits. Its writer, Krafton, reported income of roughly €950 million in 2024. PUBG’s cellular model, co-developed with LightSpeed Studios (a division of Tencent Games), claims to have generated over a billion downloads, and may be very profitable in Asia, the Middle East and India.

They’re strategic areas for Balenciaga, which is constant alongside the trail it first took in 2020 with the Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow game, on which the label offered its collections. Despite the setbacks skilled with the metaverse, Balenciaga remains to be energetic within the digital leisure trade, now a main avenue for cultural and enterprise initiatives.

Balenciaga was one of many first luxurious labels to spend money on video video games. It launched a digital assortment on Fortnite, that includes fours skins impressed by its runway reveals, a particular hub referred to as Strange Times, and a limited-edition line of real-life clothes, nonetheless accessible right now. More just lately, the label made a foray into the Rematch game, with its Balenciaga Soccer Series outfits.

By partnering with PUBG, for an undisclosed funding, Balenciaga will create in-game activations, a capsule assortment of PUBG-inspired objects, and outfits for e-sport competitions. Balenciaga-themed content material will probably be step by step launched on PUBG’s console and PC variations. On the cellular variations, gamers will have the ability to unlock a Couture Armour outfit impressed by a 3D gown from the label’s 52nd couture assortment, in addition to seems from the winter 2025 assortment, together with a cropped pink puffer jacket, a body-hugging hoodie, a trompe l’oeil miniskirt, and a pair of knee-high stiletto-heeled boots. Various equipment are additionally included, like a blue fur helmet.

In the actual world, the Balenciaga-PUBG partnership interprets right into a T-shirt, a black hat and a purse allure, all accessible at choose Balenciaga shops.

The label is not at all the one luxurious model occupied with PUBG. The game has in reality just lately unveiled collaborations with supercar marques Porsche and Bugatti.

The Balenciaga-PUBG partnership will attain its pinnacle with the game’s worldwide finals, scheduled on December 12-14 in Bangkok, when the successful groups’ gamers will obtain customised Balenciaga bomber jackets. An enormous draw for e-sport stars and their tens of millions of followers.