Gucci To Take ‘Active Role’ in Bored Ape Yacht Club Metaverse

Gucci and BAYC’s Yuga Labs are now formally working together to explore how fashion can influence the metaverse

article-image

Shutterstock.com/Studio Barcelona, modified by Blockworks

share

Gucci is set to take “an active role” in the upcoming Bored Ape Yacht Club metaverse offering, Otherside, after striking a multi-year strategic partnership with creator Yuga Labs.

The Italian luxury fashion house aims to formally join Yuga Labs in exploring the “intersection between fashion and entertainment in the metaverse,” Business of Fashion reported.

Gucci had already worked with Yuga Labs’ 10KTF project, the NFT-powered browser game created by digital artist Beeple, in which players deck their avatars out in clothes tied to digital collectibles. Gucci issued branded 10KTF outfits in Mar. 2022, with Yuga Labs acquiring 10KTF by September.

Yuga Labs also manages NFT projects MeeBits and CryptoPunks, which the Florida-headquartered startup bought from Larva Labs last year.

“Existing in a world where physical and digital realms collide, and are shaped by creative storytelling, the first activation in the partnership will give a glimpse of Gucci’s participation in Otherside, Yuga’s gamified, metaRPG universe, beginning this week,” Gucci said in a press release.

Loading Tweet..

Robert Triefus, chief executive of Gucci Vault & Metaverse Ventures, reportedly said the partnership “will give us an active role in Otherside and 10KTF’s continuing narrative, unfolding in multiple forms.” Blockworks has reached out to Gucci and Yuga Labs for comment. 

Triefus reportedly said 2021 hype in the NFT market has eased. And since it’s now in a more “sensible place,” Gucci intends to “capitalise on the the expertise of creatives.”

Gucci created its metaverse division about six months ago. A top executive at Gucci owner Kering previously said the company wants to be a pioneer in the Web3 and NFT industry, Vogue Business reported.

“Luxury has a role to play. There’s a real opportunity for us to create digital products that would be ways to express our houses,” chief client and digital officer Grégory Boutté told the outlet.

“Our vision is around two pillars: metaverse and Web3. We think the metaverse is already here, the best evidence being video games. Some 2.5 billion people use video games. These virtual worlds will be more and more immersive and present in our lives,” Boutté said.

Gucci began accepting ApeCoin (APE), which is set for use across Yuga Labs’ in-development metaverse offerings, at some of its US retail stores last August.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

morpho 2 graphic.png

Research

Utilizing a ‘DeFi Mullet’ approach, Coinbase’s Bitcoin-backed loans integration with Morpho demonstrates a powerful blueprint for CEXs to monetize dormant assets by expanding adoption of wrapped products (cbBTC, USDC) while also supporting native and/or preferred DeFi ecosystems (Base) which can further lead to downstream growth in onchain liquidity and increased utilization of the related assets.

article-image

The fate of Coinbase has been intertwined with Bitcoin long before the company went public in 2021

article-image

Forward Guidance’s Felix Jauvin noted that he’s bullish on both crypto and bitcoin on a “mean reversion basis”

article-image

This is the largest equity investment that Framework Ventures has ever made,” Framework’s Michael Anderson exclusively told Blockworks

article-image

The stickiness could be the result of bear market conditions where users are swapping out of riskier tokens to hold stablecoins on Solana apps instead, a Blockworks Research analyst said

article-image

The dollar index is down 3.7% today from Wednesday, and consumer sentiment fell to lower than expected

article-image

Ethereum core developers finalize Pectra’s May 7 launch and wrap scoping of the next upgrade