Roblox has its eye on e-commerce.

The popular gaming platform and Shopify on Friday announced a global partnership that will allow creators of Roblox experiences, including the many brands on the platform, to sell physical goods directly within Roblox via Shopify’s checkout.

In a demo video, a Roblox user sees a “Buy Now” prompt next to a virtual T-shirt that calls up an e-commerce product page where they can see photos of the physical item, select colours or sizing and make their purchase. Customers will be able to pay using any method accepted in the seller’s online store, according to Shopify. Purchasing will be restricted to users 13 and older.

The companies said the integration will start to roll out soon, with a larger launch arriving in early 2025.

Shopify powers the e-commerce of numerous brands today, while Roblox has become a key venue for fashion and beauty brands looking to connect with young shoppers, or at least those with access to their parents’ credit cards. The platform boasts nearly 80 million daily active users, attracting fashion and beauty players including Gucci, Nike, Vans, Ulta and many others. Recently it has introduced features such as in-game video ads as it works towards profitability.

But Roblox ultimately wants to be a place where its users can shop as well. In April, it began testing sales of physical goods with partners including Walmart and E.l.f. Beauty. The Shopify partnership is the first of many integrations with e-commerce platforms Roblox said it is planning at the start of next year.

Eventually it anticipates developers will be able to sell just about any physical product available at a major online retailer, it said. It is also building the ability for creators to attach digital benefits to purchases and is working on tools to help manage merchandising, checkout and order confirmations within the experience.

”We believe providing users with more ways to shop on Roblox will give creators another way to deepen their connection with their communities while driving business results,” Stephanie Latham, Roblox’s vice president of global brand partnerships and advertising, said in a statement.

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Why Fashion Loves Roblox

Tommy Hilfiger’s livestream of its NYFW show is just the latest example of fashion courting users on the platform, which is also rolling out an immersive new advertising format for brands.

California wants fashion brands to pay for their waste.

Late last month, state legislators passed a bill that would make fashion brands responsible for keeping old clothes out of landfill by establishing and funding a programme for collection and recycling. The proposal now only needs sign off from Governor Gavin Newsom to become law.

The move is the latest in a wide-ranging regulatory effort to crackdown on the rising flood of unwanted jeans, t-shirts and other old clothes created by fast fashion’s accelerated churn. In 2021, roughly 1.2 million tonnes of textiles were discarded in California. Nearly all of that volume was reusable or recyclable, but only 15 percent ever made it back into the market, according to the office of state Senator Josh Newman, who introduced the California bill. The Responsible Textile Recovery Act aims to change that pattern.

The law “will be a game-changer in the fight against textile waste,” Senator Newman said in a social-media post after it passed the state legislature on Aug. 30.

Some European countries have already introduced similar programmes, known as extended producer responsibility schemes, but California’s would be the first to come into force in the US. Companies that don’t comply won’t be allowed to sell in the state.

California has long been a frontrunner in efforts to establish greener policies in the US and, if successful, its moves on textile recycling could open the door for others to follow.

What will the bill do?

Under the proposed law, brands with global turnover of more than $1 million will need to participate in and help fund a programme to enable the reuse, repair and recycling of clothes and fabric sold in California.

It’s expected to take several years before any state-level textile recycling programme comes into effect. In the meantime, brands will need to form and join a producer responsibility organisation to coordinate and oversee operations by 2026. Once formed, the PRO must have an approved plan for the management of discarded textiles in place by July 2030.

How much will it cost brands?

Brands will be on the hook to cover the costs of running the recycling programme, but exactly what those costs will amount to haven’t yet been defined and will only become clearer once the industry’s producer responsibility organisation lays out its plan for the recycling programme.

The initiative will be funded through fees paid by brands to the PRO. These will vary depending on environmental impacts of the products sold.

The goal is to provide incentives for companies to make products with a lower environmental footprint and penalise the biggest polluters.

What does the industry think?

The American Apparel and Fashion Association, a key industry lobby group, pushed for several changes to the act before it passed. The organisation endorsed the final version, with reservations.

Though several of the changes the industry wanted were taken on board, the AAFA said it still had some concerns about the timelines envisaged in the bill, loopholes for third-party sellers on online marketplaces and potential conflicts with regulations in other jurisdictions.

Rachel Kibbe, the CEO of consulting and advocacy firm Circular Services Group and executive director of trade lobby group American Circular Textiles, said the bill is a step in the right direction. But if it is signed into law, much will depend on its implementation and enforcement. Similar efforts focused on other materials have faced major challenges, particularly because state-level approaches resulted in a patchwork of systems that resulted in low recycling rates, she said.

Either way, what California does next could set an important precedent for textile recycling schemes in the US.

“If California, as the largest state economy, successfully implements an EPR scheme, it could inspire similar legislation in other states, pushing more companies to adopt circular practices nationwide,” said Kibbe. “However, if it runs into implementation issues — like weak enforcement, market immaturity, broader Federal funding, or resistance from brands — it might give legislators pause.”

Glenn Martens is stepping down as creative director of Y/Project after an 11-year tenure that established the label as one of Paris’ hottest emerging labels.

A graduate of Antwerp’s prestigious Royal Academy, Martens is known for leveraging pattern-making innovation to inject strangeness and novelty into wardrobe staples like blue jeans, blazers and dusters. At Y/Project, he used details like asymmetrical waistlines, zig-zagged pleats, extra neckholes and adjustable panels to make customisable garments that can be styled as avant-garde silhouettes or worn like more normal clothing.

Y/Project won global notoriety as it dressed celebrity clients including Rihanna and Charli XCX, and remained a highlight of Paris Fashion Week a decade into the designer’s tenure. The label won France’s biggest fashion prize, ANDAM, in 2017 and 2020, the year Martens was named creative director of Diesel. The designer has since juggled his revamp of the denim giant with his role at the buzzy if financially fragile Y/Project.

The label’s next steps are uncertain: Y/Project sat out Paris Fashion Week in March, citing market uncertainty. Pascal Conté-Jodra, who joined the brand as CEO in May 2023, has left the company as of July 2024, according to his profile on LinkedIn.

Martens’ time at Y/Project was book-ended by tragedy. He was hired to lead the brand after its co-founder and initial designer Yohan Serfaty died of cancer in 2013. This June, fellow co-founder and owner Gilles Elelalouf died aged 58 after a long illness. Martens is set to show his latest collection for Diesel during Milan Fashion Week on September 21.

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At Paris Fashion Week, Less Was More

In an age of clickbait fashion, it was acts of reduction that, paradoxically, stood out most, reports Angelo Flaccavento.