Could Meta be venturing into the fashion universe?

I mean, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has certainly tried rather hard to become more fashionable lately and considering that the Ray Ban Stories glasses had started to become an in-demand accessory themselves, it is not too arduous to imagine a future where Meta can also become a fashion brand in itself.

Well, maybe.

The Wall Street Journal reported late last week that Meta is in talks with EssilorLuxottica, the company behind those very Ray Ban sunglasses, to acquire a 5% stake.
Owner of several fashion brands along with Ray Ban, Oakley, and Sunglass Hut, EssilorLuxottica with whom Meta has been collaborating over the past few years on Ray Ban Stories. And thus, such an investment here is seen as a way to resist competition in the accelerating wearable spaces, making sure that Meta is the only partner for all of EssilorLuxottica's design IP and distribution.

WSJ reported that the deal would roughly add up to US$5 billion, being an addition to the bottom line of Meta for the development of its metaverse.

And that may be savvy. Meta says demand for Ray Ban Stories is outstripping production, and as the company also aims to unveil its fully AR-enabled sunglasses later this year, securing its partnership with the sunglass maker may help buttress an important edge: making both functional and fashionable devices.

But there may still be another dimension to this proposed alliance that hasn't garnered much talk as yet.
Another fashion brand owned now by EssilorLuxottica is the Supreme, a trend leading the fashion brand that has received great traction through a number of high profile customers.

EssilorLuxxotica has bought Supreme recently as well, which also makes the company enter other spheres of the fashion industry; it may be somehow connected to Meta's decision to buy a stake in this company.

Of course, the most logical and quick choice would be for them to have the most attractive partnership in terms of AR wearables. But what if Meta also partnered with Supreme in the limited edition drops of fashion that would only appear on Facebook and IG?

Would that make Meta's apps cool again? That would bring the crowd, and wouldn't it be cool if Meta decided to release a Supreme version of its Quest headset?

This opens up a whole set of ways in which this will lead to a wider crossover between Meta and Supreme in the fashion world, in addition to its investment in the future of its AR glasses.

All speculation at this point, but no news that Meta has acquired a stake in the company. From here, one can envision a possible roadmap into a future ramping up toward cooling Meta's apps again, though taking a longer view to build the metaverse into the destination to hang out virtually.

In short, maybe there's much more to this than just AR glasses themselves, as Meta ponders the answer to how it might make sure that its future projects will remain popular with the target audience.