Designed the first virtual museum for Valentino Garavani.
Valentino Garavani, renowned as Valentino, is an iconic Italian fashion designer.
In a gesture of generosity, Valentino opened the doors to his extensive legacy, offering online archives spanning five decades.
Recognizing the opportunity to innovate, my team at Novacom in Paris embarked on a groundbreaking project: creating a real-time 3D virtual museum, a concept unseen in the fashion industry.
As Senior Interaction Designer, I was tasked with designing an intuitive and emotionally engaging experience to explore Valentino’s universe interactively.
I reimagined navigation and structured content display, all while bridging creative vision and technical constraints in Unity.
I also led the organization of a digital archive of 5,000+ iconic creations, making the brand’s legacy accessible in a seamless and elevated format.
Outcome
20,000+ visitors within its first month alone.
Premiere event held at the IAC Building in New York, Hosted by Anne Hathaway (actress) and attended by luminaries such as Hugh Jackman (actor), Franca Sozzani (editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia), and Amit Sood (Google Art Project).
Step1: The Valentino Metaverse
The goal was to create a timeless museum for the renowned fashion designer, showcasing exclusively his collections in a digital format within a 'virtual museum,' echoing the ephemeral artistic direction of the exhibitions Valentino used to create in reality but now preserved indefinitely.
I recommended an experience rooted in reality rather than just an artistic visual experience. Easy to handle, the goal was to reach the widest audience possible, and the virtual aspect allowed us some room for creativity.
The museum was originally crafted for the web to ensure broad accessibility, and Unity technology was selected for its capacity to craft interactive virtual environments with outstanding material and lighting rendering capabilities.
Real-world exhibition
Virtual exhibition
Step 2: Move around in a virtual environment
I've designed 2 navigation options for moving through the 18 environments spread across approximately 107,639 square feet.
In close relation with the architect and 3D artists.
The first uses a 3D path linked to the simulated movement of the body in space as in video games (FPS), to navigate from a room to another, user pass through a repetitive shape of the red cube, an early emblematic model of Valentino's career.
The second allows a discontinuous hypertextual circulation via the legend of the map which functions like a menu.
Step3: Interact with content
I created an interactive library to display all this content in one place.
Choose between drawing, dresses, photographers and shows, and back in time 50 years ago for each theme.
The content of the museum is divided into 3 categories:
- Dresses (physical)
- Drawings (physical and digital)
- Medias (photos and videos, physical and digital)
As this content needed to be dematerialized, I worked with service Italian and French providers to scan all documents.
The most complex challenge was that of the dresses, Mr Valentino made a selection of 400 of his masterpieces.
We had to create a device (above) to take 360° HD photos for each model (the technology at that time did not allow to digitize the models instantly in 3D, as we can do it today).
The process was long for my 2 young assistant designers who took care of an automated process of clipping and retouching (90 photos of each of the 400 dresses)
The Premiere
A magic moment for me and my team. ✨
It took place at the IAC Building in New York. Presented by Anne Hathaway (actress) and guests like Hughes Jackman (actor), Franca Sozzani (Editor in Chief of Italian Vogue), and Amit Sood (creator of Google Art Project). Followed by a press conference and a party with many famous people from fashion and cinema.
