Farfetch celebrates Christmas with designer augmented reality wrapping paper

Farfetch.com’s augmented reality gift wrap by (left to right) Meadham Kirchhoff, Melinda Gibson, Margot Bowman and Gary Card

Online marketplace Farfetch.com is launching augmented reality gift wrap for the holiday season using image recognition technology from Aurasma.

Based on exclusive illustrations from four emerging creatives, the wrapping paper can be scanned using the Aurasma app on smartphone or tablet devices to reveal behind-the-scenes videos of the respective design process.

These fly-on-the-wall films document the gift wrap from sketchpad to sign-off, alongside interviews with each of the four creatives: design duo Meadham Kirchhoff (film shown below), photographer Melinda Gibson, artist and DJ Margot Bowman, and set designer and illustrator Gary Card.

The designs will be printed on 40,000 reams of wrapping paper and dispatched with all Farfetch orders from now until December 19.

CEO and founder of Farfetch.com, Jose Neves, said: “We are delighted to be collaborating with four dynamic names from the worlds of art and design, bringing these one-off creations to our online platform and sharing with a worldwide, fashion-forward audience. The campaign as a whole will offer users and customers exclusive access to the entire ‘Unwrap’ journey, creating what we hope will be an unrivalled online shopping experience.”

That ‘Unwrap’ concept will also see each design featured as wallpaper on the site (as with Meadham Kirchoff below) for a week, and a social Pass the Parcel game. Here, consumers are invited to click to win daily designer gifts and then share the parcel with their friends to gain more entries into the grand prize draw. The game also includes a world map that features a live feed of players around the globe.

In another phyiscal translation of the campaign, the Meadham Kirchoff print is also wrapping two London taxis (also shown below) from November 26 for a week. Passengers jumping in for a ride will receive festive cakes from food blogger April Carter of Rhubarb & Rose, and another chance to win designer gifts from Farfetch.com.

farfetch.com receives $18m in funding

E-commerce site farfetch.com has raised $18m in a second round of funding from Index Ventures, eVenture Capital Partners and existing investors Advent Venture Partners.

A curated marketplace comprised of independent fashion boutiques from around the world, the site has a current annual sales growth rate of 204%.

It now hosts 35,000 products from both established and emerging designer labels; representing over 200 boutiques in 12 countries.

The funding round will enable it to both deepen its presence in existing markets across Europe and North America, and further its efforts in the likes of Brazil and Asia.

Half of all sales on farfetch.com are delivered to emerging and new markets. According to CEO and founder José Neves, this new round of investment only stands to encourage this figure.

He said: “farfetch.com is growing extremely fast, and now has a strong international presence… We felt it was the right time to scale up our team and operations and seize some fantastic opportunities.”

Exclusive: Farfetch.com’s SIXby6bloggers collection revealed

 

Farfetch.com has released a video in celebration of its new SIXby6bloggers project, which sees six top fashion bloggers each designing a pair of one-off shoes in collaboration with shoe studio SIX London.

Featuring the creations of Susie Lau (Style Bubble), Yvan Rodic (Face Hunter), Caroline Blomst (Carolines Mode), Steve Salter (Style Salvage), Leandra Medine (The Man Repeller) and Alix Bancourt (The Cherry Blossom Girl), the video features both a male and female model sporting each pair against a studio background.

The shoes will be available on Farfetch.com from tomorrow, Thursday, November 24.

A previous video followed the journey of each of the bloggers, from the initial sketches to the production factories in Portugal.