Clothing retailer H&M (Hennes & Mauritz) denied reports Monday (Jan. 3) from publications including The Economic Times and Mashable India that it is planning to open a 3D store in the metaverse “at this time” and also shot down rumors of a collaboration with Ceek, Bitcoin.com reported.
“We’d like to confirm that H&M is not opening a store in metaverse at this time,” an H&M spokesperson told Bitcoin.com. “We are also not collaborating with Ceek.”
H&M has not responded to PYMNTS’ request for clarification on the matter.
The global fashion brand has 4,856 stores around the world in 75 markets — including Germany, the U.S., the U.K., France, Sweden, Russia, Italy and the Netherlands — and 53 online markets, the report stated.
Rumors swirled, based on the reports, that H&M planned to open a metaverse store that would allow customers to virtually walk through the space, choose the products they want and buy them in the Ceek City universe using ceek tokens.
The reports also said customers would be able to order the clothes they see in H&M’s metaverse store from the company’s physical stores later.
Ceek’s virtual reality spaces run on smart contracts through the Binance Smart Chain, the report stated. Ceek tweeted Dec. 7 that it had created what it called a “concept VR store” that it would present to H&M as part of a planned collaboration.
Shopping in the #metaverse with $CEEK
Concept VR store presented to @hm by #CEEK Creating mainstream use cases for $CEEK + scaling #Virtualreality beyond games. #VRAPP #CEEKVR #NFT #VR #CEEKVenues
👉🏽 More at https://t.co/oAvCTgp2Bk pic.twitter.com/OI4BFkyUAw— Ceek (@CEEK) December 7, 2021
Ceek’s official Twitter account clarified Monday that the store shown in the Dec. 7 tweet “was just a concept that was presented to H&M and not an actual virtual store yet. We are in discussions with people at H&M to make this a reality, but this is not something that’s a reality as of now.”
Hi Ceekers🤩 As stated in post below, the @hm store in the #Ceek #metaverse was just a concept that was presented to H&M and not an actual virtual store yet. We are in discussions with people at H&M to make this a reality, but this is not something that’s a reality as of now. https://t.co/TEmNpoF0Ki
— Ceek (@CEEK) January 3, 2022
In October, H&M’s Mitte Garten location and circular fashion platform Iablaco rolled out a rental service focused on connected and digitized circular fashion that allows customers to book and pay for garments with one click on the new platform, then return the item to the Berlin store, where it’s checked, cleaned and prepared for the next renter.
Read more: H&M, Iablaco Partner on Blockchain-Based Clothing Rental Service
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