The launch of HUGO Blue taps the gamers and the dreamers
If you’re over the age of 23, you may be wondering just what the hell happened to Web3. Wasn’t the future of living supposed to be entirely online by now, existing as only grainy avatars navigating worlds that don’t exist, the world economy only bouncing gold coins that you can never actually hold in your hands? Well, for plenty of Gen Z, that promise of a virtual future hasn’t gone anywhere. And for HUGO – a brand that’s done well to dress the coming generations – the multiverse of gaming is very much part of the plan.
To kick off March, the new HUGO Blue line was put out into the world (the real world, that is). Seeing faces from various creative industries front the campaign – the likes of Jasmine Jobson and Vinnie Hacker, photographed by Stuart Winecoff, unite the Top Boy fans with the TikTok lovers. The collection, which pivots heavily towards denim, keeps positivity at the centre, introducing the HUGO smiley, and a range of bright pastel colours that look to a new direction, a new attitude, for the previously black/red label. It is, in short, a campaign made with Gen Z in mind; the baggy silhouettes, the nostalgic denim, pieces that aren’t bound by gender but instead designed to be shared.
Though, when it comes to creating for the cool kids, Gen Z sees right through any brand without the real goal of being part of their outlook, their morals, and their hopes for the future. Cue the HUGO Blue launch event – the brand’s display that their new line goes much deeper than the clothing.
Set to a backdrop of the outskirts of Berlin, Germany, the launch of HUGO Blue was a spectacle to impress; bringing the possibilities of virtual worlds into our reality. The centrepiece of the event in an empty warehouse – a scaffold multi-floor structure for DJs, performers (a main act being Swae Lee, no less) – was flanked by design stations customising HUGO Blue tote bags and denim jackets, and a bar serving blue cocktails. In the next room, attendees ate blue popcorn on bean bags and crowded around a circular gaming centre featuring the new HUGO Blue Roblox game in which you could navigate the very event in which you sat (yes, it did feel existential after four blue cocktails), and change your avatar’s clothes into various HUGO Blue pieces. The launch was everything that Gen Z (and older, of course) wanted: explorable, customisable, and playable.
By bringing HUGO Blue out into the world, the brand has put their heart in the hands of younger generations, guided by their hopes for the future, and what they want to show through what they wear and how they wear it. And judging by the thousand-strong crowd of eager gamers, fashion-enthusiasts, rappers, TikTokers and beyond, the HUGO Blue future looks bright.
