Marc Jacobs and Valentino just made outfits for Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Now you can dress your avatar in designer duds

Marc Jacobs just releases six looks for the game Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Marc Jacobs / Instagram

Love fashion but cannot afford the price tag? Well, stop worrying and head to Animal Crossing: New Horizon instead.

Released in late March, this Nintendo game has proved to be a welcome distraction from the pandemic, with millions turning to the virtual world as an escape. Not to be left out, now fashion designers are lining up to create digital clothes for it. OK, given the cartoon-ish figures and limited colours, this is hardly haute couture, but this week Marc Jacobs took to social media to announce it had created six designs for the game, in its customary sugary colours.

Realising that increasingly gamers were making bootleg designer gear for their online characters, now it seems as if the fashion houses have adopted a policy of 'if you can't beat them, join them' and made parts of collections available for download.

For those obsessed with detailing, this is not the platform to admire the quality of shoulder stitching, but for those looking to add some upscale fun into their avatar world, this will hit the spot perfectly. The six Jacobs looks are sweet and very much part of the high end shift into gaming.

Valentino too has released Animal Crossing looks, dropping 20 pieces from its spring / summer 2020, and pre-fall 2020 collections. While much of the subtlety of its house prints are lost, its VLNT branded pieces are easy to spot, but best of all, in this charmingly naive make-believe world, no one really cares. It seems the characters are too busy dealing with racoons or collecting turnips.

Much of the success of the game is the ease with which it can be customised, with players able to type in a code, or scan a QR code to add in new elements. Nintendo Switch has made its tool readily available, allowing anyone to upload as they wish.The beauty of this is that now gamers can really build a private tropical island paradise as they wish, and such is the demand for new content that it's not only fashion designers getting involved. Noticing that gamers were using art works to decorate their virtual ‘homes’, in April The Getty Museum made some of its vast art collection available to use, via its aptly named Animal Crossing Art Generator.