French luxury fashion brand Balmain has launched a new Web3 initiative, featuring a limited series of NFT sneakers based on its Unicorn footwear line. The Unicorn Phygital Wearable Collection consists of 130 Unicorn sneaker NFTs bundled with identical physical counterparts.

The collection offers five unique sneaker designs and each bundle costs between $1595 and $2095, payable in traditional currency or ETH. The Ethereum NFTs were created in collaboration with Space Runners, a digital fashion company backed by investors such as Pantera, Polychain, Jump Capital, and Animoca Brands’ Yat Siu. Holders of Balmain Unicorn NFTs will receive certain perks, including early access to future Balmain drops, exclusive Balmain products, and additional digital wearables for use in online games and metaverse platforms. While digital wearables may one day dominate luxury fashion, Rohan Chhabra, Creative Director of Space Runners, believes that it may be some time before this happens, given the current state of affairs in leading open metaverse platforms like The Sandbox and Decentraland. Balmain has aggressively pursued partnerships, membership programs, and limited edition drops that incorporate blockchain technology over the last year.