H&M, Maisie Williams, Collab with Animal Crossing to Recycle Your Old (Virtual) Clothes

H&M, Maisie Williams, Collab with Animal Crossing to Recycle Your Old (Virtual) Clothes

H&M is taking its sustainability efforts to the next level with its new island on Animal Crossing.

The retail giant has signed up with Williams, best known for her role of Arya Stark on HBO’s Game of Thrones, as global sustainability ambassador. This is H&M’s first step in promoting its pledge of only using recycled or sustainably sourced materials in its clothing by 2030.

For her first initiative, Williams worked to create a digital avatar who will make her debut in the partnership’s launch video and appear at multiple VR events throughout the year. The actor’s platinum-haired digital twin was created by the animators at Goodby Kansas Studio, the VFX geniuses who brought a digital Keanu Reeves into the Cyberpunk 2077 game and turned back the clock in Paris for Wes Anderson’s upcoming film The French Dispatch.

For Williams, the process of creating an accurate digital representation was an experience in itself.

“We did these full-body scans to see all the different muscles moving in my face and every strand of hair,” she explains. “Then I got to work on her image, pick her hair color—we made her blonde—scale up and down on the makeup and go back and forth on the colors.” Even the fashions received a virtual tweak. “It’s the outfit I wore in real life, but they took it and made this computer-generated, over the top version,” says Williams.

The first stop for Williams’ avatar? H&M’s newly launched Looop Island in Animal Crossing, Nintendo’ wildly popular simulation game.

The platform has become a fixture within fashion, with luxury labels like Valentino, Marc Jacobs and launching pop-ups and recreations of their looks in the Nintendo Switch game. H&M’s version offers something different. Users are able to recycle their game outfits into new ones using an online version of Looop, H&M’s in-store garment-to-garment recycling system. Currently available at a select locations, the virtual version gives everyone a chance to experience the technology.

For Williams, an avid gamer, the Animal Crossing component was a no-brainer.

“I’m obsessed with it,” she says of the game. “I discovered last year that it was a great place to buy virtual clothes and get dressed up sustainably. I think we’ve all used gaming and the internet to escape this year, and it’s truly influenced our lives. Virtual fashion is such an exciting new concept, so it’s a win-win situation.” Equally advantageous the virtual meet and greets Williams will be conducting alongside H&M’s Global Sustainability Manager, Pascal Brun. The first, takes place on Looop island until the 20th promoting recycling and circular fashion.

Williams also experienced the fun of Looop in real life, creating a purple scarf out of recycled material and wearing it throughout her promotional appearances for H&M. The accessory, which is available virtually, underscores how personal the H&M project has become for the actor. She’s currently in the process of remodeling her first home and using only recycled materials to do so. When she shops, she tries to buy second hand, and to give away or donate what she no longer needs.

Though a large portion of her first H&M initiative exists online, Williams is eager for people to take the lessons they learn playing virtually and bring them into the real world.

“What’s so incredible is that this is something that exists,” she says. “I hope that as people are playing this game and recycling their clothes online, they can make the connection between what is happening [virtually] and what they can pick up off a shelf in a store.”

Animal Crossing players can access Looop Island in via Dodo Code which will release daily on Loop Island’s Twitter.