Alyson Wilson, VP of Brand Innovation at Alo Yoga, joins Cheddar News to discuss the yoga apparel company entering the metaverse and teaming up with Spring Studios for New York Fashion Week.

Between Bells

Alo Yoga Enters the Metaverse

rebels back guys, yoga apparel and technology company. Alo yoga is entering into the metaverse that in partnership with roadblocks, they launched a virtual sanctuary just in time for the launch of a real life sanctuary over at new york fashion week? So joining us now from Spring Studios in Manhattan is our senior reporter Chloe a yellow hey Chloe, hey baker! Well I'm joined now by Alison Wilson, she's the VP of Brand and Innovation at Alo Yoga Allison, thank you so much for joining us today. So alot partnering with roadblocks to get into the metaverse, what does this mean? How does it work? Well, we are so excited to be in the metaverse and be sharing mindfulness and movement and wellness with people there. When you come into our space, you get a yoga mat, you get to do meditation, you get to do yoga, there's some really cute outfits and everybody who completes the quest on roadblocks for each of those completions were donating to mental health initiatives, it's a really nice partnership and we're so grateful to be there. It's a really cool thing for us. You said there's some outfits involved, you know, alot of course being a yoga apparel company as well, so do these correspond to real items in the real world. They totally do. You can wear your aloe fits in the metaverse and I am gonna invite you guys to go and check it out for yourself to see what's there? I'll leave that as a surprise. So why would it make sense for alot to get into the metaverse and open this virtual sanctuary. Well wellness is at the core of everything that we do. So we're here at new york Fashion week is the wellness partner bringing wellness to people at this event, but we also bring it to people through everything that we drew through our stores, which we call sanctuaries where you can come in and experience mindfulness and movement. Our app is called alo moves, it's incredible instructors where you can move and breathe, do everything from you know yoga but beyond to wait trading and hit trading and Pilates and really amazing five minute meditations, you can just hit that button and feel better there. It's what we do, It's been at the core of our belief set and our mission since day one and when something like the metaverse comes along, it just makes so much sense to bring that that wonderful awareness and activation to people who are there as well. As you mentioned, Aloe is not only an apparel company, but it also has a low moves which is an on demand fitness platform and now it's in the metaverse as well, my understanding is this is a limited run for now, but what does this mean for the future of Aloe? Well, I mean, expect us back in the metaverse soon, for sure, it's been an incredible experience for us, we've had millions of people come and experience alot there and so we're gonna be back and beyond that guys watch alone, we have incredible wellness offerings coming soon that are gonna blow your mind, things you wouldn't expect from us but that we've been working really hard on bringing. So It's gonna be really cool and we will definitely be watching out for that now. We are, as you mentioned at New York fashion week, where Allah was announced the official wellness partner in 2021. So what does it actually mean to be the wellness partner for New York fashion week? Well given what's happening in the world right now, New york Fashion week felt it was so important to bring a type of balance through mindfulness and movement to Fashion Week. We've had everyone stopped by here from models to vogue editors to designers to just all kinds of, all the people working and attending the shows because they can experience incredible wellness and mindfulness support. We have sound baths, we have meditations, we have healers, I have a crystal in my pocket from our reiki healer. B 12 shots, massages from incredible body workers come in, get centered, get their minds in order and really feeling like they're uplifted and balanced and ready to go back into the world of new york fashion week. Why do you think that allo was an appropriate partner for new york fashion week? Well Allah has always stood for wellness and I think as we come into this space, it's a really beautiful balance between being such a fashion forward street forward, our company and brand. Our look is always about studio to street, which to us means bringing the practice from being on the mat into your daily life, out into the street. We've always done that in a way that's been so embracing of fashion and Alice always really been embraced by fashion. So for us that side of it was a really natural fit. And of course as we talked about wellness is embedded in our D N. A. And it's such a profound, beautiful opportunity to share both sides of what alot is here at Fashion Week. And final question for you, you know, now that you've partnered up with new york Fashion Week, do you anticipate this partnership extending into the future? Will new york Fashion Week, in your opinion, have a wellness component moving forward. That is such a good question because for sure we are extending into the future with new york Fashion week. They have been such an incredible partner and we're really aligned on what it means to be bringing a full, complete holistic fashion week to new york and to the world. We're going to do this again and we're gonna be doing more with them in the future. So it'll be really exciting to share Allison, Thank you so much for your time today. That's Alison Wilson VP of brand and Innovation at Alo Yoga