The November issue, which hits stands today, features one of America’s favorite sweethearts as its leading lady, and while the young, mostly female readership of InStyle is “not the normal expected crowd people would think of for VR,” as Scott Broock, Jaunt VR’s vice president of content, told Reuters, both the fashion and the tech industries are changing and now embracing one another with open arms.
While buzz around virtual reality and VR headsets has grown over the last year or so, these devices still aren’t common household items, so in order to ensure that their readership gets to take advantage of the immersive and interactive experience with Barrymore, InStyle is actually sending cardboard viewers to some of their subscribers alongside the latest issue. Moreover, the magazine also plans to give away up to 1,000 of these headsets online beginning Thursday, and if demand is high enough, they may further increase their stock.
With an inexpensive headset and the Jaunt app you’re ready to walk alongside Drew at her photoshoot. “We are in this experimental phase to see how quickly they go,” said Angela Matusik, executive editor of digital at the publication. After all, this is new territory for just about everyone involved.
Jaunt VR created the whole experience by using a 360-degree stereoscopic camera alongside 3-D sound-field microphones. This allows viewers to explore the set with Barrymore as she goes through the styling process and gives makeup tips so that you, dear reader, can be photo shoot-ready, too!
“The experience is so distinctive, but what makes it next level is this type of content. There’s a lot of consumer excitement and a business opportunity down the road. We’re going full throttle into it,” said InStyle’s editorial director Ariel Foxman. And this is just the beginning.
“At InStyle, we always try to make what we do really accessible and approachable for our readers, whether its dissecting the latest fashion trends coming down the runway or giving you insight to our cover subject,” Matusik told Fashionista. “This is the first time that you actually feel like you’re interacting with the subject, Drew Barrymore, because she speaks to you and there’s a real intimate moment that jumps across the boundaries of what this technology does, and makes it really clear how cool and exciting it can be.”
