Week LFW: A new age for fashion, virtually speaking.
London Fashion Week has been an eventful week with enormous names, brands, and designers bringing us fashion that is sure to change the industry’s landscape for years to come. Some say the fashion industry started moving towards virtual fashion due to the pandemic. In contrast, others claim it is because of the increasing damage the fashion industry is causing to the earth.
There were various shows during London fashion week that highlighted the impressive progress of change within the fashion industry. On the one hand, brands are facing backlash for fast fashion, and on the other hand, some are being praised for moving into the future with NFT fashion.
During London fashion week, Pretty Little Thing was one of the most talked-about brands, and the main feature of their show that caught everyone’s eye was how diverse their presentation was, featuring models from all different backgrounds. Following the brand’s ethos of empowering women, they had models of different shapes, sizes, ethnicity, disability, or status.
Another part of their event that caused everyone to be drawn to it was the roaring protest outside the venue against Pretty Little Thing. One of the leading protests (alongside ex-Love Islander Brett Stainland), Venetia La Manna, told The Tab they staged a protest because they believe “PLT is a highly exploitative brand that doesn’t pay its workers to support unions and that doesn’t care about the planet.”
Unfortunately, the protestors turned this into the main event due to their concerns about Pretty Little Things’ participation in fast fashion and wage theft. The arising issues are some of the main concerns about fast fashion and contribute to the growth of virtual fashion.
The main talking point about London Fashion week came from understanding that Roksanda was the top line in developing the fashion line as NFTs only. It would seem that Roksanda had taken fashion-forward by making it virtual. What does this mean for everyone else and the fashion scene? This prompted attention because it signals the fashion industry’s attempt to commit to virtual, to a better delivery model. Through the virtual reality scope, the fashion scene becomes much more accessible to its consumers allowing them to purchase the clothing in the virtual world and fit it to their avatars. Giving consumers unparalleled access to high-end fashion that simply wasn’t available to them before. A significant changing moment from the old days were fashion shows such as London fashion week was only for the rich and famous and well connected. Now it gives everyone a chance to own parts of the collection. The digitization, accessibility, and innovation to fashion lovers everywhere are one to be praised. In aligning itself within the virtual world through fashion — a world where waste and sustainability are of serious concern- Roksanda does well to showcase that it is possible to change the narrative of sustainability in fashion. Virtual fashion is conscious of the environment!
Even virtual fashion harms the environment by leaving carbon footprints. As part of our efforts to be more sustainable, we have found a solution to reduce this impact at Gravity the Studio. To address this, we create our designs on the eco-friendly Polygon blockchain, which uses significantly less electricity than older blockchains like Bitcoin. We are working on offsetting more of our 3D design impact. Our goal is to run on 100% renewables. In the meantime, we give 1% of everything we earn to carbon removal projects through the Stripe Climate program.
