The Rise of Digital Fashion.
There’s no way back — we are entering a new fashion paradigm.
Note: Below you will see an expired work on digital fashion I wrote in 2019. Read the latest comprehensive report on digital crypto fashion here.
Digital fashion is here. And it is to stay as we as Humanity are going through a process of raising our consciousness up to the level that is beyond physical.
Our bodies are becoming digitalized, our money decentralized with Blockchain, new power authorities are being formed and we are moving into oneness/singularity perspective of the world. We are rediscovering systems of operation in this reality that is more natural and organic to us, stripping down of the physical attachments and creating the new layer of reality that helps us transcend even further, where physical has less value than ever. Everything is energy. The digital world is a bridge between physical and fully non-physical reality, it is a layer of comfort for our ascension process. More about spirituality on my Instagram account, Nataliya.ai and on my YouTube channel. Here, we talk about digital fashion that is about to shape the new fashion industry in the ways it was impossible to imagine before.
Important to note at this point: I’m not referring to “phygital” items, those that have been produced and then digitalized, as Moschino did it for Sims. Neither I’m talking about digital garment manipulation to aid in the production or e-commerce sales process, like what CLO3D, ShareCloth, Inkreate, Taas, Avametric, Lectra, Browzwear, Metail and others in this family are focusing on and those that I love to write about in my articles about the future of fashion. In the given case and throughout this whole article, I’m referring to digital-ONLY clothing that is worn exclusively on photos or videos on-line and emotionally almost as satisfying as physical garments. Yes, this is already a reality, thanks to the innovative outlook of The Fabricant, the first digital-only fashion house based in Amsterdam. Check out their Instagram now for astonishingly captivating and satisfying endless video loops of their digital creations.
Those are not my words, but I’d not put this better than the British artist Chris Levine: “People are waking up to the realization that reality goes beyond the physical, the material, and that we likely live in multiple dimensions. The digital virtual realm is one of those dimensions, one where creativity is blurring the boundaries of what is real and what is an illusion. Our limited bandwidth of perception is ever more challenged as we navigate the bombardment of data to determine what is real and what is illusory.”
Welcome to the New Fashion industry of digital-only clothing.
Yes, the future is NOW.
Iridescence is a one-of-a-kind digital outfit created by Dapper Labs, The Fabricant , and modelled by Johanna Jaskowska, the creator of the beauty3000 Instagram filter — was auctioned for $9,500 during Blockchain week in NYC in May 2019. Who bought this unique item, advertised with the trendy mixed reality Queen, Johanna Haskowska? High fashion industry’s classic: an investor bought it — for his wife. At last, the investors in fashion tech can finally invest in fashion products that their wives will like!(This is an unfortunate insider joke, that has been going around the industry for a while, especially familiar to fashion tech startup founders)
Fabricant had 20 days from the auction custom fit the dress on a photo provided by the bidder. I witnessed Kerry Murphy, the founder of Fabricant present the final photo of this lucky woman wearing the digital dress during Fashion Tech Conference in Berlin on July 4th, 2019.
It all may sound surreal, but it is very, very real. We live in an age where we awaken to the fact that our reality is designed by us, it is not simply given for us to use. Technology is the perfect confirmation of this statement. With technology, we create a layer of reality that is between dimensions, where we can play, explore and create whatever we want. Why not create digital fashion if we love fashion so much?
The forward-looking publications which were bold enough to write about the emerging concept of digital fashion presented digital fashion solely as a playground for Instagram influencers. As a futurist, conscious business consultant and not so closeted contemporary version of a psychic, I see digital fashion as a serious movement where the fashion industry is inevitably heading, muuuch further beyond the 2.5+ million posts strong #ootd hashtag on Instagram. While I’m not denying the catastrophic effect influencers have on overconsumption, I believe there’s a gold mine in a digital fashion that is visible to only a few at this time. It is capable of satisfying our shallow, crazy-consumerist needs for dressing up, being seen and admired and willing to pay money for this narcissistic experiene, without harming the environment. It is also capable of solving the fashion industry’s crisis we are going through, where we are all working hard, trying to bend over backwards to create a fashion industry that is not destroying our Planet. Well, I see digital fashion is an easy way into a healthier future for Humanity.
To add some more emotionally-charged content: my personal story with digital fashion started in the late 90s, as I really enjoyed playing Barbie Fashion Designer computer game, where I could act as a designer and create outfits for Barbie characters. It continued some 15 years later, at Tinker Tailor, where I worked as a buyer, merchandiser, product manager or may I say, Chief Multitasking Officer. This was fashion customization and creation platform founded by Aslaug Magnusdottir, who previously co-founded of the industry-bending e-commerce website, Moda Operandi.
This was my ultimate dream job as I’ve always connected with the idea of digital-first fashion experience because it allowed room for more creativity and self-expression and significantly reduced waste in the fashion industry, offering a completely new way of producing fashion. Unfortunately, Tinker Tailor closed after a couple of years of its existence, due to lack of funding. However, the idea of fashion customization still stays strong and supported by companies like Nike with their ID customization offering, rebranded to Nike By You, oldest players int the customization field, e-Shakti + Apliiq, and the latest versions of Tinker Tailor: Frilly + Fame and Partners. All these companies are applying digital imagery to visualize a (likely) look of a custom garment. Again, this is not what I am focusing on in this article, but this is to give an example that digital fashion manipulation has been a personal passion of mine since at least 1999.
Disclaimer before you read any further: No matter how this is going to be a very lucrative business opportunity, I foresee that at some point in the future, even this digital fashion movement shall pass and will be transcended, as our consciousness expands beyond the physical & digital paradigm. For many of us (including myself), no matter how far we are on our spiritual and self-discovery journey, clothing still brings pure sense of joy and serves a number of real purposes: to cover our bodies from the Mother Nature’s conditions, to reflect our social role and to help in our self expression. But for a lot of people, fashion has become a tool to attract new followers, which has gotten to an unacceptable point of no return. The solution is right here: digital fashion. As my respected colleague, Bel Jacobs writes: “Fashion has power because it plays with our deepest insecurity: how we appear to others.” This shall pass when we start transcending through that insecurity. For now, I’m coming back to this given reality most of us are operating from.
Let’s take a closer look at two examples of digital-only fashion, publicly visible at the time of this article being written (July 17, 2019).
My personal favorite and the only one in its kind, The Fabricant, mentioned above, creates “digital clothing by harnessing 2D garment pattern-cutting software and 3D design software” and uses film rendering tools to create its signature hyper-real look of digital clothing.
Words from their website, defining what they do:
“We are creative technologists pioneering new channels for human connection and self-expression through digital-only fashion.”
“We specialize in photo-real 3D fashion design and animation. Developing digital fashion editorials, digital clothing and occasional collections. Always digital, never physical. Our digital fashion design and animation visualisations inform and captivate audiences. We offer complete packages as well as single designs and animations that can be used in stores, online platforms and digital channels. With a focus on the fashion industry, we use tools from the film visual effects industry such as motion capture, 3D animation software and body scanning to produce hyper-real digital fashion experiences. We combine talent from both fashion and animation industries to produce captivating digital fashion content for digital and physical channels.”
See, magic happens when the worlds are combined and integrated — in this case, the fields of motion graphics, fashion and 2D&3D design are composing the core of what Fabricant specializes today. It is co-founded by Kerry Murphy, a motion graphics artist, Amber Slooten, a digital fashion designer, and Kevin Van Kleef, 3D designer.
In years, if not months, ahead, I see this company develop beyond service provider and artistic experimentation and shape itself into a ground-breaking eponymous fashion label. The fashion label that radically ignores manufacturing anything in physical form and the given rules of the traditional fashion industry and instead creates, promotes and sells solely digital garments, inviting us into the digital-only future of fashion. Fabricant will be able to show the world that it is not only possible to monetize the digital fashion (which they have already done with their Irridecence dress, mentioned above), but also to create a whole new movement that is beyond the current imagination of the common audience.
The most fascinating project in my perspective created by The Fabricant is Deep — Faster Fashion, a Digital Fashion Collection designed by the company’s creative director, Amber Slooten. “Using artificial intelligence algorithms, the creative experiment saw the world’s first collaboratively designed fashion collection between a human and a non-human — Amber essentially asking the computer to dream, learn and create alongside her. The resulting surreal digital collection exhibited at major fashion fairs across Europe throughout summer.”
Right now, you can go to their website and download first digital-only garments from Deep Collection free of charge in form of OBJ file, a standard 3D image format that can be opened by Clo3D program, a leading digital fashion manipulation program currently available on the market and “put on” a garment on a photo of your choice, be it your own body or someone else’s avatar.
Dig even deeper into the topic of digital fashion and uncover the visions behind The Fabricant’s team of “Fashionauts” by reading their awesome blog.
In November 2018, a more traditional fashion company Carlings — a Norwegian multibrand-chain store, launched their first digital-only unisex collection titled “Neo-Ex”, offering 19 custom digitally fit garments for €10 — €30. This was done in partnership with AI influencer Perl.
Here’s a video that explains what they’ve done better than my words could at this point:
The process of purchasing digital garments by Carlings is the following: the customer is offered to choose a product, upload an image of themselves, place the order and the Virtue Nordic’s digital team dresses the customer on the photo virtually and then the image of the customer “wearing” a custom-fitted garment will be sent to them suggesting to share it on social media.
For now, Carlings sees the digital collection as “an experiment meant to spark the conversation about how we can reduce real production waste in the future”. I see it for what it is: a bold and powerful marketing move that brings customers closer to understanding what digital fashion could look and “feel” like.
“In reality, these clothes cost thousands and will usually be worn once due to their recognizable design, so we’ve sort of democratized the fashion industry by selling the digital collection at $20 per piece,” continues Grubak. “We’ve also opened up a world of taking chances with styling without leaving a negative footprint on the world.” — says Morten Grubak, Creative Director of Virtue Nordic, the creative agency behind Carings’ digital clothing campaign.
A cherry on a pie aspect of this collection is that all money earned from it go to WaterAid, who help impoverished communities across the world have access to clean drinking water and education. This acts as a call to raise awareness on the huge amount of water consumption the clothing industry uses yearly. Is it the case where everyone wins? I think so.
On their FAQ section, the brand answers the core question about digital fashion: “Why are you doing this?”
Their answer: “Except for the obvious part: the environmental aspect — we are also aware of trends. Everything is digitizing. The gaming world is already in full bloom, digital influencers and models alike. Why shouldn’t there be a digital clothing collection? With this project, we wish to challenge ourselves and the entire industry into taking the next step. We really believe it’s an interesting issue to address — do all clothes need to be physical?”
“The digital collection is just a new way of continually expressing your creativity without having to constantly buy new clothes, that have been produced in real life.”
Another important question was raised in the brand’s FAQ: why should I spend money on something I’ll never wear in real life?
“Today’s fashion is for a large part dictated online. It’s by far where you have the most exposure. This is why we want to give you the opportunity to keep expressing your style online, without leaving a negative footprint on the world. We also notice a gap in the market, where the most fun products are the most difficult to buy, due to them being either too crazy or too expensive, oftentimes both. By digitizing these products, we also make fashion more affordable.”
When any brand is talking about the environment it is often perceived as boring, while digital fashion fun. Why not choose to focus on fun, without sacrificing our Planet’s health? Digital fashion is the coolest solution currently available on the market and Carlings sees that.
Virtue Nordics, an agency that launched the Carlings’ “Address the future” campaign featuring their digital fashion collection won 13 Cannes Lions awards. Watch this CNBS video interview featuring Carlings CEO Ronny Mikalsen talking about their digital collection in Cannes for more information.
Now let’s go over some of the most basic benefits of digital fashion that goes beyond making influencers stay away from endless clothing waster:
- NOTHING needs to be produced in a physical form. Digital clothing means literally this: 100% digital. How’s that for the environment? It feels as if the solution to create digital clothing has resolved all the environmental problems at once. Ok, ok we can talk about digital carbon footprint, however, the speed of production of a digital dress digitally is arguably faster than uploading, selecting, photoshopping, and posting images from an analogue slothing photoshoot. (and yes, I said “analogue clothing”, you read it right — get used to this term)
- Brands don’t have to invest any more time, money and energy in research and development on how to design a product that lasts and produce it in the most sustainable matter (it’s never going to be 100% sustainable anyway)
- There’s no need to ship anything anywhere dozens of times — which eliminates a problem of the over the roof carbon emissions caused by all the unnecessary global transporation in the textile industry
- No need to jump around loopholes seeking for ethical production — digital fashion designers are paid well. Moreover, at some point in the near future, AI will be taught to manipulate a digital garment on a photo anyways.
- No size, fit or comfort issues, duh — since we don’t actually wear a digital garment in person. And just like that — one of the major reason for product returns in e-commerce is naturally eliminated. There’s no longer going to be a need for industry standardization of the vast diversity of shapes and forms of human bodies around the world.
- Creativity opportunities are ENDLESS. There are literally no limitations on what is possible to create within the digital fashion realm. How’s that for the fashion designers’ full creative freedom? Bring it on, Central Saint Martins! Let’s revive Alexander McQueen’s outstanding craft in a digital form!
- The joy of shopping is back — online or offline, shopping will be as fun as putting on face filters on Snapchat or Instagram. No more stressful and self depleting moments in changing rooms wasted hours of putting items on and off hundreds of times in order to make the most ethical and smart investment decision. It will be as simple as swiping back and forth between the carefully curated, personalized digital items.
- Yes, I said personalized. Everything will be tailored for YOUR preferences and tastes. Nothing will be left generic. That’s why a “risk” of looking the same as your friend on a photo will be equal to zero. You will get to decide what goes into the garment and to what extent you’d like to customize it. You won’t have to play designer if you don’t want to, but you can always add a unique twist that is meaningful to you, embedded into your digital garment.
- These are collectible items, which means they’re basically artworks of the new era. By investing in a digital fashion piece, you’d be investing in a building block of the new reality, you are voting with your wallet for the direction you’d like the future to be unfolding. Yes, I see it as this dramatic and powerful. As a reference: today, the market in crypto-collectibles has exceeded $200 billion USD for the first time this year, according to Forbes.
- All digital garments will be easily stored in your digital closet — so there’s obviously no need for any more storage space! AI will be able to suggest what can be added to your digital wardrobe and remind you which items you haven’t “used” for a while. No need to do spring cleaning each year and take a pile of no longer needed clothes to a second-hand retailer only to be rejected and dump it all at the closest charity store, feeling sorry for how much money and materials are wasted.
- That brings me to the following: you can sell your digital asset (garment) anytime if you’d like to do so. For example, if you become Insta-famous and want some cash — someone else would kill for owning your digital outfit… no need to kill now, simply have them pay whatever price you’d like to charge for this item since you are the rightful owner of this asset. I want to see digital fashion as an investment opportunity of the future, available to us now. If you’re feeling extra nerdy, Dapper Labs (those magicians behind the phenomenon of Crypto Kitties) wrote about how it’s possible through ownership of digital clothing assigned as a non-fungible token (NFT) + read the detailed, 106-page long Blueprint for the New Creative Economies report by LUKSO, the blockchain for fashion provider platform.
- It’s impossible to copy or steal a digital garment: designers and owners are protected by an assigned unique digital token stored on a blockchain system (again, such as LUKSO) provided by whoever sold that item to you.
- Last but not least (especially for me as a digital nomad): travelling really lightly is going to be totally possible now. We don’t have to think about all those outfit options since we’ll have a whole digital wardrobe available to us anywhere we go and take a picture at. There’s no longer a reason to worry about looking boring and repetitive on social media if you own an array of digital garments.
How we’ll claim ownership and authenticate our digital items you may ask? Blockchain. The use of Blockchain for transparency and traceability is an expired attempt. Yes, I know, I wrote about this a lot before, however, I have to acknowledge that just like fashion trends, my outlook on the technology applications in fashion changes with time, especially with the process of raising my consciousness, opening up my awareness to wider opportunities and pure exhaustion from the endless sustainable fashion conversations that lead to next to nothing.
Many youngsters (ok, fine, gamers) would compare digital fashion shopping to shopping for an article of digital clothing (or as they call them, “Skins”) for their game characters, in games such as Fortnite. This is far beyond out of my field of competence as of now and it goes to the direction I don’t want to take this article. However, it is important to acknowledge the influence on digital fashion that comes from the gaming industry, confirmed by the news of Nike Jordans’ “drops” for Fortnite that can be purchased with real money transferred into vBucks, Fortnite’s own digital currency. This blows even my futuristic-oriented mind.
I cannot complete this article without mentioning Lil Miquela, the most famous CGI influencer, created by Los Angeles-based startup Brud, who succeeded in securing brand collabs with such powerhouses as Prada, Balenciaga, and Kenzo. She was named one of Time’s ‘Most Influential People on the Internet’ in 2018 and has spearheaded the growing trend of computer-generated Instagram celebrities that due to obvious reasons works complimentary with the movement of fashion digitalization. Other digital influencers to feed your curiosity: Shudu, Lawko, Bermuda, Noonoouri and Perl act as mannequins for virtual fashion. These characters completely redefine the interplay between illusion and reality. If we want to play this digital fashion game, we better take it seriously!
To further satisfy your curiosity, I’d like to complete this wonder-filled article with this nice little clip by I-D magazine with (real) influencers speaking about digital fashion:
I will be writing more about this topic in the future, I have no doubt that this is just the beginning of the real revolution in our industry. Sign up to my newsletter to stay updated about news, connected with sustainability, conscious fashion business updates and forefront technologies empowering our industry towards the better, brighter future where we are still alive and healthy, enjoying the analog version of our Planet Earth. Because there’s no obvious planet B.
By Nataliya Makulova, Conscious Fashion Tech Consultant & Coach, Founder of Balanced Fashion. Originally published on the Balanced Fashion Blog.
