Behind The Hype of NFTs and Metaverse Projects In The Fashion Industry
NFTs, Metaverse in Fashion Industry
There’s a growing number of brands that introduced a variety of NFT projects, including Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Levi’s, Dolce & Gabbana, Gap, and Adidas. Balmain has released at least four NFT projects and counting. According to Vogue Business, Bottega Veneta launches an AR app for its show. Adidas partnered with Prada to create their first NFT. Balmain and Barbie partnered together on a series of NFTs with one of the highest bids of more than $21,000.
Gucci, the first luxury brand that introduces an NFT “Gucci Aria”, a short video artwork directed by Alessandro Michele and Floria Sigismondi, was sold for $25,000 in 2021. Gucci also entered the virtual world of Roblox and sold limited digital items. One of the digital bags was surprisingly sold for $4,115 while the physical bag is priced at $3,400!
Recently, Gucci partnered with SuperPlastic released a collection of 500 NFTs that comes with physical ceramic sculptures called “Supergucci” on February 1, 2022. Each of the NFTs is priced at 1.5 Ethereum (about $3,800 US dollars) Gucci also announced that they are planning to create a metaverse world on The Sandbox soon.
NFT -Non-fungible token / nän ˈfənjəbəl ˈtōkən / noun
Non-fungible tokens or NFTs are cryptographic assets on a blockchain with unique identification codes and metadata that distinguish them from each other.
Metaverse / ˈmɛdəˌvərs / noun
A virtual-reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users.
The Start of De-materialization in Fashion
Younger millennials and the generations after were born in a fast-developing digital world. Some of us don’t even have any physical photographs since it’s not as convenient as a digital version to share with others. As a gen-z myself, part of our childhood was inside the metaverse of computer gaming. According to Statista, there are 2.95 billion active gamers around the world in 2022. In the gaming world, purchasing digitalized fashion good like skins are just as common as purchasing physical goods in reality. And there is $100 billion annual spending on virtual goods. Like in the reality, everyone wants to express their unique identity mostly through fashion. However, fashion becomes dematerialized in the virtual world. NFT allows people to own unique digitalized goods in the real world and that is part of the reason why the demand is increasing as we enter the virtual world on a deeper level.
The concept of NFT and Metaverse is already deeply in our minds and we are living in different small metaverses like social media. In fact, we are all currently in a metaverse of Medium here. In this metaverse, users can express themselves not only through words but also through their profiles, page designs, fonts, and colors to express their identities. Plus, the pandemic has pushed our life even deeper into the virtual world. Jobs, schools and even hanging out with friends can be virtual. The more time we spend virtually, the more physical things will be translated into digital. Fashion is one of them. The fashion companies see there’s a potential market in virtual goods. Gucci’s collaboration with Roblox seems reasonable and wise to sell its virtual goods to the sophisticated gammers who want to express who they are.
The Connection between NFT and Fashion
You might wonder the manufacturing side of the fashion industry hasn’t been anticipating and adopting new technology and platform shift for so long, yet why are they jumping into this extremely innovative world now? There are certain connections and benefits indeed. Craftmanship is always the core of luxury fashion and creating an NFT artwork is similar. Building 3d models also require craftmanship like digital sculpting, modeling, and texturing. Moreover, fashion is always connected to the negative topic of pollution. There’s a measurable planetary saving of creating digital fashion than physical ones. 97% less CO2 is produced by creating digital goods, and maybe there’s less waste of water and material. The only downside is there will be energy consumption. Sustainability is the hot topic of every fashion brand, yet not a single brand is 100% sustainable. Digital Fashion might be the fast solution. Now it might make a bit more sense that fashion brands want to be the pioneer of NFTs and metaverse.
How the lines between physical and digital realities are blurring
Have you ever picked a different outfit than the other one that you were last time and posted on social media? If yes, you probably will be interested in virtual fashion goods. There are emerging fashion and tech companies like DressX developing an AR filter that allows you to wear digital clothes in “real life” and share it on social media with your friends.
Lastly, even though virtual fashion still hasn’t become mainstream and only attracted a niche crowd, for now, it’s a subject to pay attention to. It seems that the storytelling selling of NFTs and entering metaverse is heated but early, brands still need to work on the back end to make the entering barrier low for the mass consumers to understand and use.
The journey of turning screen wear to the new “streetwear” has started, would you like to be part of it?
