DIGITAL FASHION 2021: A Technological Shift Towards Sustainability and Virtuality
Digital fashion, a promising marketplace for luxury brands with numerous unique advantages, has recently seen major accelerated growth in response to a pandemic that has kept people from going out. How will it change fashion as we know it?
Digital Fashion is the creation of hyperrealistic clothing using computer technology and 3D software. For the last few years, digital fashion is becoming an important marketplace for the fashion industry.
Since the rise of fast fashion in the early 2000s, consumers have abandoned the idea of dressing out of necessity, instead shopping has become a form of entertainment. However, a new revolution is about to happen. Digital fashion is expected to be used as an overlay in the photographs of social media, functioning as a filter. Sharing your experience of fashion is so easy on these platforms and it has proven to be an effective means to promote digital fashion. The current pandemic situation forced this change in the way we share our unique experiences with fashion. Social distancing is now mandatory and screens became the only form of interaction with one another.
One thing is for sure, digital fashion will generate a wave of groundbreaking creativity. Three dimensional fabric does not need to replicate existing real-life cloth. Buffalo Shoes recently teamed up with XR Couture and launched a digital shoe with blue flames. In the summer of 2020, the Balmain fashion house presented its cruise collection virtually, creating not only digital garments but digital models to wear the digital pieces. The lines dividing fashion and technology are blurring and digital fashion might just be the future for connecting with a new generation.
Attracting a younger audience is an important matter for fashion maisons like Chanel and Dior. The core identity of these brands are iconic looks from the 1940’s, and as times have changed interests have too. Certain fabrics and silhouettes that were the hot topics then have been difficult to sell lately and are hurting the business. Young consumers today just aren’t interested in tweed jackets. The new generation complains that these collections are “old and dated” and they have chosen to purchase bags and accessories with big visible logos or monograms instead, which is becoming the new foundation for what is making the luxury brands stand.
One of the strongest arguments for the use of digital fashion is the reduction of environmental impact. Since everything is done on a computer, the consumption of human resources and the supply chains are vastly reduced. Brands can design 3D prototypes, saving materials and get quicker feedback. The pieces can be viewed through augmented reality applications, where the customer can see the item they want worn by a model or themselves before placing the order. This will result in less returned items, fewer packages shipped, and a far more efficient production process.
Luxury brands spend large budgets on fashion shows in exotic places and with an extravagant mise-en-scène, which in the eyes of many serve only to disguise the little originality of the collections. They make claims of promoting sustainability that have nothing to do with sustainability itself, like the trees used at the Dior S/S collection 2020 show. Maria Grazia, creative director at Dior, decided to import trees from different countries to remind the public that they need to be more cautious about the Earth’s resources. Digital fashion could eliminate these events of epic spending and waste. Perhaps creating digital runways will be the future of fashion week events, expanding creative possibilities and properly delivering on the promise of sustainable fashion.
Fabrics used in the fashion industry require a lot of water usage and pesticides. They undergo chemical treatments and damaging dyeing processes. In 3D software, it is possible to easily change the model’s proportions so designers can adjust how garments move and fit without physically making prototypes from actual materials, creating unique pieces that fit perfectly, increasing efficiency and reducing waste.
Today, consumers have their closets full of clothing they don’t wear and quickly lose interest in. The fifteen minutes of satisfaction gained from twenty years of fast fashion have devastating consequences not only in the environmental impact mentioned before but also the human factor, the working conditions of those who produce them and the unrestrained consumption that creates waste generated by consumers. Digital fashion could pave the way for a more sustainable business model, where the consumption of garments that have only been worn once disappears.
The biggest criticism to the implementation of digital fashion is the fact that we will always need physical clothing and therefore, digital fashion has little use beyond social media platforms like Instagram and so on. What kind of person would be the standard customer? In what circumstances would they want to use it? The truth is, our world is already very dependent on digital and 3D influencers like Lil Miquela who have millions of followers. Countless purchasing trends have been influenced by people with followings online.
One aspect of digital fashion that will cause uneasiness will be the ritual of trying on clothes. If we negate the opportunity to experience the sensation of the textures that influence enjoyment and appeal of the pieces, how will a consumer know they will like something? It is expected that the consumer will eventually adapt and build a different relationship with garments as this market grows popular. After the Dutch brand, The Fabricant, sold a dress for 9,500 dollars, luxury brands will be eager to push the market boundaries and it doesn’t seem like the buzz is going away anytime soon.
How can a virtual object, which in theory can be easily duplicated, become an exclusive and unique object? The luxury brands’ strategy is to reduce their production to a small number that is subsequently authenticated through blockchain, the same technology as crypto currencies. Every piece will be unique and irreversible. Where would the digital clothing be stored? On a third party platform? This could be a decisive factor, because if so, at the moment when for some reason that platform goes offline, we would not have access to our garments and digital fashion becomes a risky investment.
We still need more time and development to understand how the application of digital fashion will materialise, but for the moment it is a very promising subject. Customisable, ecological, and sustainable, if we combine the knowledge from traditional to digital, we can build a solid foundation for the future of fashion.
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Text: Elisa Kasutoro
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Evgeny is an art director and a global citizen based in Hong Kong and working between Asia and Europe.
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