Designers made attempts to embrace the metaverse during New York Fashion Week, arguably underscoring the fact that much about digital fashion and our avatars remains intangible.
Imitation of Christ held a runway show in Decentraland, a virtual destination and marketplace for digital assets. Jonathan Simkhai collaborated with metaverse developer Everyrealm and metaverse production company Blueberry Entertainment to host a Metaverse Fashion Week event in Second Life, an online multimedia platform that allows users to create their own avatar and live a second life in a virtual environment.
Digital fashion week in New York addressed the changing reality of fashion, but people have yet to welcome it in the same way as physical fashion shows. The curated fashion tech expo aspires to honour design leaders’ voices by providing a fresh lens through which the future of fashion is explored and experienced. While it’s impossible to observe details of clothes in a digital exhibition, some of the events include animations and presentations of the latest works of digital fashion designers, which are unique to the metaverse.
According to Vox, digital fashion is “a growing fashion subculture that includes the digital design and modelling of real-world clothing, the uploading of designs for real and digital clothing onto the blockchain (so these files can be sold as NFTs), and even digital clothes rendered onto real people.”
As the foundations of this emerging digital world are being laid, brands are in the process of figuring out what works — and what doesn’t.
Also joining the vitual world is Roksanda, a ready-to-wear label who is teaming up with Clearpay, the main sponsor of London Fashion Week to create the demi couture finale look from Roksanda’s forthcoming show in the form of an NFT.
Clearpay conceived the concept and collaborated with Roksanda and the Institute of Digital Fashion to make it a reality as a first venture into the metaverse. According to a press release, the NFT is “the first of its kind to give consumers access to haute fashion via Web 3.0 (purchased on roksanda.com exclusively through Clearpay)”. Meanwhile, an augmented reality feature allows customers to digitally try on the NFT.
Nick Molnar, Co-Founder and CEO, Clearpay, says: “A big part of our commitment to London Fashion Week is ensuring that fashion is accessible to consumers, and by partnering with Roksanda and the Institute of Digital Fashion this season, we’re able to do that in quite an exciting way.”
“Collectively we’ve transformed their FW22 demi couture look into an NFT, giving consumers unparalleled access to high end fashion that simply wasn’t available to them before.”
He concludes: “We’re proud to be able to help democratise fashion, and enable consumers to buy, interact, and engage with Roksanda’s artistry in such an innovative way. It’s exciting to see this all come to life at such an important moment in the British fashion calendar.”