Glittering Trends: Fashion NFTs
The world of fashion is regularly ahead of the mainstream hype. Looking back at NFT’s short history, it’s easy to see that the first co-production between technology and fashion started in 2019. This trend has become robust, and fashion brands have a clear presence in our digital culture.
March 2019 was when fashion first entered the NFT world. A joint creation by Dapper Labs, the Amsterdam-based digital fashion house The Fabricant and Johanna Jaskowska, “Iridescence” was the first of its kind: a fully digital garment that was eventually sold as NFT. Later that year, the conglomerate LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton) issued a token to certify the authenticity of their products. The solution, which has worked well since then, became a significant luxury consortium by 2021. Their product, the Aura platform, can track a premium company’s product lifecycle, using blockchain solutions to help distribute, authenticate and resell luxury products. Today, the platform has partners such as Mercedes Benz, Prada, Cartier, Hublot, and Bvlgari. The project has proven that it is essential for fashion brands to be up to date with implementing new technologies. These use cases are very inspiring feedback for technological developments.
The Sneakers that conquered NFT fans
After the pioneering solutions, the NFT hype practically ran out of control in 2021. Everyone wanted an NFT. As the metaverse concepts were born, so was the market for digital fashion. RTFKT became one of the first representatives. The first luxury brand in the crypto-derivative space, specialising in selling virtual hype beast sneakers. Their shoes were designed by a young “crypto artist”, Fewocious, and the company made $11 million in two collections.
In an exciting moment, mainly due to the pandemic, French Fashion Week broadcast its events online in 2021. Therefore, it was not surprising that digital fashion items were also displayed in these spaces. The live stream and augmented reality almost brought with it the NFT fever. Fashion labels have released their digital collections one after the other ever since. The paradigm shift was brought about when the French Fashion and Haute Couture Federation teamed up with the Arianee NFT platform to give away NFTs to selected guests at the Paris Spring/Summer 2022 menswear shows and haute couture shows.
In 2023, it was no surprise that the famous Paris Fashion Week was also linked to the NFT Paris event series.
You can also have a fashion brand
The NFT is now almost a must-have in the communication of global brands. There is a wide range of interesting and creative solutions on the market. One exciting solution provider, Prototype.fashion, communicates that anyone can have an NFT fashion brand today. The company creates a client’s collection of 500 pieces, which is then tailored to the needs of the Metaverse or supplemented with an “AR solution”. This is how real products are linked to the digital world.
Andrea Albrizio’s work is another excellent example of fashion meeting 3D, and the talented young designer’s creations have already caught the attention of Fashion Week experts. Andrea believes that our society is evolving rapidly towards a fully digitalised society. It can be seen that in his work, creating a #digitalidentity is the most important thing.
In 2022, 17% of fashion brands had some attempt in the world of NFTs. Today, this number has increased significantly, even though the NFT market is in a downward spiral in some segments. The many fans of significant brands have proven time and time again that brand loyalty is a much stronger consideration than trends. The best example of this is the “Hundreds” brand’s “Adambombquad” campaign, in which fans were rewarded with NFTs and the brand’s real products as part of the collection. Here, the combination of the physical and the digital — phygital — was also a big hit, bringing in around $50 million for the owners of the cool streetwear.
Metaverse fashions
While metaverse fashion is far from bringing the popularity that experts predicted, brands believe it is essential to be present in these virtual spaces. Fashion Week 2022 has already appeared in Decentraland, and they plan to do so again in 2023. The 2022 event featured brands such as Paco Rabanne, Selfridges, Tommy Hilfiger, Dolce & Gabbana, Philipp Plein, Hogan and Esteé Lauder. The 108,000 guests at the event could see their favourite digital wearable collections for the first time. This year, a particular focus is on linking digital and physical collections.
The first Metaverse Fashion Week in 2022 was the first major event of its kind, generating unprecedented interest from the traditional fashion community. However, the experience had its technical limitations; there were issues with graphics and errors, partly due to limitations in computing performance. Critics say even these systems still need to be fully prepared for events of this scale. For the 2023 event, the organisers promise that everything will be better, bigger and brighter. This may be the case, as the participating brands will be able to work more effectively with the metaverse developers this year, having already learned from previous experiences.
Other brands, such as Gucci and Nike, have also entered the glamorous world of the Metaverse, with a host of avatars wearing fashionable outfits in these virtual spaces. Several NFT platforms have already responded to this demand. They are producing virtual sales outlets and digital webshops for anyone who wants to order products necessary to the brand.
The future is already here
The digital world and fashion brands are evolving virtually in parallel. The linking of digital and physical objects is a visible trend. Well-known crypto services like Coingecko are also preparing “phygital” projects. They are rumoured to release a collection in collaboration with the famous Australian AR designer Marc-o-Matic, in which fans can buy polo shirts with unique “AR” patterns.
Fashion and luxury brands dazzle their communities with exclusive collections, most of which will never see the market. This significantly increases the value of these items in both the virtual and real world.
Solutions built on NFT technology appeal to communities who have seen NFT. They are no longer satisfied with a picture or a funny character. They want to use their brand equity to show it everywhere, to everyone, whether it’s a metaverse or a glittering fashion festival.
About Galaxis
Galaxis is a cutting-edge, no-code, out-of-the-box toolkit that transforms and enhances the relationship between any creator and their community by infusing collectables with unique utility traits, owner-specific benefits, and interactive communication opportunities. Galaxis’ end-to-end solution provides an essentially unlimited suite of decentralized community tools that allow anyone to grow, engage and monetize their audience.
Written by Tamas Peter Turcsan
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