While public interest in the Metaverse hasn’t been completely lost, brands are trying to make the most of its popularity.
Many luxury brands have already jumped on the gamification bandwagon, selling branded skins and buying land in the Metaverse.
We already visit Decentraland Fashion Week, play the Balenciaga game, and regularly watch digital collections move from mass market to luxury markets.
Also, on Web3, there is a serious feud going on between the Hermès brand and artist Mason Rothchild, the man behind the MetaBirkins non-fungible token (NFT) furry bags. This event has drawn public attention to the fact that Hermès uses the skin of exotic animals, while the digital skin is just an image. MetaBirkin poses an important question: “What do luxury lovers pay for?”
Hermès claims that MetaBirkin uses the brand for its own benefit. His answer, effectively, is that it’s none of his business: artists draw what they want. It is virtual creative content, not a physical product, not even a counterfeit. In other words, a digital bag cannot be the subject of a lawsuit.
Related: The feds come for the metaverse, from Axie Infinity to Bored Apes
Also, if someone has a digital version of Birkin, they would probably like to buy a real bag by buying a token.
MetaBirkin does not undermine Hermès business in any way. Maybe it will even attract a new audience, making the product more current and modern.
Anyway, this case is a wake-up call for luxury brands, indicating that it is necessary to launch their digital fashion departments or cooperate with contemporary artists who are already online.
a metabirkin
In general, NFT Birkin bags are very popular: sellers digitize their vintage bags and sell them as NFTs, producing a real one at the same time. Kanye West bought one from his girlfriend, Cheney Jones, for $275,000. Is this a surprise? With NFT, such a bag becomes modern art and is considered an investment both in real life and in NFT.
After such situations, it is clear that the fashion world has moved to digital fashion. Who will miss out on the hype once again and win some extra money?
Well, first of all, brands started producing their own NFTs, giving access to a private fan club. It’s like a favorite customer’s membership card but more expensive. You can also buy, resell and earn, but it is not guaranteed.
Tiffany’s provides an example: TiffCoin. Mind you, there are only 499 in circulation, and they debuted at a price of 30 Ether (ETH). If you buy one, you will have access to exclusive brand events. However, in fact, what you are buying is “a cat in the bag”. You do not know the type of events or how long you will have access to them. But perhaps the owner could be a collector or an honorary customer of Tiffany & Co.
Dolce & Gabbana did the same, but it went further and launched up to three versions of its boxes. Dolce offers three types of boxes: the Black has an NFT with physical and digital drops, along with invites to events in the Metaverse, the Gold box has invites to live events, and the Platinum has more exclusive deals.
One by one, brands are starting to offer the opportunity to buy real clothes in their boutiques with cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrency holders can now shop at Philipp Plein, Gucci, Off-White, and Balenciaga.
Related: Throw your boring monkeys in the trash
To pay in style, they need a suitable wallet. Fendi will help you. After all, he was the one to introduce his Ledger collaboration crypto wallets at Men’s Fashion Week. They look like small iconic Fendi Baguette bags but in Web3.
Now, brands are producing the same collections digitally and in reality. For example, Zara jumped at the chance to increase brand awareness, launching a digital version of its clothing. Despite his reasoning, who wants to go to Zara’s Metaverse that has no difference from the real one? While it may be a rough start, there could be a better one ahead.
But, Dolce & Gabbana went further, adapting their ideas in real time to the Metaverse. First, he disguised the cats; second, the clothes shimmered and shimmered because in the Metaverse brands have to stand out, especially to customers who have enough money to buy a Dolce & Gabbana fur.
In general, digital fashion continues to be an instrument for capturing an audience, free from media traffic. Brands understand it quite well, they publish that they have something digital and presto, it spreads at the speed of light.
For example, Adidas has launched an AI-generated avatar creation platform based on personality: answer a few questions and choose sneakers. It’s the same ad campaign: Everyone decides to make their avatars and post them on social media; is the best marketing. Sure, every avatar looks the same, but that’s not the point.
And finally, all this digital fashion has moved to the catwalk.
At Metaverse Fashion Week, the Etro brand came to its Liquid Paisley collection. And, in real time, it became much fresher than current brand trends.
Now there’s more:
Metallic silver textures Catsuits Strappy miniskirts, much like selecting an item of clothing when creating a character Big chunky shoes Long black leather coats Wet hairstyles – a style that is difficult to reproduce in 3D due to the “Cyber world” goggle texture that every brand that they respect each other already have released — from Balenciaga to Coperni
We are all loaded into the matrix. The cyberaesthetic craze has come back to us long after the huge popularity of Wachowski’s film, as well as how natural it looks in modern life.
Now more than ever, the public should want to dress like The Matrix’s Trinity, in a Balenciaga coat, Gucci glasses and Metabirkin, a real one, complete with a dangling Fendi x Ledger crypto wallet.
Inna Kombarova is the founder of the popular fashion channel Telegram Mamkina. In 2019, she quit her job as head of the industrial sales department at a major climate company and started working full-time in fashion media.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should do their own research when making a decision. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Source: news.google.com