London
CNN
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The ephemeral nature of the fad may seem like an odd companion to the blockchain, an online ledger that is designed to be permanent. But the industry is finding ways to harness it and other digital tools to reduce waste and propel fashion into the future.
Italian company Lablaco is working with fashion houses and brands to digitize their collections in the burgeoning “phygital” fashion market, when customers buy a physical fashion item and its digital “twin,” designed to be collected or worn by avatars in virtual environments like the metaverse.
Lablaco was founded in 2016 by Lorenzo Albrighi and Eliana Kuo. Both had a background in luxury fashion, but were looking to enhance the industry’s sustainability credentials and promote circular fashion, the practice of designing and producing clothing in a way that reduces waste.
The couple launched the Circular Fashion Summit in 2019, and Lablaco worked with retailer H&M to introduce a blockchain-based clothing rental service in 2021.
They argue that bringing fashion into digital spaces helps generate data that is vital in efforts to move towards circular fashion. With Lablaco’s model, physical and digital items remain paired even after sale, so if a physical item is resold, the digital equivalent is transferred to the new owner’s digital wallet. The transparency of blockchain technology means that the new owner can be sure of the authenticity of it and the creator of the item can follow its post-sale process.
“If you don’t digitize the product itself, you can’t have any data to measure and you don’t know what the fashion impact is,” Albrighi tells CNN Business.
The textile and fashion industry generates approximately 92 million tons of waste a year, and digital fashion could play a role in reducing that number.
Kuo says that digital spaces could be used as a test bed for the physical world. For example, a designer could release a digital clothing item in 10 colors in the metaverse and use the sales data to inform which colors to use for the real world version. “It automatically becomes an on-demand model, which can really reduce fashion waste,” he says.
Trying on virtual clothing could also reduce the amount of clothing returned in the physical world, Albrighi says. He adds that hosting fashion shows in virtual spaces reduces the need for fashion world travel. Both interventions have the potential to reduce the industry’s carbon footprint.
But for these innovations to catch on, Albrighi says incentivizing designers is key. With the phygital model, the transparency of the blockchain could allow brands to receive royalties when an item is resold during its useful life, a way to “produce less and earn more”.
“It’s the start of a new industry,” he says.
Source: news.google.com