Metaverse impact on Fashion
What about the notion of buying unlimited clothes? Or collation of specific cloths for every moment with desired colour, shape, fitting, print, dye or style? What if a wardrobe is filled with all kinds of imaginary or designer pieces? What if we have access to all kinds of accessories, shoes, jackets, coats, and digital costumes and lists go on?
For this wardrobe, how much is one can willing to pay? What about sustainability and after usage of clothes once it wears? Is the washing and ironing process can be useless?
There is a possibility of all of the positive answers to the above questions in near the future. These can be possible with the help of Metaverse and its expansion in the fashion industry.
Metaverse
"Metaverse is a hypothetical iteration of the sources from the internet presented in a single universe as a virtual world with the help of virtual reality (VR) and Augmented reality (AR) headsets." This definition is decided by O'brian, Matt in October 2021.
In other words, with the help of AR headsets virtual world can be generated. That also includes the physical real world with some digital objects in it or vice versa. This internet is not only limited to the 2D information source but is also converted into a 3D source of information. (It came beyond the 2D screens and was able to present in 3D). This entire metaverse has also possibilities to bring revolution to the fashion world.
Fashion context
Fashion is a global industry and had an impact on every single of us in one or another way, it is an expression of the person, their belief, culture and work. To see the progress of fashion, we can either look for fashion histories and theories or can look for the future. As traditional way clothing production, their style, colours, shape and sizes are constantly changing and these are sold in stores or shops. With digital ears, they are sold online and with more advancement customers can see online clothes on serval models. That gives them an idea about appearance. With that consumers’ value towards selection and buying changes drastically.We can even move further in this direction and then the notion of virtual clothing came. Even with the advanced development of AI, gaming, anime and sci-fi movies where new and innovative concepts are used as wearable things. These can be the reference point for upcoming fashion scenarios to make them more practical and bring them to normal life, designers are inspired by these things and make new line-ups for fashion with elements/inspiration from anime and gaming costumes. Metaverse can enhance this possibility and can open a new way of thinking about fashion.
Virtual fashion gives chance for the expression of multiple selves. As the past covid pandemic make us able to attend more work online, if metaverse will become the next real big thing, then people spent most of their time in virtual places where again as an individual or to express themselves in front of others they need virtual cloths where brands will also come up as a virtual store in that places and selling stuff there. In such a scenario, digital collation of wardrobe and fashion pieces becomes natural. It has also stronger sustainability aspects and pollution due to textile and garment waste becomes negligible.
According to Bloomberg quick-take, The business opportunities in the fast-evolving convergence of metaverse for digital fashion products on a physical person are real and even enhance in future. To prove this statement we can consider an example. For the gaming sector, users already spend more than 100 billion dollars on virtual goods annually across the globe. Most of them are filled with luxury goods by top-notch high-end fashion brands. Even today more than 3 billion people regularly play the videogames on daily basis. For the dressing avatars are the beginning of coming into the battlefield or play station. Even gaming becomes a chance for marketing campaigns for attracting new customers in the modern era.
The dematerialization of fashion products are already came. Up to this decade, the screen wears become streetwear and it is ready to go in the reverse direction. Some brands like The dematerialised started opening virtual department stores. (https://thedematerialised.com/)
This is berlin based start-up company, able to make physical body and digital products on it possible with serval goods.
In addition, NFTs are the couture of the metaverse in fashion. Digital luxury high-end Fashion products have also the potential to become an asset with bitcoin and crypto immersion.
For context, in 2021 Benoit Pagotto's design studio, RTKFT and Fewocious (digital artist) worked together and make virtual sneakers. They can sell 620 pairs of these shoes in less than five minutes. That can make $3.1 million.
Buying virtual fashion
Buying - As gamification becomes more and more advanced today, virtual fashion is mostly sold at that place, to come to reality, The Dematerialised brand is already selling the same things. Buying of such things is closely related to crypto and NFTs because it's digital, so copying, scamming and similarities become obvious. Therefore making it unique with a secret code and identity become vital.
Usage - Once shopping is done, there are several chances to wear it, show it off or make others feel like new experiences. For instance, as per today's possibilities, one can buy any digital product and save it in their devices, then open the camera of the device to record/take a shoot of oneself with an AR filter on it. (As possible in social media apps) This is a real and most basic aspect of virtual buying. Another aspect is to bring it to the next gaming avatar and applied on once next social media post.
Limitations - Current technology and way of communicating or expressing oneself in front of the world make a crystal clear path for upcoming digital goods selling. However the other side of this whole futuristic world is, once the customer is ready to buy digital fashion products or even collect an entire digital wardrobe, then the point is to become where to use it or show it to others. That means buying is possible but if the application of that stuff does not become popular it doesn't make sense. Therefore, it become vital that there should be a digital place where one can live virtually and express their collection. This is the only limitation of why today's big brands are not selling digital pieces of fashion products much. If the Magnificat promises from the metaverse become true, this limitation will be removed, and virtual fashion can be broadly accepted.
Reference
O'Brien, Matt; Chan, Kelvin (October 28, 2021). "EXPLAINER: What is the metaverse and how will it work?". ABC News. Associated Press. Archived from the original on December 4, 2021. (Accessed 31/01/2023)
Livermore, A. (2021, August 18). How to source fabric for your clothing line —. V.Mora. https://www.vmora.com/blog-and-press/steps-to-production-fabric-sourcing (Accessed 31/01/2023)
About. (n.d.). Thedematerialised.com. from https://thedematerialised.com/about (Accessed 31/01/2023)
Tucci, L. (2022, November 18). What is the Metaverse? An Explanation and In-Depth Guide. Whatis.com; TechTarget. https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/The-metaverse-explained-Everything-you-need-to-know (Accessed 31/01/2023)
Mileva, G. (2022, November 29). ZERO10 AR Fashion Platform: A digital fashion hub where virtual clothing becomes wearable in real life. ARPost. https://arpost.co/2022/11/29/zero10-ar-fashion-platform-digital-fashion/ (Accessed 31/01/2023)
Lim, J. (2022, February 18). How the fashion metaverse is influencing fashion week in 2022. TheIndustry.Fashion. https://www.theindustry.fashion/how-the-fashion-metaverse-is-influencing-fashion-week-in-2022/ (Accessed 31/01/2023)
(N.d.). Instagram.com. from https://www.instagram.com/tribute_brand/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=9721095a-0d3a-4d72-b877-883b90275cec (Accessed 31/01/2023)
