“Digital Fashion” sounds futuristic, yet it already exists! Digital clothes aren’t made from tangible material; instead, they are created using computer graphics and 3D technologies. Hence, they don’t have a physical presence and cannot be worn in real life.
Digital outfits are designed for the virtual environment, meta-world, and computer games. Nevertheless, digital fashion is not limited to avatars, as it might seem at first. On the contrary, such clothes can be worn by a real person. The user would have to upload a photo or video of themselves, so designers would “dress them in” digital clothes or use the dresses as a “mask” in real time.
As can be assumed, this kind of fashion is closely engaged with NFTs. Some brands have already tokenized the digital closes or created their digital twins so users can purchase them to “wear.”
How it all started
It’s important to mention that digital clothing is not a new thing, as it may seem. Like metaverse development, digital fashion takes its roots in computer games. Game developers increased players’ engagement and motivation by selling “skins”—the appearance of the character, their outfit, and equipment.
Later, Cat Taylor, also known as Cattytay, became a pioneer in digital fashion. Cat is the founder of Digi-GXL and a digital designer who has been designing virtual clothing since 2015. Cattytay has already partnered with world-famous brands such as Vetements, Gucci, Off-White, Balenciaga, Alexander Wang, and others.
Later, different fashion brands joined this trend by making their first steps into digital fashion. The appearance and distribution of AR and VR technology facilitate this process. Also, social media plays a significant role digitally. With the rise of social media, there has been a demand for virtual beauty. The jump in the popularity of virtual clothing happened in the spring of 2020, during the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. People stayed home and spent a lot of time with their mobile devices. Later, mobile became a portal to the digital fashion world.
What’s the point of digital fashion?
Some can protest: what is the use of such clothes if it’s impossible to wear them in reality? Nevertheless, there are several reasons why digital fashion is relevant.
Transferring to the virtual world
It’s not a secret that we slowly transfer into the digital world. Clothing in the virtual world will remain the first-need attribute for the users. Same as in the real world, digital clothes will be an indicator of the status and way of self-expression.
This is especially relevant to the appearance and fast development of the metaverse.
Freedom for art and convenience
Some of the clothes designed for virtual reality are pretty extraordinary. If those gowns existed in reality, they would be hard to produce, dispose of, and maintain. Thanks to technology, the most daring designs can be created digitally, giving more freedom to fashion designers. With 3D-made outfits, the designers can forget about problems with the fabric or tailoring. Even some fashion designer skills will be considered outdated. Now, the final result depends on computer graphic skills.
Inclusiveness in Digital Fashion
These kinds of clothes are inclusive, meaning being designed for everyone. Depending on age, gender, height, weight, or body shape – the digital outfit will suit everybody.
Environment
We left this bullet point to the end because this statement is contradictory. It is said that digital fashion can be a good alternative solution to fast fashion problems. In theory, consumers will buy fewer physical clothes and replace them with digital ones because digital clothes last forever. Hence, there is less material and product transportation used. Consequently, it will reduce CO2 emissions. In practice, NFT, an inescapable part of the digital fashion industry, is environmentally unfriendly. The environmental footprint of a single NFT transaction, for one on SuperRare, is 211 kg of CO2. This is equivalent to car emissions during a thousand-kilometer ride or a two-hour flight.
That is how both NFT fashion and physical fashion are destructive to the environment. In fact, it only matters what is less harmful.
Examples of Digital Fashion
As we mentioned, several brands have already contributed to digital fashion. At the same time, new digital fashion brands appear that will produce only digital outfits.
Here are some examples of them.
DresX
The gowns from the DressX can be described as “unreal”. As Michaela Larosse, the Head of content and strategy at digital fashion house The Fabricant, mentioned, realism is not the point in digital fashion:
“Fashion is an emotional experience, and you don’t need physicality for that.”
– The Fabricant’s Michaela Larosse told Vogue.
And yet some digital fashion attributes of DresX are free! The user can open an app, choose a piece of clothing or an accessory, and take a picture of them. But it’s not as easy as it seems. The quality of the dress in such a picture won’t be any different than a typical Instagram mask. In order for the dress to suit the user and look “real,” the user would have to pay. DresX prices vary from $30 up to $9,500. After payment, users would have to upload the high-resolution picture or video and wait up to 24 hours while the designers will render the closes.
The Fabricant
Fabricant is another important distributor of virtual fashion. The brand became noticeable when it sold its Iridescent dress for $9,500 in 2019. Later, the brand gained popularity and even collaborated with Tommy Hilfiger and Soorty. Moreover, Fabricant launched a digital platform and playground called Leela. Users can play and wear different virtual dresses.
Gucci
Gucci recently confirmed its interest in the NFT world. The brand presented virtual sneakers Gucci Virtual, which can be tried on through AR gadgets and even purchased. Today, the pair is affordable even to those who don’t purchase luxury clothes. Their price is only $17.99.
Wanna
Wanna is a company that specializes in augmented reality technologies for online shoe and watch fittings. Today, the app serves as a digital dressing room for Snapchat and brands like Reebok, Puma, Gucci, Adidas, and others.
Dolce & Gabbana
Dolce & Gabbana plans to launch in the near future the D&G Family program. This will be a public NFT distribution project based on the UNXD trading platform. Any user will be able to access exclusive clothing models and buy them with the help of NFT only. UNXD will be the first platform to support the Wear-to-Earn business model. This means brands and designers will pay users who will wear their virtual clothes.
RTFKT
Recently, RTFKT, one of the pioneers of NFT fashion, released a trio of digital sneakers for reportedly $3.1 million. 613 pairs of shoes were sold for $3 to $10,000 per pair. Later, Nike saw the great potential behind the NFT fashion and bought the two-year-old brand RTFKT.
Future of Digital Fashion
Like a metaverse, digital fashion will not happen instantly. Indeed, it will take 5 – 10 years for everyone to have digital clothes.
Moreover, digital fashion has a range of obstacles: it’s expensive, not eco-friendly as it may seem, and, for a moment, alas, unclaimed. But that doesn’t mean that digital fashion doesn’t have potential and will not be more available in the near future. The digital fashion pioneers made the right choice by discovering the potential of the digital fashion industry. Soon enough, all of us will have at least one pair of digital sports shoes that we will boast to our friends in the metaverse.
