If 2021 was the year of investing in digital art through NFTs (non fungible tokens), 2022 seems to be the year of virtual fashion. Wondering why are we saying this? Because with the introduction of the metaverse, a virtual place where people will communicate and interact with each other through their online avatars, luxury brands are eyeing the up-and-coming market to cater to their virtual customers. In October last year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave us a sneak peek into the future of the Internet. By rebranding his company as Meta, the Harvard dropout showed how social media will expand into a virtual world where people can design their own avatars to interact with each other. Virtual space will give users a chance to create the most creative versions of themselves. And where there is creativity, there is fashion.
Last year, Gucci marked its centenary anniversary and showed how far it has come by launching a virtual Gucci Garden on Roblox. Inspired by the archetype as the original form in Florence, the virtual Gucci Garden was similar to the physical space and was divided into themed rooms, where visitors could immerse themselves into the creative vision and multifarious inspirations of the Italian luxury brand.
Balenciaga also launched its collection of clothes on the digital game Fortnite last year. Fortnite x Balenciaga marked the game’s first luxury partnership and arrived with both digital and physical elements. Within the game, virtual fashion was realized through skins and outfits that replicated the physical Balenciaga retail collection.
With brands like Louis Vuitton, Burberry, and Nike making their way to the metaverse digital fashion world, users will be spoilt for choice. It is not just classic fashion brands but exclusive digital clothes brands as well, that will be offering a range of clothes for your metaverse avatar. Brands like DressX describe their vision as, “We aim to show that some clothes can exist only in their digital versions. Don’t shop less, shop digital fashion.”
Metaverse will allow users to showcase their mood and personality in whatever fashion they want to. From changing their gender, to changing their age, users have a wide range of options to renew and redefine themselves. Speaking to The New York Times, Ian Rogers, the chief experience officer of Ledger at the virtual wallet and also the former chief digital officer of LVMH said, “Everything is experimental right now. We’re in the gold rush period where anything goes, but it’s evolving very quickly. It’s a brave new world we have not lived in.”
