Elite fashion brands continue to build on Metaverse – The Defiant

In my girlfriend’s world, people pay $ 500 for a t-shirt and $ 2,500 for a trench coat. Because she works in the corporate office of Barbary, a British luxury fashion brand. But over the past few months, the 166-year-old fashion house has been blasting company-wide emails about a new kind of fashion line: web3 wearable.

Last August, Burberry launched wearable NFTs for a crypto video game called Blankos Block Party. The Sharkey BNFT, along with jetpacks, armbands and pool shoes, made about $ 375,000 in sales. Now, brands like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Nike and Adidas also want to cater to this growing market.

With sales of virtual products around $ 110B in 2021 and Fortnite developer, Epic Games, earning $ 50M from just one set of skins, fashion companies want. Every brand wants to dress up the virtual inhabitants of Metavers – which craters even during the crypto market, they will be the next generation of customers in the next decade of retention.

It is only a matter of time before technology enters the mainstream Dani LoftusA digital fashion writer and its members Reddao, A DAO that invests in fashion NFT. “In the next five years You Wear digital fashion. In your in-game avatar, on Zoom or on your social media, ”he wrote in a mirror post.

So, what does this new fashion world look like? After talking to professors, founders, and Instagram influencers, I learned that the brand is waiting for two major opportunities to dominate.

Initially online

The first is primarily online NFT (P-URL) – suppose NFT characters such as board apps or Cool Cats rocking Gucci costumes in 2D NFT artwork, or digital skins for blockchain video game characters – such as Decentralized Dolce in May, featuring Metavers Fashion Week. & Brands like Gabbana, Tommy Hilfiger, and Etro. Completely virtual, it hosts after parties, immersive experiences and of course shopping.

There’s a lot of money in this space – the OpenC, NFT Marketplace, upgraded to a valuation of 13.3B after a $ 300M funding round in January. Equivalent to $ 5.7M in sales through collections like Dolce & Gabbana, whether you realize it or not, there is a demand for Metaverse Fashion.

This explains why, in December 2021, Nike acquired RTFKT, a start-up that dropped 3D sneakers as NFT and has since partnered with CryptoPunks. Cryptokicks, the first major RTFKT and Nike sneaker collaboration, sits at a floor price of 1.88 ETH.

“As fashion NFTs are gaining widespread acceptance, it would be ideal to launch a pure NFT fashion collection independently of future physical product launches,” Vincent Cowan, a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, told The Defiant.

This March, Gucci released the 10KTF Gucci Grail, an NFT collection that plasters Gucci fabrics on big-name NFT collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, World of Women, and Cryptoadz. The collection floor price is 0.8 ETH and the total volume is 3.5K ETH.

Real world experience

The second opportunity is called primarily in real life (P-IRL): where web3 interacts with the real world of fashion and merchandise.

Some major brands are accepting crypto in their brick-and-mortar stores. In April, LVMH-owned streetwear brand Off-White began accepting crypto payments across its flagship stores in Paris, Milan and London. Gucci has followed suit and will begin accepting crypto in some of its stores by the end of May.

Then there are token-gated websites that sell physical products to selected customers. The Crypton Gunj NFT Collection Launched a Token-Gated Store Via Shopify in December – meaning the original app was only available to Cryptoon Goonz NFT holders.

“We see the emergence of a new class of brands who are using NFTs to unlock completely new business experiences and build strong communities.” Tweet Roblah Jama, product director of Shopify. South by Southwest this year, has partnered with Shopify Doodles NFT Collection To host an IRL Token-Gated Merchandise Store.

Origin

To verify that other companies are using NFTs, say, the cheap Louis Vuitton purse you bought on the street is valid. ORIGYN, a Swiss company that certifies luxury items including NFTs, has launched NFT for authentication of luxury items such as watches. “The Swiss watch keeps time, but the watch-making industry is always late,” said Alexander Friedman, an ORIGYN board adviser from his office in Switzerland.

While the watchmaking industry may be a moment behind, ORIGYN’s technology seems to be the future. ORIGYN’s partnership with Watch’s Marketplace Watchbox is sending customers a box with a camera that captures high-definition images of the watch. Because each clock – even on the same line – is unique due to imperfections, the data in each image will be unique “It’s like a fingerprint,” Friedman said.

Although many watchmakers have relied on their history and reputation to sell, Friedman says they are now looking to the future. Watchmakers must capture a younger audience – which is lost to smartwatches – and NFTs are a way to do that.

Takeaway from Metaverse Runway

Metaverse provides opportunities for brands to generate revenue streams through new products. But will consumers continue to buy only digital clothing during the recession, when the recession of 2008-09 reduced the market value of luxury goods by 8-9%?

My bet is on the P-IRL route, which offers consumers genuine clothing when incorporating crypto – considering that you can’t wear digital clothing outside, it’s easy to imagine a metaverse fashion market disappearing once the purse strings tighten.

Still, high-end fashion is an ancient art, and probably not going anywhere anytime soon. No one ever needed a $ 2,000 Louis Vuitton purse or $ 500 T-shirt to get started, and digital clothing isn’t important to your survival. But fashion – especially luxury – is always about self-expression and the inexhaustible purpose of survival.

Smile whatever you want, but for me, next time I’ll go to the Gucci store and use some crypto – maybe I’ll even buy my girlfriend a dress with my NFT profit!

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