The metaverse has already seen an impressive amount of worldwide brands come together at the first Metaverse Fashion Week ever in March of 2022. The Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW.org) was host to over 60 recognisable brands that are real world brands, such as Forever21 and crypto native brands like the Metakey.
The event was coordinated by the Decentraland Foundation in partnership with the hundreds of companies, builders and landowners that make up the fashion estate team. Companies like Metaverse Group rented their plots of land and collaborated with builders like Metaverse Architects to come up with a fashion village that hosted 150k+ people over a weekend.
How fashion is being expressed in the metaverse
Each event is carefully curated and published to the decentralized metaverse and accessible by everyone for free. Hundreds of thousands of NFTs were minted by visitors at every corner and events included interactive and engaging uses of gamification to come up with novel incentives and advertising opportunities for Fashion fans and exhibitors.
Business models for the fashion industry in web3
Allowing fans in the web3 to meet in a virtual space that is accessible for free by anyone in the world resulted in some interesting social communication between web3 communities. Just as people who attend conferences in real life, wearing and representing brands that we love by wearing their merchandise is a popular construct in metaverse spaces.
Fashion is an important revenue driver for many artists in the real world too. With many bands running a business model where they lose money making music, break even hosting concerts and make a profit by selling merchandise.
In web3 artists can sell NFTs to global markets whilst broadcasting their music around the world. Giving users the option to enjoy a music concert in a 3D environment where they can ‘physically’ see each other and express their identity through fashion items is giving rise to a fast fashion industry that drives large revenue volumes without the prohibitive shocks of supply chain and the detrimental effects to the environment.
Fashion in the metaverse
High fashion in the metaverse has different goals and social constructs. Digital scarcity allows us to create digital fashion items that are scarce, intricate works of art made by influential artists and designers.
What are wearables
Wearables are aesthetic improvements a user can make to their virtual appearance by purchasing NFTs which represent ownership of the wearables.
What are Linked Wearables
Linked wearables aesthetic improvements a user can make to their virtual appearance by owning NFTs from a collection on the ethereum network outside of the Decentraland marketplace.
Interoperability for web3 fashion
We believe that fashion should be interoperable and purchasing an NFT that represent a wearable should allow you to take that with you to a corresponding Metaverse. We believe that for this to happen, open standards are necessary and that Decentraland embodies the values of web3 metaverse that can embrace open standards.
NFT gated stores
An NFT gated store is one which only allows users who own a certain NFT to login and purchase the fashion items being offered behind the gated entry.
Marketing through NFT gating
The web3 community are showing interest in ecommerce experiences that allow them to make use of their metamask inventory to redeem goods and services that are exclusive to the NFT holders. This allows companies to make targeted products and services that are customisable at scale.
What are smart wearables?
Probably the least spoken about at this point in time are smart wearables, which are fashion items that have in-world utility. This could be a jetpack that allows users to fly or a flamethrower you can use to make any virtual rock concert a bit more exciting!
