The buzz across the metaverse may have died down – but it hasn’t and it’s now ready to take the next step by delving deeper into both digital and physical offerings.
A new non-profit, the Council of Digital Fashion Designers, is not only looking to keep “vibrant” alive, it’s looking to succeed. To prove the point, the group has plugged in hosting a series of events featuring Diesel and other well-known brands.
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The DFDC launches Tuesday with a mission to “weave digital fashion into the traditional fashion ecosystem,” according to the association.
This is easier said than done.
Despite the fact that many virtual world developers are pushing for interoperability between platforms, there are still no universal standards for virtual fashion, much less phygital fashion experiences. Projects vary, as do technical requirements from one environment to another.
This means that in order to offer a brand a virtual look that works across contexts and platforms, they need to create multiple formats. Or at least they did. Now DFDC is introducing a tool to streamline the effort.
DFDC’s new Reality Spectrum Matrix was designed to do the technical heavy lifting, so brands can focus on the product and the experience.
It is part of a broad and ambitious approach that goes beyond gaming or virtual life. Think social media, augmented reality and more, and devices from phones to mixed reality headsets, whether through an app or a web browser.
“We see a lot of power in bridging the digital context that consumers are spending their time in, with the physical world of brands and the physical fashion system,” David Cash, founder and chief executive officer of DFDC, told WWD. “[It’s about] doing a better job of connecting those dots [to] to actually provide connectivity, instead of telling this connectivity.”
To prove his concept, the group, which already had together some of the biggest names in virtual fashion and blockchain, created a series of events featuring the work of some of the most famous machines in the world.
Linking Over All Kinds of Fashion
For its first series of Fashion Week Connect, DFDC has programmed across a range of phygital experiences spanning the globe, both real and digital, starting in September.
The Digital Fashion World Film Festival, in association with ShowStudio directed by Nick Knight and his team, will showcase digital fashion from around the world online and IRL, with films featuring celebrities such as Charlie XCX and Naomi Campbell, and fashions from Balenciaga , Mugler, Loewe, Bottega Veneta and others.
Also on the agenda will be Diesel’s Metamorph project, with its Vert watches created by virtual reality and an interactive metascopic experience created by Artificial Rome.
A real-life VIP reception in Los Angeles co-hosted by Red DAO and the DFDC Collezione Genesi will introduce Dolce & Gabbana into a physical setting. Said to be the world’s first phygital luxury offerings, the 2021 collection took the form of NFTs with physical counterparts and sold for around $6 million, including the purchase of Red DAO jackets and the featured “Doge Crown” at the event, among others.
DFDC will also be on the ground in Paris, where it will help present Fabrix Digital Takeover of Fashion as part of Paris Fashion Week at the Palais de Tokyo. Supported by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the Hong Kong-based designers Wilsonkaki, Ponder.er and others will be present in the activation.
In London, the group will support Digital Fashion Week at the Epic Games Studios and other exclusive VIP events around the world, before heading to Singapore. As title sponsor and key innovation partner for Next in Vogue, it will deliver AR, gaming worlds, holograms and other experiences.
Connect Fashion Week and the DFDC will also play a role in pop-up events for fashion weeks in New York, London and Paris.
And, under the theme of interoperability, supported platforms for the series of events include social media apps like Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat; Fortnite and Roblox games; metaverses Spatial and Decentraland, and devices from phones and desktops to Meta Quest headsets.
The effort looks huge. To pull it off, Cash assembled an all-star roster from the virtual ranks of fashion for his board and operating team.
The list includes fashion photographer, filmmaker and self-described “image maker” Knight; Megan Kaspar, managing director at FirstLight and founding member of Red DAO; Antoni Tudisco, 3D and digital fashion artist who has worked with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Maison Margiela, Moncler, Balenciaga and others; Bettina Von Schlippe, publisher of Vogue Singapore; Marjorie Hernandez, co-founder of Web 3.0 fashion marketplace Demat and creative blockchain platform Lukso; Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova from DressX; Dani Loftus, founder of code-based couture platform Draup and digital fashion influencer @thisoutfitdoesnotexist; Leanne Elliott Young from the Digital Fashion Institute, and Gmoney from 9DCC.
Other groups involved include Threedium, Karta, Beyond Studio, MAD Global and FFFaceme.
Notably, DFDC is also in discussions with high-profile creative and executive leaders from the established fashion industry. So far, Cash has declined to comment on the record about their identity, but an official announcement is expected at some point.
A New Vision of Phygital Technology
When the dust settles, the DFDC hopes that fashion brands will walk away with an understanding of what is possible in the interaction between the digital and the physical.
The events embody their mission. But what facilitates his vision is technology, and that will remain long after the final activation in this series.
That brings the focus back to the group’s Reality Spectrum Matrix.
As a framework, it is a clever solution to the interoperability problem. With RSM, brands would not have to make multiple versions in different formats of a given item. Technology does the work or, as Cash explained, “polygon remapping.” Essentially, the tool takes care of the coding requirements, so brands can focus on product, experience and physical aspects.
In addition, the DFDC is working on “an API that we’ll be able to plug into anything,” he said. “So we could plug this directly into a mobile app, into a website—if we’re going to technically speak, any React-enabled context, from a game world to a website or even a web page.” React is an open source tool developed by Meta for building interfaces.
In addition, there is a structure for awarding and recording points, which would allow consumers to earn their way into rewards and increase loyalty in an obnoxious situation.
These tools can also support virtual fashion NFTs. While immutable signs may not garner as many headlines as when Dolce & Gabbana’s multi-million dollar Collezione Genesi took the industry by storm three years ago, fashion has yet to announce it.
Despite twists and turns in investments and value, or the impact of legislation and politics, these and other blockchain efforts “on chain” still have an impact on brands, Kaspar said.
“Look at brands like Louis Vuitton,” she said, referring to the maison’s ongoing launch of products on the chain — including the latest phygital NFT release of a leather varsity jacket in April.
Kaspar, who serves as DFDC’s chief advisor and executive board member, worked with the luxury fashion house on its Via NFT program. “They know the value, long-term, of having their products on a chain,” she explained. “I also think that with the regulation that the EU is setting with smart tags, the brands are looking at these smart tags, the NFC chips that are being embedded in their products and attaching them to a chain, so that you will have access to them. that metadata – and then it can be seamlessly plugged into a more expansive digital counterpart of that asset, whether it’s a 3D item, a wearable or a filter.”
There is pressure to regulate, but it is somewhat spread across the regulatory bodies. But with the DFDC, brands can join the conversation and have a hand in what the future of this ecosystem looks like, Kaspar added.
“Just to share from my personal experience with the Via initiative, the [consumer] Via members are allowed to vote…on what we want the brand to produce, which is still unheard of,” she continued. “Outside of this, I really haven’t seen a luxury brand that allows their consumers to do that.
“So I think what David is doing with DFDC and the RSM tool will make it much easier for these brands to integrate these tools and features that allow them to strengthen their relationship with the consumer for the long term .”
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