Entering the World of Digital Fashion
COURTESY OF DRESSX
As we are entering the digital world and gravitating to becoming more technological, so is fashion. Digital fashion is clothes/collections made from pixels using computer technology and 3D software. Companies and brands that are starting to enter the world of digital fashion, including Zara and Louis Vuitton, have received nothing but positive responses as this concept is new and curious. When the pandemic started, luxury fashion houses had to resort to virtual shows and previews of collections and celebrities and viewers would watch the show from the comfort of their own home. As the world is opening back up, Fashion brands are still using virtual fashion as a marketing inducement to get customers spending money on their real life clothing, says Max Powell, senior advisor for The NPD Group, a US-based market research company (NPR). While this is mainly true for companies and brands rather than luxury designers, this new metaverse is more accessible to up-and-coming designers than the physical fashion world.
The start of the fashion metaverse was in 2018 by Carlings, a Scandinavian retailer who launched the world;s first digital-only clothing collection. Customers would provide Carlings with a photo, and a team of 3D designers would edit the digital outfit onto the client. The success of their first digital collection encouraged Carlings to experiment further. In 2019, they created the first augmented reality graphic tee dubbed the “Last Statement T-Shirt. Brands such as Nike, Vans, and Adidas started getting into the fashion metaverse and once the pandemic hit, almost every brand, company, and luxury fashion house was doing fashion virtually in some form. One of the largest retailers, Farfetch, tested the practice of digital sampling in September 2021 by digitally dressing influencers to promote the launch of its new pre-order offering from brands including Balenciaga, Palm Angels, Khaite, Off-White, Oscar de la Renta, Dolce & Gabbana, Nanushka, Casablanca and Nicholas Kirkwood. By offering a better approach to sampling and shipping, digital fashion has a more tangible, current-day application in fashion business models. It reduces some of the environmental footprint of sending goods to influencers and speeds up the process. How does it work? Farfetch worked with digital fashion platform DressX to digitize the garments and accessories, digitizing a total of 20 men’s and women’s items from the pre-order collections. Each 3D piece can be created in a variety of ways, says Natalia Modenova, co-founder of DressX. Digital files and patterns are a “best-case” scenario, she says, but items can be digitized based on photographs or scans. After each influencer selected their preferred look, they supplied multiple images to be digitally tailored by the DressX team; influencers were given guidelines on how to take their images and pose for digital dressing. Then Farfetch, DressX and the influencer reviewed the images to make any necessary changes. (Vogue - “Influencers are wearing digital versions of physical clothes now”). Realistically speaking, 3D digital fashion isn’t necessarily the existing element of brand workflows. “The challenge is getting into the process of creating these in 3D, because it’s not in the process right now — you have to put it in there,” Nguyen says. He notes that with tech giants making 3D assets more accessible — Facebook, Snapchat and Shopify among them — this will give brands the push to do it.
COURTESY OF FARFETCH
COURTESY OF FARFETCH
COURTESY OF FARFETCH
Why can digital fashion take the world by storm? It is a sustainable solution to fast fashion. According to UXPlanet, Nearly three-fifths of all clothing produced ends up in incinerators or landfills within years of being made, so when you purchase a piece of digital clothing, you aren’t just reducing the impact of that one t-shirt. You are also reducing waste generated during the design and sampling process. Digital fashion also reduces production costs and time to market while providing endless possibilities for creativity and self expression. Digital fashion allows all viewers to take part in an experience that not everyone can participate in real life. “Not everyone has the chance to go to luxury shops or see runways, digital fashion kind of changes these codes,” says Tet. “Anyone can become their own designer because they now have an easier access to curated and valuable content designed for the web. I love the fact that everybody gets to experience the same thing now.” (Vogue)
COURTESY OF CARLINGS
COURTESY OF CARLINGS
This is not a “real” cardigan, but a digital version designed by Xydrobe in partnership with JW Anderson
COURTESY OF XYDROBE
While there are controversies with digital fashion, The technology, in general, is not there yet to recognize a body to implement digital dressing and is quite expensive. Luxury fashion brands are not planning on entering fully into the fashion metaverse, as they take pride and honor in keeping everything traditional. While the potential is there, we can count on fashion brands to stick to the traditional and more “regular” way of presenting clothing items.