What The F is Digital Fashion?
Digital fashion is literally just that, fashion in a digital format. Seems simple enough but for some reason I can’t quite understand it’s purpose or use. So naturally I did some research to fully know how digital fashion is becoming a billion dollar industry.
Courtesy of Vogue
First of all the metaverse, the virtual world where we live, interact, shop, post all from the comfort of our phones, is all around us. It is truly amazing if you think about how a great percentage of our lives is spent in the metaverse, a universe shared by almost 86% of the population as they are smartphone owners. It’s crazy!
If you keep thinking about it, our whole identities are shaped by the internet, what we consume, what videos we watch, what we comment, what we like, what we buy and so on. We are metaverse citizens to the core. One of those identity layers is fashion, we all wear clothes, we all think about what we are wearing and what they mean. So the same goes for the metavers, our “characters” need clothes, they want them.
We’ve all created meticulous lives online and digital fashion is just another embellishment soon we all be buying into. Before that happens lets find out what digital fashion is.
Courtesy of Vogue
At its most basic, it is virtual 3D clothing designed to fit humans or specific digital avatars. Digital clothes can emulate textile, volume, shape, texture and most importantly they are made in a non traditional manufacturing way. That last detail is what really captivated my curiosity as to how we should be looking at digital fashion. For the longest time I understood digital fashion as just that, clothes avatars wore and clothing people bought just because they gave into a trend. I mean why would one buy a virtual leather biker jacket and not a real one?
Here is where things got complicated. Maybe it’s just me, sorry in advance I am not a tech genius, but the whole NFT collectible discourse is one I just don’t vibe with. So no, we are not going to get into details about how digital files are turned into tokens and sold for millions in the form of cryptocurrency. For that I really recommend this video, but we will get into how virtual fashion is taking over.
Courtesy of Vogue
There are endless possibilities as to how digital fashion can be utilized, having the potential to become one of the biggest industries in the metaverse. Without realizing I had already been an active participant, do you remember the gaming platforms Polyvore or Roiworld? I spent hours and hours playing on this sites dressing up celebrity avatars creating looks after looks. I would continue spending my days dressing up Miley and Zendaya but unfortunately they shot down.
This online games are a perfect representation of where digital fashion is heading. With the help of digital tools like Kaledo or Modaris designers are not strangers to the use of technology in garment manufacturing. Now with artificial intelligence all this changes dramatically. We are all aware of how much contamination and damage the fashion industry causes and digital fashion seems like a good alternative. No fabric is needed, no polluting just data and codes. Designers can create freely without fabrics being an impediment. Not only deisgners like Balenciaga and Prada are creating digital collections, digital fashion is also incorporated as e-wardrobes. Like ASOS´s See My Fit system which allows customers to try on clothes without leaving their house.
Bringing digital fashion closer to consumers brands like DRESSX whose philosophy is to not buy less, but digital. Built under the premise that there are more clothes on Earth than needed. Digital means no shipping, no textile waste, more options.
The same platform shows how clothes can be worn, think about it as Snapchat filters but with better quality. So the idea is to create wardrobes you can use for photos, videos and even wear them at Zoom meetings.
Another area digital fashion is conquering is the gaming industry. Most notoriously with Balenciaga x Fortnite and more recently Burberry x Minecraft. Offering gamers virtual outfits they can use.
Courtesy of Balenciaga
What do we think about it? Does looking at virtual clothing as an alternative for the pending issues caused by the fashion industry and disproportionate consumption an appealing idea?