The first Metaverse Fashion Week at the end of March marks the beginning of a new era for fashion companies and fashionistas alike. Digital is no longer a decorative accessory for brands, but a brand new world with its own limits, laws and possibilities. Marc Schumacher, Co-CEO of Avantgarde Group, appeals to the industry not to miss the Metaverse opportunities now.
An international fashion show where everyone can be there for free – and without a mask or vaccination card. Where there is no crowd at the entrance and the latest looks can be shopped straight off the catwalk and put on immediately. Isn’t there? there is!
On March 24th, the first Metaverse Fashion Week (#MVFW) starts on Decentraland, one of the few Metaverse variants open to the public. For four days, avatars will present the collections of top brands at the #MVFW. Showrooms, after-show parties, shops, lectures: the premiere of Fashion Week in the Metaversum will be like its real counterparts. And yet very different.
The 3D platform Decentraland is based on the Ethereum blockchain and is paid for with the cryptocurrency Mana. So if you have an Ethereum account and wallet, you can move to Decentraland and buy a parcel as an NFT (Non-Fungible Token). And not only play there, but also visit events like Fashion Week, not only to see how the future is going, but also what people are wearing there.
Check into Tomorrow’s Mall now
For fashion labels, the #MVFW is the ultimate opportunity to try out the trendy 3D platform with manageable risk and then stake out your claim in virtual reality. Hugo Boss, Paco Rabanne, Dolce & Gabbana, Elie Saab, Thommy Hilfiger: the list of participating fashion labels has been growing every day since the Metaverse Fashion Week was announced in December. Because there is great concern in the industry that the next big game changer in business will not be noticed in time. And thus missing another train into the future after e-commerce.
The big brands in the industry had hesitated for too long when online trading came up, leaving the business to platforms like Zalando or Mytheresa. They stuck to the stationary POS and watched for what felt like an eternity, almost paralyzed, as e-commerce recorded ever higher sales. Now, with the idea of the Metaversum, the next revolution in consumer habits is imminent. Given the current pace of progress, waiting is no longer an option. Brand companies that do not want to accept this are gambling away their future.
The avatar as a model – that attracts millions
The stuff that new fashion dreams are made of is no longer woven, cut and sewn. It consists only of bits and bytes – and is still worth a lot of money. In 2021, gaming platform Decentraland generated sales of one million US dollars from avatar wearables alone. That’s just the beginning. According to a forecast by the analysis company Grayscale, annual sales of more than one trillion US dollars could soon be generated in the metaverse.
In order to understand the importance of the Metaverse for the fashion world, one has to say goodbye to the notion that cyber worlds are only for gamers. Sure, games like Fortnite and World of Warcraft have fueled the idea of a digital parallel world enormously with the fascination they exert on Gen Z. But metaverses are not game worlds that can be switched on and off. They will exist parallel to our reality, 24/7. As digital realities, they are able to finally erase the perceived boundary between online and offline. Even if it sounds like science fiction: One day we will go to school and university in the Metaverse, we will work and hold meetings there, we will go to festivals, we will meet people, we will take vacations. And we will definitely be shopping for clothes at the Metaverse.
Because the fact that we will spend part of our available time in a different reality in the future is far from invalidating primal human needs. Fashion is self-portrayal in the best sense of the word: With our outfit, we also demonstrate who we are and how we are. This also applies to the avatar as our representative in the metaverse.
The second big bang has already happened
The splitting of the world into different realities will massively change our life and coexistence and is therefore socially highly critical. There is a great risk that people will leave the analogue world almost completely and take a perhaps more promising parallel existence. The extent to which new technological possibilities will change what makes us human – such as our skills for social interaction, empathy and long-term attachment – cannot be overlooked out of enthusiasm for innovation. But the second Big Bang has already taken place, and the emergence of the new worlds can no longer be stopped.
In addition to new risks, metaverses also open up new opportunities. For example, the exorbitant consumption of resources in today’s lifestyle could drop significantly if a large part of life is no longer defined by materiality, but is digitized. Most mobility issues also take care of themselves when the school, university, office and conference room are in the metaverse.
Not available? Not in stock? Not possible anymore!
Supply chains, logistics and warehousing are much easier to organize in a digital reality or are simply no longer necessary. Virtual products can be produced quickly and modified just as quickly. And just as the metaverse can look different for each individual, the products can also reach a whole new level of personalization. In the metaverse, people from all over the world can also meet without leaving the house. A metaverse can therefore be an extremely exciting place, especially for brand manufacturers.
While tech giants like Apple, Microsoft and Google are still tinkering with the design of their digital worlds, the first fashion brands have long been thinking about how to fill the digital closets in Web 3.0. Because who traditionally knows the world between appearance and reality better than fashion labels? The luxury fashion house Gucci has secured a plot of land for its hip offshoot Gucci Vaults in the Metaversum The Sandbox and will soon make it possible to buy designer parts in a shop there. Adidas’ first NFT collection was sold out within a few hours.
The metaverse will change fashion as fashion changes the metaverse. Physical, digital or phygital? These forms of border thinking will disappear in the long term. Of course, there will be digital variants of real fashion as well as real twins of virtual must-haves. A collection to touch – and one to look at. In Web 3.0, online is just as real as offline.
The Metaverse Phenomenon: Here to stay
The Metaverse will take what we know today as the internet to a whole new level. And even if we don’t even begin to grasp the possibilities that will arise in the future, given the speed of development, one thing is clear: no brand company with future ambitions can afford to wait and see with folded arms. The last decades have taught us that all technological innovations – for example in the areas of e-commerce or social media – have prevailed faster and more massively than was generally assumed. Metaverse is the big topic of the future. And it’s here to stay.