Everything You Should Know About The Latest Virtual Trend — Digital Fashion
In November 2019, Quantstamp’s CEO Richard Ma gifted his spouse a dress of $9500 that does not physically exist. The incredibly expensive wear was a digital haute couture dress designed by the Dutch Company, The Fabricant. The Fabricant specializes in the design of customized digital hyper-realistic clothes existing in augmented and virtual forms.
Once the dress is designed, programmers and software engineers, instead of tailors, actually knit it up to the final finish. The material used is not textile but pixels. Upon this purchase, Richard Ma remarked, “It’s ultimately expensive — but I also think it’s an investment. Ten years from now, everybody will be adorning digital fashion. It’s a unique memento and also a sign of the times.”
Here is what you should know about digital fashion
The price of the creative infrastructure and creative process of digital fashion is quite expensive. Digital clothing does not have to respect and adhere to the rules of physics. The only limitation is the technical skills and imagination of the creator. As Vogue Magazine reports, The Fabricant does not accept projects that guarantee a minimum of $20,000 — and last at least one and a half months. This means that the cost of the creative process is quite expensive; thus, designers are keen to undertake projects that will guarantee reasonably higher return rates.
Another thing to know about digital fashion is that it integrates virtual reality and real-life tailoring. This means that creators of digital fashion must or should be versed with the very basics of tailoring to produce exceptional designs.
But is digital fashion or clothing anything different from an Instagram filter?
It can be stated that for all its technical elaboration that is sometimes juxtaposed with that of contemporary art, digital fashion is still limited to e-commerce and social media channels.
The uptake of digital fashion by contemporary digital consumers is due to the presumption that in a world where clothing is becoming an art form for digital and social media, there are no real discrepancies between the photo of a real dress and a virtual one. Emerging forms of technology like social media channels — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, — have reduced real clothing into a virtual representation. That means there are no differences between contemporary garments and those designed and displayed on the same digital platforms.
Perhaps the only way that digital dresses compare to contemporary, real-life dresses is that the former is digitally configured and adapted to the user’s body; it has no creases and fits perfectly. For influencers who monetize their image and clothing, it can be quite superfluous if the dress in which they were photographed existed. The most significant thing is that the photo exists.
Therefore, digital fashion will usher in an age where celebrities and media personnel are adorned in digitally configured wears that respond to their taste, style, and of course — well-customized for their respective occasions.
Another thing to know about digital fashion is that it has slowly infiltrated the world of gaming. For example, Louis Vuitton’s skins for the League of Legends or the capsules for The Sims were created by Moschino. Big fashion brands have been doing rigorous experiments with augmented reality. Levi, for example, introduced the Intellifit Body Scanners in 2005. Chanel created an app in 2011 to try out AR watches from J12 collections, and so did Tiffany and Tissot with their jewelry. Very recently, a fashion brand Selam X designed an AR app for vetements.
It is important to know that digital fashion is leveraging augmented reality to improve customer experience. In most cases, virtual fitting and dressing rooms are already a reality. Zara introduced virtual fitting and dressing rooms. Sephora has mirrors embedded with a virtual try-on in stores in Milan — as well as virtual artist apps. With digital fashion, we see big brands using augmented and virtual reality to shape consumer experiences.
For brands, they understand that a customer’s fashion desire and purchase intentions are solely pinned on consumer’s perception of their image in particular wear or garment. Virtual catwalks, virtual dressing rooms, and virtual artist apps combine to deliver a truly inspiring consumer experience. In the world of sneakers, Nike has created the Nike Fit, an application that uses body scanners to find the right sneakers for you. Puma has leaped forth with LQD Cell Origin Air purely embedded with QR codes to unlock AR content with dedicated codes.
Amazon and Facebook are creating augmented reality applications to wear and try out products before buying them. The artwork is also exploring the digital space with Gasper’s Celestial Cyber Dimension, which represents a union of blockchain technology and virtual art that sold for $140,000 in May 2019.
Therefore, an important thing that consumers should know is that digital fashion represents an incredible opportunity for brands and entrepreneurs who are willing to take a leap of faith and try. In an increasingly globalized world, and with an ever-growing desire for consumers to display their clothing on social media, digital fashion would truly be a unique memento.
Digital Fashion Trends
Particular trends define digital fashion. For example, artificial intelligence provides the ability to develop computing machines that can do tasks normally devoted to human intelligence. AI is a critical force in the digital fashion movement. Secondly, the internet of things, popularly referred to as IoT, is a network of embedded devices and endpoints all dedicated to delivering the best customer experience for digital fashion consumers. Thirdly, 3D printing represents a key trend that essentially refers to using 3D design software and pixel materials inside a virtual environment to design and deliver a unique digital creation. Other trends defining digital fashion include e-commerce, novel fabrics, data analytics, and blockchain technology.
Perhaps the final thing to know about digital fashion is that it represents a new frontier for two major reasons. First, digital fashion responds to consumer shopping needs, particularly at a time of the coronavirus pandemic, following mounting pressure on social distancing and working from home. Secondly, digital fashion corresponds to shifts in consumer purchase, mainly as new consumers undertake online shopping to avoid physical contact. In addition, given the fact that fashion brands are increasingly relying on social media channels to market their apparel and garments, to connect to prospects, and to improve their customer experience, all make digital fashion a new and exciting development.
Digitalax NFT Marketplace
Digitalax is emerging as a critical player in the digital fashion sector through its NFT marketplace. The NFT marketplace is designed for gamers, designers, and fashion brands to leverage non-fungible tokens as a digital asset for their unique creations. Through Digitalax, gaming developers and fashion brands can use tokenization as a means of ownership for their products and designs. Digitalax envisions its digital design laboratory expertise as the face of change, particularly in the fashion industry. With an entire team of in-house professionals, a robust infrastructure, and operational capabilities, Digitalax is expected to transform digital fashion through its digital fashion operating system and its NFT marketplace.
The Future of Digital Fashion
It’s hard to deny that our lives are turning more virtual. Our existence is moving towards a virtual existence, particularly following the popularity of celebrities and influencers like Miquela, who has 1.6 million Instagram followers. The influencer says that people are following her on Instagram just like any other celebrity on Opera, but two years ago, everybody said that was ridiculous.
Regardless of how we feel about the virtual world and virtual trends, there is no denying that this new and emerging industry needs a serious overhaul. Digital fashion can foreseeably pave the way for a sustainable business model in the fashion industry — one where the overconsumption of worn-out clothing could be diminished.
Post and save the planet simultaneously?
The world is here for digital fashion, and it’s not looking back.
