Written by Saijal Chowdhury
Ever-changing technology has revolutionized the way fashion platforms and global companies operate. Consumers’ increasing knowledge and consistent demand for innovation have made fashion far more complex than buying and selling.
The fashion industry has undergone a major transformation in recent years, from the decline of fast fashion to the rise of slow fashion, incorporating sustainable majors into the production cycle, changing consumer behavior and now brands looking to combine augmented and virtual reality. . The emergence of the metaverse in fashion and NFTs (non-fungible tokens) has given fashion designers and clothing brands a new dimension to express their unimaginable creativity and the right to patent art.
Heading What is the Metaverse?
The Metaverse implies that the future is beyond what we can imagine, instead claiming a man-made world.words meta It comes from a Greek word that basically means “beyond”. poetry The etymology is the word “universe”. This is the virtual world in which we meet and interact online, making it more natural, personalized and immersive. Here retail stores never close and shelves are filled with endless products, experiences and revenues.
Simply put, the Metaverse is a collective parallel reality edited by joining all virtual worlds together to form an artificial universe that we can seamlessly transform into. It replaces the current reality of the internet, taking us out of the comfort of our homes and into the superficial world.
The metaverse of the fashion industry.
The fashion metaverse presents consumers with unique opportunities for designers, brands and innovators. The platform creates engagement between brands and consumers in new ways to design clothes, customize products, and shop virtually. It allows designers to experiment with imaginative ideas of designing unlimited textiles, prints, clothing and accessories that might be limited in production in the real world. As Mark Zuckerberg puts it, “Every morning, we swipe through the outfits in our virtual closet to dress our digital avatars in everything from the realistic to the quirky.”
Opportunity in the age of digital fashion.
The first idea of the metaverse in fashion may be alienated to decipher, knowing the whole excitement of visiting your favorite retailer to buy and try on a wardrobe over the last few decades. there is. However, with all design disciplines now embracing this digitization, fashion professionals are working hard to bring Metaverse ideas to the future of fashion.
In the fashion retail industry, the metaverse is not limited to buying and trying on, it introduces multiple innovations in sustainable management, strengthening supply chain models, employee recruitment, career opportunities, education systems, and a kind of customer experience. There is a possibility.
Real-to-virtual transformation in fashion.
In 2022, Metaverse Fashion Week will take place at Decentraland from March 24th to 27th. The fashion week was attended by many big names, including top brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Dolce he Gabbana and Etro. Fashion Week at Decentraland was graphically designed in the same format as a traditional runway, but the experience of creation, the intricacy of clothing details, and the silhouettes weren’t as compelling as in the real world. This digital runway has encountered many obstacles in transforming the real-world experience into an upgraded virtual realm.
To have a successful influence in the metaverse, brands need to reiterate their strategies on engagement plans that focus on more interactive audience experiences. Metaverse Fashion Week 2022 is an opportunity for brands to explore the possibilities of digital fashion and embrace the constraints of this new concept. There is a customer base ready to invest in the world of digital fashion, but this requires advanced technology to convince them to invest.
Metaverse in education.
The Metaverse has gained global popularity and recently fashion institutions have introduced the Metaverse learning experience as a core part of their fashion curriculum. We have prepared a specialized studio class for learning the software of “3D modeling”, which is as important as learning techniques such as sewing and draping. The software allows students to design and create draping patterns on their avatars in a virtual space. This skill culminated in students reimagining textiles, silhouettes, and embellishments for the Metaverse.
This change in fashion and advances in the Metaverse curriculum have created new career opportunities for fashion designers to also work as animation and graphic designers.
The future of the metaverse.
In the current scenario, the conclusion is ambiguous whether this upgraded technology will completely transform the developing fashion industry. But the blending of real and virtual shopping experiences is exciting. This new technology has the potential to clean up and make an industry known for polluting the environment and generating large amounts of waste.
The author is the design manager of The Design Village (TDV).
