The Utility of Digital Fashion and NFTs
I’ve heard the word “utility” a lot these past few months, especially regarding digital fashion. Don’t get me wrong, even for someone as interested in fashion as me, when I came to discover this new digital space, I wasn’t mentally ready for it; I was a bit skeptical… and there’s nothing wrong with that.
How can we, as consumers, make use of digital fashion? How can established brands make use of it? How can NFTs merge these brands with the metaverse? How are we benefiting from it?
To wonder how we can use, or benefit from what ultimately is a product, is nothing but a natural human question.
Truth is, digital fashion comes in different forms:
As part of incredible artworks, such as the ones from our #FashionFridays collection
As a digital twin of a physical garment, so you can own both.
As wearables for your avatars. You can wear the digital garment as part of your identity in the metaverse, such as Decentraland.
You can use the AR (Augmented Reality) filter of the garment on social media.
And you can even take digital to the physical world, by having the garments overlaid on pictures of you by purchasing from digital fashion retailers.
We tend to ignore how much time we spend carefully curating our digital selves. The mere act of posting a photo on Instagram is already curational. To dress up your digital self for the metaverse ( a place where we will all be spending quite a bit of time in the next couple years) will no longer be part of a game, but an investment to express our identities in the digital realm.
Having digital twins of physical garments is the perfect way to bring traditional brands to the NFT space. From a cryptoart perspective, the NFT should hold creative and artistic value and, within it, the 3D garment should be displayed. This work of art can be designed collectively between the creative directors from a specific brand, and 3D artists already experienced in crafting digital fashion and/or digitizing garments.
Soon after completed, the brand can sell that artwork as an NFT, and decide on the sort of experiences and unlockables the collector gets by owning the NFT, whether that is getting a physical made-to-measure version of the garment seen in the artwork, original sketches, or “The making of” videos of the creation process… because we all love a bit of storytelling.
Yes, utility can mean different things, and the offer that digital fashion and NFTs bring to brands is extensive, but let’s remember that art, whether digital or more traditional, will always have utility. Art is beauty. Humans love to appreciate beauty, it makes us happy, it inspires us… and that is utility enough.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to enjoy an amazing artwork whose offer is to simply amuse us with an incredible digital garment.
At KnownOrigin we are happy to discover the talent of 3D designers, digital studios and even digital fashion houses who are transforming the fashion scene, and are happy to work alongside traditional brands who are wondering how they can join this space. Well, here we are waiting for you, looking for you, so that we can transform fashion forever.… together.
Article by Edua Sykes
KnownOrigin's Digital Fashion Consultant
