Make way on the runway, Armani, Versace and Ralph Lauren.
Fashion is being democratized – and the future is virtual and moving towards the metaverse.
“The world’s next Coco Chanel might be a young 10-year-old, 8-year-old girl who designs clothes in Roblox,” Cathy Hackl, chief metaverse officer and co-founder of innovation and design consultancy trip said in a discussion at this week’s MetaBeat virtual event. (Want to join us IRL? Come to the in-person MetaBeat event on Tuesday, October 4 in San Francisco.)
Fashion and technology converge in both physical and virtual spaces, she said — and this changes not only who is a fashion designer, but who can say they are one.
“It’s really great to see fashion and art pushing the boundaries of what we can do with this technology,” Hackl says. “It’s this moment and this feeling in the tech industry and the fashion industry to come closer together than ever before.”
Journey helped build Walmart, for example Walmart Land and Walmart’s University of Play, two “new immersive experiences” within Roblox. The retail giant announced the new virtual efforts this week, describing them as “bringing the best of Walmart’s ‘islands’ to life in a virtual world.”
“Walmart Land will bring the best fashion, style, beauty and entertainment items directly to the global Roblox community of more than 52 million daily users,” the company announced in a blog post. “The retailer will continue to bring the fun with Walmart’s Universe of Play – the ultimate virtual toy destination in Roblox, just in time for those oh-so-real holiday wish lists.”
Users can explore a virtual store of merchandise, or “verch” for their avatars, ride in Ferris wheel and play games and participate in competitions to earn tokens and badges. There is also an “Electric Island” music festival with an interactive piano walk, a dance challenge, a Netflix trivia experience with actor Noah Schnapp, and a DJ booth where users can learn to mix different beats. This will host an “Electric Fest” in October, a motion-capture concert featuring artists Madison Beer, Kane Brown and YUNGBLUD.
Meanwhile, a “House of Style” will offer products from af94, UOMA from Sharon C., ITK from Brooklyn and Bailey, Lottie London and Bubble, and will include a virtual dressing room, a strike-a-pose challenge, a cosmetics obstacle track and a roller-skating rink.
This entry of one of the world’s largest companies into the metaverse is nothing short of a milestone, Hackl said.
“It’s the Fortune 1, massive retailer entering the space in a way that feels organic and well done,” she said.
Making the impossible possible
Meanwhile, Amsterdam-based digital fashion platform Manufacturer Studio debuted his first collection in November; Hackl participated by co-creating the ‘meter of the metaverse dress’.
“It was a beautiful moment for me,” she said, because she never dreamed that one day she could design couture.
The metaverse is “making the impossible possible, making the unthinkable completely within reach,” agrees Sasha Wallinger, head of Web3 and metaverse strategy at Journey.
Wallinger described a “fashion language” of different seasons of thinking ahead, “breaking to build” and experimenting – much like the evolving metaverse experience.
The metaverse is “a new tool, a new mechanism for taking a risk, but with a really high reward for that risk,” she said. “It really brings the fun back to that creative experience, that marketing journey.”
No doubt marketing and sales can often get old, she said, but the metaverse is reinventing and innovating branding and development.
And while that could be about building “beautiful worlds” of gaming, it could also include building communities and events, as Walmart has done, Hackl noted.
No doubt the metaverse is still being built itself, and like the World Wide Web, it’s unclear how it will take shape, change and evolve.
“Shall we call it metavers in 10 years? I don’t know,” Hackl said. But at least “in the metaverse we are all world builders and now is our time to build.”
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