Numerous firms are positioning themselves to get the best outcomes from the rapidly expanding, tech-driven metaverse industry. Fashion has also quickly adapted to these innovations.
Many people find the idea of purchasing and selling clothing in a virtual environment strange, but companies and the market are still exploring the potential and working to redefine the model to make it more customer-centric.
Digital-world fashion is more environmentally friendly than traditional clothing. In addition, the digital fashion industry uses 3,300 liters less water and emits 97% less CO2 than traditional fashion.
The company's carbon footprint can be reduced by 30% by switching from physical to digital fashion for sampling its design and development. It can be useful in various versions other than the physical representation of the production clothing.
Modeling, sampling, and marketing are activities that can be majorly beneficial to the fashion industry. Even before displaying the physical iteration of the production procedure, displaying the digital fashion would drive a better understanding of the clothing. This would also minimize the environmental effects and the overall cycle of the fashion segments and the industry.
Overproduction and racks of unsold products have always been the fashion industry's roadblocks. Digital fashion shows and displays would alleviate the problems and drive sales significantly.
Digital Fashion with VR/AR
The metaverse fashion is akin to Amazon’s AR "view in your room," (1) allowing customers to obtain the AR technology from their device or system’s camera to look through the product and garment digitally before buying the product.
The growing digital fashion industry and apparel brands are looking out for ways to meet the heightened consumer demands. Retailers and e-commerce platforms are adopting AR and VR technology fast.
The B2B business model and its decision-making have been transparent for commercials due to the growing consumer demands and the AR-fueled showrooms that apply try before you use personalized self-service features and virtual storefronts. This has led to a greater emphasis being placed on these digital values, providing the best for the customers.
Customers might test the clothing they are familiar with from stores and actual showrooms in the metaverse. This will pave the way for expanding high-value virtual offerings that will eventually dominate the virtual space.
This feature would introduce two major benefits for the world of fashion. It would vandalize the physical inventory requirements, leading to saving cash flow and also the environmental efforts for the product establishment. The ability to curate more virtual designs and products in the VR environment also provides an option for customization, which improvises and revolutionizes the customer experience.
This would load off the work of creating material design and hours of work for the physical presentation and design more and more creative solutions for engaging customers and showcasing the talent virtually. VR technology and advancing features will also allow the designers to explore more through technologically advanced tools to provide top-tier features to customers.
NFTs & the fashion trends
The most innovative digital asset in the form of a token purchase or receipt represented by blockchain technology is now NFTs. Depending on the rarity and customizable features that apply, the user can get sole ownership of the NFT once they have made the purchase.
The nature of NFTs and the fashion industry provide a promising future and value over the ability to obtain customizable products and personalized experiences, which is leading to massive eCommerce growth.
There are now countless opportunities for the apparel business to ease inventory limitations, display merchandise in digital stores on the metaverse, and use NFTs to showcase limitless possibilities.
The driving possibilities and various advancements will optimize the fashion industry in the metaverse marketplace as the most engaging virtual industry with the maximum benefits. Customers get the opportunity to buy apparel NFTs and even sell the purchases to other users in the metaverse.
The trading game will obtain major popularity throughout the growing process, with multiple brands acquiring the technology.
Fashion labels in the metaverse
The popularity of NFT and the digital community is increasing immensely in the digital art and video game industry. The recent purchase of RTFKT (2) studios by Nike (3) has established a new way for eCommerce and the NFT community to reshape their views toward digital products.
The utilization of blockchain technology and augmented reality for the creation of physical shoes in imagery assets NFT has attracted the attention of many rivals in the industry and shaped the NFT community.
Major brands, including Adidas (4) and Gucci (5), alongside Nike, were able to obtain $137.5 million through NFT sales. Dolce & Gabbana (6) featured a digital glass suit which turned out to be the most expensive suit ever sold, fetching over $1 million.
Along with D & G's NFT line, which brought in almost $6 million, and Gucci's virtual Queen Bee Dionysus bag (7), which amassed a huge sum of 350,000 Robux (8). $4,000 is even more expensive than the value in the tangible world.
Louis Vuitton (9) released a video game within its metaverse allowing users to search for hidden NFTs, allowing the users who obtained them access to exclusive virtual events and privately hosted parties.
Balenciaga (10) collaborated with Fortnite (11) for its skin collection of high-fashion outfits in the 300 million-user universe. Ralph Lauren (12) collaborated with South Korean app Zepetto (13) to release a fashion collection for players.
The gap between the virtual and physical worlds is getting thinner as a result of Web 3's developing technology, which has a wide range of applications across all industries and a user-centric design that gives customers more ways to express themselves and speeds up e-commerce competitiveness.
Fashion labels like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Burberry (14) have already placed teams dedicated to testing the web3 and the metaverse for optimizing potential features and areas to capture the market.
The fashion industry has the most potential to dominate user interest with features, as more and more brands enter the metaverse, offering audiences greater exposure as Gen Z spends more time socializing online than in real life.
