Metaverse Fashion Week in Decentraland
Decentraland hosted the Metaverses first-ever fashion week called MVFW at the end of March, to mixed reviews. The event was free to attend and attracted 30,000 visitors on the first day alone. Visitors had the option to buy digital wearables from designers to personalise avatars via Metaverse NFTs and an Ethereum wallet. The week consisted of “catwalk shows and showcases, pop up shops, after parties, and immersive experiences”, according to posts on Twitter.
The week opened with the showcase of Selfridges’s digital flagship in Decentraland, a digital twin of their futuristic Birmingham store. Appearing in the shows, designers included Dundas, Dolce & Gabbana, Etro and Tommy Hilfiger and digital fashion startups and NFT studios. Throughout the course of the week, over 60 brands presented 500 looks. Digital avatars will be walking the runways, showcasing items that buy and wear within Decentraland. Some collections will be virtual, and others exist in real life.
“We want to help the onboarding process and push creativity and show everyone what is possible. We do this to show the community and other brands, ‘Hey, Decentraland is a place for shopping, everyone is wearing cool clothes and brands can release on the platform’. It’s a way of bringing more people to the platform and making it more compelling for users.”
Sam Hamilton, Decentraland Foundation, told Vogue Business.
Although the event attracted over 100,000 visitors reviews in the media weren’t all positive. CNN reported the whole event as “underwhelming” and complained of lagging load times and computer glitches. Despite the technical glitches inside the fashion industry, MVFW seems to have gone down with aplomb with a multitude of fashion industry media covering the event. Brands and designers seem to have been pleased too as Decentraland has announced that it intends the event to become annual.
As brands look to monetise their Metaverse technology, wearables and NFTs have been one of the first things to sell. Brands are looking to capitalise on this and see the digital sphere as an extension of the real world. With Metaverse immersion, Brands hope people will spend money to dress and accessorise their avatars.
How designers embrace the new technology will be exciting, and the way digital avatars dress could even influence the way we dress in real life. Designers no longer need to design for the seasons in the Metaverse, and digital collections become often collectables.
