A Digital Wardrobe in the Metaverse

This blog post ruminates on the changing understanding of what fashion is and will be in the near-future.

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An article published in Business of Fashion, Where Fashion-Tech Investors are Putting Their Money talks about the capital flowing into Fashion-Tech. Unsurprisingly, the Metaverse and digital fashion in the form of NFTs are the most popular upcoming areas of interest and investment.

The Metaverse - the fully fledged version - will change life as we know it. We may be living out half our days in digital spaces (Virtual Reality) or digital spaces could be superimposed on physical spaces to create a hybrid space of both worlds (Augmented Reality). In essence, we will be a part of digital clones of parts of the world we live in. Office spaces, concert halls, shopping malls and inevitably, digital wardrobes.

Digital Wardrobes

The idea of owning a digital wardrobe in addition to a physical one brings countless possibilities to mind. There are big strides already being made when it comes to digital fashion.

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The BoF article mentions about H&M's potential idea to create digitised wardrobes where users could log their purchases, and the app would direct them to products they like based on their past purchases while visiting the stores.

Dolce and Gabbana came up with a hybrid collection last year that sold both physical garments and their digital counterparts in the form of NFTs.

The Possibilities

To ease the weight of waste and pollution caused by the fashion industry, fashion brands could digitize their collections, and manufacture garments only based on orders. This would reduce the number of unsold merchandise heading to landfills.

In the scenario of a fully functional metaverse, the digital wardrobes - with garments purchased as NFTs - could have functionalities like flexible sizes and color/design options.

Wardrobe swap with other Metaverse users will be an interesting way to access more styles without having to spend money, and without the sizing and hygiene issues of the physical world.

In conclusion, the fashion industry in heading in an exciting direction that will improve ease of access to consumers and reduce the waste and pollution currently being created by the industry. Physical fashion will never be completely replaced by the digital - and it shouldn't be, in my humble opinion - but we may soon be living in a hybrid world with infinite fashion choices at a sustainable rate. A welcome change.