Moving into the virtual realm, and rightfully so
It may seem silly to spend a lot of money on items that don't exist in reality, but gamers have long been paying to dress up their virtual personas. Virtual fashion is probably nothing new to young Chinese.
Back in 2002, Tencent launched QQ Show for the chat tool, and while QQ Show has long been a topic of historical archaeology, virtual fashion continues to capture consumers using the game as a medium.
James Colbert took notice of this phenomenon. Colbert, who calls himself a fashion mogul, has been in the fashion business for 23 years. One day, he noticed that his son was buying skins for images in games with the aim of making those avatars more polished and personal.
Colbert realized that this could be an opportunity for the fashion industry.
In August 2020, after some research, he launched Republiqe, a brand specializing in virtual luxury clothing that combines digital and real people, making virtual fashion officially a form of "fashion".
These virtual fashions are cleverly designed and colorful, perfectly blending anti-physical aesthetics and adding a dynamic effect to static clothing.
Unlike real fashion, the "wearing" of virtual fashion requires post-processing, where the wearer imagines the garment and the post-processors create the perfect image.
If Republiqe, The Fabricant and other virtual fashion brands are only some of the darlings of the fashion pioneers, then the joining of the big fashion brands is undoubtedly an important turning point in the development of virtual fashion. 2021, many big brands seem to have a date, a time, have invested in the field of virtual goods.
Mikayla La Crosse, director of The Fabricant, said, "It's only natural for established luxury companies to move into the virtual fashion space."
Who will buy these "fake" clothes
It seems that virtual fashion has a cyberpunk flavor.
Although its auction prices are prohibitive, its audience is not limited to the rich or fashion darlings, many people have inadvertently become part of the virtual fashion sales chain.
In 2021, British fashion technology company Lyst and The Fabricant jointly released a digital fashion report that said Generation Z (the generation born between 1995 and 2010) and millennials are the key consumers of digital fashion.
Don't find this hard to understand. In the future, you too are likely to be a consumer of virtual clothing. Virtual fashion designs tend to be very futuristic and make heavy use of anti-gravity aesthetics. Meaning, it may not even exist in reality. And in the modern world of online dating, who wouldn't want to have an exclusive photo of themselves in a very sci-fi outfit?
Although the "wearing" of virtual clothing requires post-processing, this does not mean that virtual fashion can be reproduced at will.
The Fabricant uses blockchain technology to give each virtual costume a unique identifier, making each virtual costume unique and difficult to replicate. Combined with hunger marketing, each virtual fashion is limited in number, which greatly increases the collection value of virtual fashion.
In other words, you basically do not have to worry about the problem of someone copying and then clashing.
"Fake" clothes are more ethical?
Why would people pay a high price for these virtual products that they can't touch or feel?
In the digital age, human interaction is so dependent on the Internet that it can sometimes become completely networked. Whether they have never met or have a deep friendship, most people learn about other people's lives through social networks, and even chats can be reduced to comments that never come back. Daily social interaction eventually becomes a set of photos in a circle of friends, which makes the virtual image particularly important in people's minds.
This situation has intensified in the wake of the global outbreak, and reports show that virtual platforms have compulsively driven changes in people's minds as a form of human connection and self-expression during the epidemic, and such changes are expected to drive the development of virtual fashion in the fashion sector.
But that alone is not enough.
"When you buy clothes, you often have to consider whether it was produced ethically." Shetty, who spends a lot of money for virtual clothes, says that in the production chain, virtual fashion can significantly reduce the resources needed to manufacture fashion products because it involves only pixels and data. Gala Marija Vrbanich, creative director of Tribute, another virtual fashion brand, says the carbon footprint of making a virtual fashion is 95 percent lower than making a regular physical fashion.
This means that in the future, if only to take pictures, or to enrich their virtual image, it is largely unnecessary to buy clothes in reality. This feature makes virtual fashion equipment popular with environmentalists.
This group is indeed quite a lot. According to Vice, a survey shows that one in ten Brits who buy clothes online only wear them once, take some social media photos, and return them for disposal. Instead, virtual fashion can save carbon emissions from packaging, logistics, returns and exchanges. "If clothes are more just for social media images on the web, then why not use digital clothing?" One consumer of digital clothing said, "Our lives are moving more and more toward a digital world, and people are more concerned about their online status. As a result, digital fashion will become commonplace in the future."
What about the future
"One of the best things about virtual fashion is that it allows you to escape from reality." Says one digital fashion brand executive, "It's not just the clothes people are wearing, it's the future." Of course, if you just look at the present, digital fashion still has a long way to go. The biggest problem is that it's based on a reliance on digital technology.
While most virtual fashion brands incorporate 3D technology, striving for their products to perfectly fit the buyer's body and "make it look real," the technology is a little bad and the PS marks are heavy.
This doesn't even take into account the potential for complicated photo aftermarket work and illegal ways to reproduce products. The further development of virtual fashion is still heavily dependent on the development of related digital technologies. The real world is the fundamental obstacle to the widespread adoption of virtual fashion.
Regardless of the development of social networks, the current stage of human society can not yet completely avoid the reality of contact, even if it is not out of the house for many years, "otaku" a family, but also can not be exempt from ordering take-out, throwing out the garbage and other basic life contact.
But, the new crown pandemic has brought new changes. Home office as well as isolation, so that people increasingly stay at home. They don't need to wear expensive clothes and carry designer bags to go out. Instead, they spend more time online and care more about their online image.
The virtual world has never been more important to real people than it is today. People no longer see it as a tool for entertainment, but as an extension of the real world in cyberspace.
In 2021, buying virtual clothes and shoes is already considered a trivial matter, and many people have even started to buy land.
A new technological era curtain, has quietly opened.
