DressX Talks MVFW Plans, NFTs, Wearables & AR – WWD

Web 3.0 virtual fashion company DressX has a new bag — or rather, virtual hat — and plans to bring it and more to Metaverse Fashion Week next month. According to the company, expect new wearables and augmented reality features, with direct offers and brand collaborations designed to illustrate the growing scenarios of virtual fashion.

DressX plans to offer new wearables tied to the Genesis hat NFT for holders attending the event. It is the final phase of a multi-part offering, co-founder Natalia Modenova said.

For its Genesis hat drop, the company opened up “444 items that were ‘reveals,’ and as soon as you reveal it, you get a unique hat,” she told WWD. “But even before you revealed that, you could still have a wearable, open the DressX app, connect to the same wallet, and wear this generative object in augmented reality.”

In fact, owners of DressX fashion NFTs can see themselves wearing the virtual clothes and accessories in the company’s mobile app through either a live view or in “editorial quality” selfies. It is the product of a lot of development work. The company, an early Meta partner for avatar wearables, has powered more than 2.8 million app-based AR fashion trials, and now it wants to connect those dots at MVFW, where it will be an official Decentraland partner for AR and curator.

DressX will offer new wearables for Genesis holders and others inside Decentraland, as well as The Sandbox, another virtual world that will connect to the event. It also wants to reach and reward the wider community, Modenova explained. Part of that is allowing participants to create NFTs for free during MVFW. Another comes to life through collaborations with real brands, such as Tommy Hilfiger.

The scope of the partnership with Hilfiger includes the creation of several wearables with augmented reality and a separate “community project” – a design competition for UGC (user-generated content) powered by artificial intelligence. “It will be dedicated to educating the community about the fashion and heritage of the brand, and [also] about modern tools, which cross each other, Modenova added. “We want to deliver artificial intelligence technology, and that’s how we want to engage the community in co-creating with Tommy Hilfiger and with DressX.”

According to the clothing brand, the competition will be unveiled at MVFW, with entries coming via Twitter. The winner will be hand-picked by Tommy Hilfiger and the design will be made into a NFT and AR wearable, distributed through the DressX platform.

Of course, MVFW work is not limited to one particular brand. DressX has also collaborated with Dundas on new wearables for a project showcasing the latest styles from Paris Fashion Week, and to support emerging and digital native designers, it plans to feature 3D fashion brands Blade Runway and Injury in its Decentraland flagship store. Another pop-up may also be in the works, though the company declined to discuss details at this time.

Directly, the offerings include Genesis wearables and another for the Cyber ​​Lava suit NFT, both of which will work in Decentraland, as well as The Sandbox, another virtual world that will connect to MVFW. But whether the fashion comes from DressX or one of its partner brands, the wearables will work the same way, said co-founder Daria Shapovalova: “The activations with the brands also come through AR,” she said. “This is separate from the Decentraland platform, because this is happening in DressX[’s mobile app].”

DressX is not alone. Others are working with brands on AR projects like Zero10, which will similarly allow visitors to try on Coach’s signature Tabby bag in the Zero10 app. Decentraland also collaborated with Over, an AR-focused virtual world, on a cross-metaverse wearable design competition. The MVFW organizer called it “the first for interoperable avatar fashion,” culminating in the winners being spotlighted in a hybrid AR-real-world runway event in Milan.

AR is often dragged into the metaversal conversation, even though the reality of tying it together is still a very nascent effort. But the energy behind mixing the real and virtual worlds has simmered. It’s showing up in a number of ways, whether projecting a simultaneous feed of virtual MVFW runways into real stores and events — which some brands are apparently exploring, according to Decentraland — or figuring out creative ways to place virtual clothes and accessories in real life. human beings.

Fashion AR has existed mainly as a novelty, relegating its value to the fashion industry as largely theoretical. Now more brands are diving in, and platforms such as DressX, Zero10, Over and others are pushing to expand offerings or increase creativity in new ways.

There’s more work to do, as the experience isn’t quite seamless yet. But at least there’s momentum going forward, enough to put the potential of this technology into perspective a bit – and this suggests that the theoretical potential of these virtual products may finally be on the way to becoming real.