Virtual Couture? Vivienne Tam’s first NFT dress struts around Metaverse Fashion Week

When is an article of clothing just an article of clothing, and when is it fashion? If that question is too confusing, try this: when should a piece virtual clothes are considered virtual Meeting?

Since Tuesday, leaders of the best physical and digital fashion houses, gathered in the metaverse, have shown their best answers to that question at the second annual Metaverse Fashion Week.

For some of these designers, virtual fashion is defined by its unique potential to reach so many people as possible without sucking up real resources. For others, fashion – even in the virtual realm – remains a matter of awe and singularity.

In the latter camp you’ll find Vivienne Tam, the venerable Chinese-American fashion designer whose first virtual couture pieces are currently making waves on the virtual runway in Decentralized country.

The piece, a virtual qipao dress digitally embroidered with the likenesses of three avatars from the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection in a mandala pattern is a one-of-a-kind NFT meticulously designed by Tam with technical assistance from digital fashion platform Completely new vision (BNV).

Vivienne Tam’s BAYC Mandala Embroidered Qipao. Photo: Vivienne Tam, BNV, CFDA

The dress marks Tam’s Web3 debut. For over 30 years, she has designed provocative, exclusively physical fashion pieces known for her distinctive East-meets-West style. A number of them are in the permanent collections of such institutions as the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. She is also shown physical Bored Ape-themed clothing on runways in the real world.

However, the virtual realm remained untouched for Tam until she was approached to create an NFT fashion piece to commemorate the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s 60th anniversary. Tommy Hilfiger, Coach, Diane von Furstenberg, Michael Kors, Carolina Herrera and Willy Chavarria were also invited to produce one-of-a-kind NFTs to celebrate the occasion.

“The other designers were basically taking things they were known for, historical elements, and making a digital version of them,” Richard Hobbs, CEO of BNV – who oversaw the translation of these couturiers design for NFTs—told Decrypt. “But Vivienne, she made her piece completely relevant to Web3.”

For Tam, the experience of building fashion on the blockchain wasn’t jarring, nor did it feel like a redundant exercise in copying older works. Rather, creating in Web3 felt like a natural progression from the designer’s existing work.

“To be able to bring harmony, heritage and my history to something so new is exciting,” Tam shared Decrypt. “But it’s not just about being new. It is to be a bridge from old to new, from east to west, from nature to digital.”

The dress, originally designed in photorealistic quality on the Polygon blockchain with support from BNV, was purchased by Cathy Hackl, Chief Metaverse Officer at Web3 consultancy Travel and so-called “godmother of the metaverse.”

For Hackl, who chaired last year’s Metaverse Fashion Week, the unique NFT was the perfect representation of virtual fashion as an extension of the luxury and grandeur of physical couture, absorbed in a Web3 ethos.

“I didn’t just get an NFT,” Hackl shared Decrypt of the purchase. “It’s a moment in fashion history that lives on the chain.”

The one-of-a-kind nature of the piece also dovetailed with Hackl’s own understanding of virtual fashion.

“I don’t think of virtual fashion as mass market, although there is a place for that,” she said. “I think more about virtual couture. Of very unique pieces that create fashion moments in the virtual space.”

To maximize the impact of Hackl’s newly acquired piece of fashion history, BNV helped convert the dress into a digital wearable compatible with the more pixelated and cartoonish realm of Decentraland, where many of Metaverse Fashion Week’s events take place.

Cathy Hackl’s avatar wears the Vivienne Tam dress, customized by Decentraland, at Metaverse Fashion Week. Photo: Cathy Hackl, Decentraland

Although converting the dress to Decentraland’s visual style drained it of some of its original life and definition, Tam supported the adaptation.

“Even though it’s not as high-resolution as the first edition, the point is to get people involved in the fashion,” she said. “There are trade-offs, but now it can reach more people. It’s more democratic.”

Virtual fashion, from a couture perspective, may not be for the masses to wear. But just as with physical couture, it is definitely designed for the masses to see.