The success of the first Metaverse Fashion Week in March has led to a huge influx of funding being funneled toward several fashion companies, in some cases Metaverse natives. The businesses are now enjoying a major upswing in funding and in popularity, which consequently increases their ability to produce new products and capitalize on their success.
In case you’re not familiar with the Metaverse, here’s a definition: It’s a “digital reality that combines aspects of social media, online gaming, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and cryptocurrencies to allow users to interact virtually,” Investopedia.com says. “Augmented reality overlays visual elements, sound and other sensory input onto real-world settings to enhance the user experience. In contrast, virtual reality is entirely virtual and enhances fictional realities.
“As the metaverse grows, it will create online spaces where user interactions are more multidimensional than current technology supports. Instead of just viewing digital content, users in the metaverse will be able to immerse themselves in a space where the digital and physical worlds converge.”
The Metaverse Fashion Week says on its website that it was “made possible using exclusive new tech that converts 2D product images into 3D experiences” and that it offers “an immersive shopping experience where buying virtual clothing in Decentraland also sees a physical twin shipped for your real wardrobe.”
The Metaverse Fashion Week site explains that “Decentraland is a decentralized virtual reality platform … “where [a person] can buy and sell digital items and real estate, while exploring, chatting, interacting and playing games in the digital world.”
Last year, the Metaverse was infused with more than $10 billion in investment funds for various projects. That cash helped kick off a kind of renaissance in fashion as well. Of course, the real-world fashion elite are always competing for who has the best investment strategy, but in the Metaverse, there seems to be a different dynamic.
Recent investments of more than $100 million in certain companies have led experts and speculators to the Metaverse, the new mall of the Web3.0 movement.
“The fashion industry will be one of the first to be the most disrupted by blockchain technology. The emergence of new business models, digital use-cases for fashion and meta-commerce are contributing factors,” Megan Kaspar of Red Dot, a digital fashion investor and collector, says.
In March, Metaverse fashion brand Space Runners led the way, gaining $10 million in funding.
“We are designing and launching fashion items as NFT collections, which is ongoing…,” Space Runners CEO Deniz Özgür said. NFTs are non-fungible tokens that transform digital works of art and other collectibles into one-of-a-kind tradable assets.
“We are also launching the first phase of our fashion metaverse. Rather than just an urban cyber style, we are giving more weight to beauty and aesthetics, and we’ve been collaborating with some of the most popular fashion agencies in New York,” Özgür said.
The fashion of the digital age is apparently here to stay, and large funding certainly supports that conclusion.
Produced in association with MetaNews.
Edited by Richard Pretorius and Matthew B. Hall
