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  • LOEWE SS23
    Date
    03 OCTOBER 2022
    Author
    ZARINA IZY
    Image by
    PRESS OFFICE
    Categories
    Fashion

    How the Metaverse and NFTs inspire luxury brands

    Fashion has always been a powerful force in the world. Fashion is an art form that reflects the mood of its time, and it can be used to inspire people to make big changes in their lives.

    But now, fashion is taking on new dimensions. As the digital age continues to transform our lives, we're seeing fashion brands emerge online as well as offline—and it's changing the way people think about what they wear.

    Some of these brands are building their solid presence in the metaverse. For now, they are heavily investing in this new direction without clearly knowing what it will bring to them. Meanwhile, there are some brands who instead are waiting but certainly, everyone is getting inspired by the wave of freedom and creativity, initiated by Web3.0.

    LOEWE SS23
    LOEWE SS23

    The creative director of luxury brand Loewe, JW Anderson, is known for his boundary-breaking approach to design. The designer's Spring/Summer 2023 womenswear collection, presented during Paris Fashion Week was partly inspired by internet culture and included several pretty insane garments that are sure to turn heads: he introduced a gaming theme in an unconventional show that included pixelated clothes—from pixelated hoodies to pixelated pants. The clothing looks two-dimensional, as if it were a drawing of what clothes are supposed to look like in Minecraft than an actual representation.

    It could be fair to say that pixeled garments looked like a “glitch” in the collection due to their radical difference in style, which made fashion performance look incoherent. Perhaps, Loewe were too excited to add this new idea to the existing floral concept.

    Earlier this year, Tiffany & Co. partnered with blockchain firm Chain to turn CryptoPunks NFTs into custom pendants.

    “We’re taking NFTs to the next level. Exclusive to CryptoPunks holders, NFTiff transforms your NFT into a bespoke pendant handcrafted by Tiffany & Co. artisans. You’ll also receive an additional NFT version of the pendant.”  - announced Tiffany.

    Tiffany & Co. CryptoPunks
    Tiffany & Co. CryptoPunks charm
    Tiffany & Co. "NFTiff" collection

    It all started when Alexandre Arnault, the executive vice president of product and communications at luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co., turned his CryptoPunks NFT into a physical rose gold-and-enamel pendant. Other CryptoPunks community members expressed interest in doing the same via a Twitter poll, and Arnault partnered up with Deepak Thapliyal, CEO of blockchain firm Chain, to make it happen. On Aug. 5, the “NFTiff” collection went live with 250 non-fungible tokens priced at 30 ETH, equivalent to $50,600 each at that time. The project sold out in 22 minutes and raised the ether-equivalent of $12.5 million.

    NFTiff is a dynamic NFT that serves as a digital key and starts out with a pixelated image of Tiffany & Co.'s signature blue jewelry box—if redeemed for a physical pendant, a placeholder image will be used until the order goes into production, if the owner doesn’t redeem it, the NFTiff remains in a wallet as an unredeemed collectible.

    Tiffany & Co. CryptoPunks charm
    Tiffany & Co. CryptoPunks charm

    Balenciaga are known as one of the first luxury brands stepping into the Metaverse and now they attracted their friend Ye, formerly Kanye West, to virtual reality aesthetics.

    The YEEZY GAP ENGINEERED BY BALENCIAGA collection has been revealed in a new video that is GTA-inspired, and it's a trip.

    Capture from YEEZY GAP ENGINEERED BY BALENCIAGA video by Komazawa Isolation
    Capture from YEEZY GAP ENGINEERED BY BALENCIAGA video by Komazawa Isolation

    The Tokyo walk-through gaming experience is the work of viral Japanese content creators Komazawa Isolation, who have created a 56-second long video that starts with a loading screen that shines a spotlight on the YEEZY GAP logo before it takes landing in Shibuya.


    Capture from YEEZY GAP ENGINEERED BY BALENCIAGA video by Komazawa Isolation
    Capture from YEEZY GAP ENGINEERED BY BALENCIAGA video by Komazawa Isolation
    Capture from YEEZY GAP ENGINEERED BY BALENCIAGA video by Komazawa Isolation
    Capture from YEEZY GAP ENGINEERED BY BALENCIAGA video by Komazawa Isolation

    There, a masked character dressed entirely in YEEZY GAP designs immediately provides a task: "Find the car keys and find the “dove” and the other guys.” This is noted through a phone call with an apparent agent. The character moves like a game character and the costume selection screen features Part Two of the YEEZY GAP ENGINEERED BY BALENCIAGA collection.

    Although the Metaverse is still in its infancy, it has already inspired a handful of luxury brands and designers to incorporate it in their designs. The digital revolution in fashion has given rise to the concept of the "possible object" due to its ability to combine art, design and technology. Luxury brands see this as an opportunity to create objects that carry a meaning beyond a simple object of consumption and we are excited to see what the future holds!

    YEEZY GAP ENGINEERED BY BALENCIAGA