This Outfit Does Not Exist or Daniella Loftus is a true OG in digital fashion

This Outfit Does Not Exist or Daniella Loftus is a true OG in digital fashion. She has been pioneering modelling in virtual clothes before it became mainstream, and she's one of the most influential figures in the field today.

She has an Instagram account with over 12,500 followers and her images have been featured in multiple fashion magazines.

Daniella is also a member of Red DAO and the founder of Prounonced Drop. We are excited to have her at Red Eye matazine and discuss the vision she has for digital fashion!

Who is Daniella Loftus in daily life and what is your background?

I grew up wanting to work in fashion but then wasn’t quite sure how I fit in… (I’m not artistically talented enough to be a designer). I pivoted to study history and politics and began my career in the social impact space.

When I graduated college my first job was in crypto as the first hire in a company using blockchain to improve the way loans are given to financially underserved populations in emerging markets. I then went on to work in an innovation consultancy where I would advise corporate executives on how to improve their businesses with bleeding-edge technology.

The other side of my life was that I had always been obsessed with fashion and the arts. All my free time was spent reading about fashion and going to galleries. In late 2020 I realized these worlds would inevitably merge with ‘digital fashion’ and was desperate to know more.

Seeing there was no information about Digital Fashion on the internet, and only a handful of companies in the space, I started ‘This Outfit Does Not Exist’ - as a platform’ to bring Digital Fashion to life’ both in the eyes of those in the fashion, and technology spaces.

What started as a side hustle grew into something far bigger than I could imagine. Now my days are spent building out my company DRAUP, writing and ‘influencing’ in the Digital Fashion space with This Outfit Does Not Exist and furthering the ecosystem financially via RED DAO.

From when you started to discover your interest in fashion and did you think to connect your life with it?

Ever since I was a child I was always obsessed with clothes. I used to love dressing up in crazy outfits and sitting by the TV watching the fashion shows of Mugler and Alexander McQueen.

As I got older I also became fascinated with the sociology behind fashion. The factors that influence why people dress in the way they do.

As I said above, I didn’t really understand how I could fit into the fashion ecosystem in a professional context when I was younger. Until Digital Fashion came along melding all my interests (fashion, technology, sci-fi and sociology) and helped me find my place.

What was your most viral post with a 3D garment?

Tribute Brand Mr C Dress dress shot with a Great Dane. It got 19,646 likes and 392,394 impressions.

What are your top 5 favourite digital brands/designers?

● Tribute Brand

● Mengze

● XiDentity

● YimengYu

● Davina India

Have you purchased any virtual garment? How much did it cost and what made you collect it?

Of course. I’ve purchased many. The first one I ever purchased, which kicked off This Outfit Does Not Exist was the SIREK dress from Tribute Brand. It cost me $69 and I was blown away by its silhouette, materials and the realism of the render.

How did you first hear about Red DAO and what membership they gave to you?

I was first made aware of RED DAO through a close friend and mentor who I was going to start a Digital Fashion DAO with.

We’d spoken about how we could invest and I had even gone as far as to draft a manifesto and plan to move forward. A few weeks after RED DAO was formed by a member of the famous ‘FLAMINGO DAO’ and instead of us creating a new Digital Fashion DAO he brought me into RED as a founding member.

You have launched your own digital fashion project and seems it's not about garments creation… Can you open curtains for us and tell what is Pronounced Drop about?

DRAUP is a platform maximizing the value of Digital Fashion for its consumers and creators.

At its fullest expression this will look like 1) a curated retail space for the best of Digital Fashion, 2) a virtual wardrobe where consumers can display their Digital Fashion collections and port them into virtual worlds (both onto their avatars and onto themselves via AR), 3) and finally a set of financialization protocols ranging from resale and rental to wear-to-earn for owners to capitalize on their Digital Fashion.

However, when we launch next year we will be starting by showing the world our brand ‘@pronounceddrop’. Pronounceddrop is committed to building Digital Fashion which pushes the boundaries of where technology and creativity collide.

Each collection will be dropped in collaboration with a pioneering digital artist and we have some amazing names in our pipeline - as well as some truly exquisite virtual clothes. Follow us on Twitter @pronounceddrop to be the first to know more.

What has the bigger potential: 3D avatars or AR?

Equal. As we move into the Metaverse - a single, shared, immersive, persistent, 3D virtual space - people will want to express their identities in multiple ways.

Whilst the move to direct-to-avatar dressing, or what I term URL (un real life) fashion, is inevitable, dressing versions of our physical selves with tools like AR will still be exciting; improving the creator economy which today boasts over 50 million participants.

What is your vision for digital fashion in 5 years?

I believe that Digital Fashion will come to change the trajectory of the fashion industry as we know it.

In IRL on ‘in real life’ fashion every physical fashion brand will be using digital design software to improve their processes and make the way they create clothes more demand responsive and efficient.

‘Networked assets’ such as GMoneys 9Dcc will also proliferate - rewarding users for their social interactions in the real world.

In ORL or ‘on real life’ Digital fashion AR will have improved to such a level that Digital Fashion will be the go-to for online creators, and luxury brands will be making ‘digital diffusion lines’ to bring their clothes to wider audiences.

Finally, our URL or un real lives will proliferate. Furthering Digital Fashion based economies which are fully direct to avatar and all the exciting things that can be done there - both creatively (integrating code into the creation of couture) and financially (with lending, borrowing, wear-to-earn etc.) embedded into the future of clothing.

What would your perfect “Digital look of the day” be like?

Very surreal. Very intricate. With high levels of fantasy and experimentation in the materials and the cut. It would most likely be a ballgown.

@thisoutfitdoesnotexist

interview @zarina_izy

RED•EYE WORLD