Metaverse platform Decentraland is looking forward to hosting its first Metaverse Fashion Week that starts from 24 March, with more than 12 global brands and more than thousands of visitors who can virtually experience the fashion shows, buy and wear digital clothing directly from catwalk avatars, attend live music sessions at branded after parties. During the four-day virtual event, there will be stores, showrooms, talks, and events (Source: Vogue). To enable the people to buy physical Hugo goods within the metaverse, inclusive of the Metaverse Fashion Week, making it one of the first brands to announce participation, Hugo recently was seen to be signing with the MVFW partner Boson Protocol. On other brands, organizers are hush but say household names, emerging and luxury brands, and digital-first creators are involved. Since in late December, the project was announced, more brands have been there expressing interest than Decentraland can host.
Some key insights are offered by Decentraland’s MVFW that is into how the fashion metaverse is playing out. Being the virtual home for the global fashion weeks, this sort of inaugural event comes forward to offer brands an environment to trail the technology of a 3D virtual world platform that is relatively in a low-risk manner. As one of the few prominent open metaverse platforms, Decentraland could be noted down, that is in addition to the Sandbox, and numerous investors already have bought the land’s plot in anticipation of building shopping-centric areas (Source: Vogue).
Virtual avatars will be seen walking the runways, some of which will be there wearable and shoppable, which means that people further can wear digital items in Decentraland, and even some of the collections will have a physical twin.
MVFW can be attended by anyone, but for buying a wearable, they will be needing an Ethereum wallet. Most of the events will be open-access, but some of the brands will have enquired regarding the VIP access or front-row seats, which then could be used to reward current NFT owners acquiring with special access or free items. Furthermore, with the beyond purchase capabilities, the feel and look matter – and this is what makes the fashion shows special in person is the soundtrack, set design, and overall atmosphere (Source: Vogue).
Via customizable avatars, people can explore and connect their crypto wallet for buying items that also include digital clothes. This is similar to competitor The Sandbox, people can further buy virtual plots of land where they can rent or build the spaces that enable many of the same functions as the physical world, inclusive of the concerts, shopping, and parties, with items sold as NFTs.
The event comes forward with a hope to serve as a virtual fashion week destination that is more official as compared to all types of the one-off virtual that has now served as a supplement or an alternative to a real-life event, for the span of the last two years. Digital fashion and virtual spaces have now evolved from the niche to mainstream, and brands now are here taking these virtual events – and their audiences – more seriously (Source: Vogue). Brands like Ralph Lauren and Gucci have now opened virtual pop-ups on metaverse platforms Zepeto and Roblox; and Vans and Nike, among others, in Roblox have opened permanent spaces.
This is not the first big event of Decentraland. In October, a four-day music festival with acts that are inclusive of Autograf and Feadmaus, among other 80 artists, attracted 40,000 people. Since that time, there are up to daily 12 Decentraland events, with daily attendance records that are regardless of events (Source: Vogue). This event was also a significant way for artists to further attract a new demographic, it is also been said by the CEO of Tokens.com, Andrew Kiguel, and Chairman of Metaverse Group (Source: Vogue).
