The metaverse is the 3D evolution of social media,” says DRESSX co-founder Daria Shapovalova.
Digital Metacloset DRESSX — world’s largest digital style retailer is partnering with social media big, Meta to launch its personal digital-only style assortment on the platform’s Avatar Retailer.
The primary DRESSX x Meta assortment drops 19 July at 10 a.m. PT and additional collections will likely be launched regularly. Whereas Meta’s Avatar Retailer is at present solely accessible in sure territories (U.S., Canada, Thailand and Mexico), among the DRESSX appears can even be accessible on the model’s market.
The Meta avatar retailer launched in June with bodily luxurious manufacturers Balenciaga, Thom Browne and Prada who’ve created digital appears which will be bought to wardrobe one’s Meta avatar throughout its Instagram, Fb and Messenger platforms.
The items are digital interpretations of each present appears and model signatures similar to a Fall ’20 moto combo from Balenciaga, Prada’s sizzling ticket Fall ’22 white tank prime and traditional four-stripe fits from Thom Browne.
Nevertheless, what’s completely different in regards to the new DRESSX partnership with Meta’s Avatar Retailer is that it’s Meta’s first with a digital native style retailer. It’s a neat segue —though LVMH Innovation Award 2022 finalist DRESSX launched in 2020, it was Meta that proved the true game-changer for the model by way of driving retail partnerships.
“After we began we reached out to each single model and retailer however though they listened to us they stated they wanted to consider it,” DRESSX co-founder Natalia Modenova informed me. “However when Mark Zuckerberg renamed Fb as Meta in October final 12 months, individuals realized that digital experiences additionally fall underneath the definition of the metaverse. That was the massive push for them to come back again to us.”
DRESSX has simply partnered with U.S. luxurious model Jason Wu on a digital wearable NFT of the robe former First Girl, Michelle Obama wore for the 2009 Inaugural Ball. The gown’ exact digital twin is at present underneath public sale on the DRESSX market. The last word proprietor can even obtain tickets to Wu’s New York Trend Week present in September.
The bodily gown — ivory silk chiffon, organza flowers and crystals — is at present displayed within the First Women exhibit at The Nationwide Museum of American Historical past.
Different latest DRESSX retail digital style partnerships embrace Bershka, Printemps, American Eagle, Iris van Herpen and Dundas. Earlier this 12 months DressX partnered with social gaming platform Roblox on outfits for avatars, created wearables for Decentraland.
Whereas DRESSX has the benefit of being early to the market, new digital style platforms are launching providing completely different spins.
Most up-to-date is Draup, which WWD studies has simply secured $1.5 million in seed funding. Traders embrace Ledger’s Ian Rodgers. The corporate is engaged on a mannequin which incorporates resale, rental and wear-to-earn choices for digital style.
In the meantime, in line with NFT Tradition, metaverse entrepreneur G Cash is launching a crypto-native luxurious style and way of life label known as 9dcc. What this implies in actuality remains to be considerably opaque, save the truth that the primary drop seems to be a bodily one — a T-shirt for members of a selected neighborhood — however it’s doubtless that multifaceted elements — each digital and bodily — will likely be concerned because the platform builds out.