Brands Explore Their Heritage In The Metaverse At NYFW

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Tom­my Hil­figer made great strides into Web3 this sea­son with its KOL-stacked Fall 2023 “Tom­my Fac­to­ry” show fea­tur­ing a crossover with Richard Quinn and a phy­gi­tal run­way with Roblox. More than just a step into the meta­verse, the col­lab­o­ra­tions were a means of diver­si­fy­ing the brand and enter­ing mar­kets out­side of its heritage.

Tom­my host­ed a livestream of its NYFW show on Roblox. Pho­to: Roblox

Lux­u­ry play­ers are not just pre­serv­ing their prove­nance by using blockchain tech­nolo­gies; they are lever­ag­ing Web3 to col­lab­o­rate, build, and gam­i­fy with a glob­al com­mu­ni­ty. In this ever-evolv­ing tech land­scape, it is key for brands to gen­uine­ly engage with their audi­ences, show trans­paren­cy, cham­pi­on con­sis­ten­cy, and teach their narrative. 

Vivi­enne Tam is anoth­er label that brought her glob­al her­itage to the meta­verse at New York Fash­ion Week, part­ner­ing with NFT names like Gemini’s Awk­ward Astro­nauts, CyberKongz, and Bored Ape Yacht Club. When asked about the PFP (pro­file pic­ture) NFTs in her lat­est col­lec­tion, Tam stat­ed, “The future isn’t a far­away des­ti­na­tion. It’s here today. At a time of glob­al rebirth I want­ed to incor­po­rate some of my friends and brands that were shap­ing the meta­verse, NFTs, and finance technology.”

Out­side of NYFW, Tam is also cre­at­ing NFTs for the Coun­cil of Fash­ion Design­ers of America’s (CFDA) 60th anniver­sary, where she has been a mem­ber for over 20 years. “They are always break­ing bound­aries and bring­ing in more and more diverse per­spec­tives. My thought is to bring har­mo­ny in a Man­dala pat­tern that helps cen­ter the NFTs in a new spir­it and way,” she added.

Gen­uine col­lab­o­ra­tions like these that bring her­itage and his­to­ry into the dig­i­tal land­scape are essen­tial in edu­cat­ing and inspir­ing a wider online audi­ence. This is why the CFDA’s anniver­sary project is a per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty for cre­atives: the vir­tu­al exhi­bi­tion, titled “Fash­ion­ing the Shades of Amer­i­can Design,” will include 60 curat­ed looks from CFDAs mem­ber ros­ter, which includes more than 450 design­ers. Among those cho­sen are Ralph Lau­ren, Oscar de la Renta, Anna Sui, Thom Browne, and The Row. 

The abil­i­ty to inno­vate is at the core of what makes NYFW an impor­tant sta­ple on the fash­ion cal­en­dar. In these ear­ly days of mold­ing and form­ing what our dig­i­tal iden­ti­ty looks like, brands are adding real-life appli­ca­tions to NFTs to enhance the lux­u­ry expe­ri­ence for their cus­tomers. For exam­ple, The Blonds, ALTU by Joseph Altuzarra, Kim Shui, AnOn­ly­Child, and Jonathan Simkhai teamed up with After­pay to cre­ate NFT keys that grant access to run­way shows, after­par­ties, and oppor­tu­ni­ties to meet the designers.

After­pay part­nered with five notable design­ers to offer NFT keys that unlock IRL access to New York Fash­ion Week. Pho­to: Afterpay

To gain cus­tomer loy­al­ty, brands must cre­ate immer­sive expe­ri­ences and build com­mu­ni­ties around them. How­ev­er, fol­low-through is key: in the case of Afterpay’s NFT keys, some buy­ers did not receive the expe­ri­ence they were promised. As one After­pay NFT key hold­er, Janey Park, a Web3 con­tent cre­ator and strat­e­gy con­sul­tant, com­plained: “I attend­ed the Kim Shui show where hold­ers were asked to RSVP twice, giv­en stand­ing room (no seat assign­ments), wait­ed in line for 45 min­utes, and found out the show end­ed when oth­ers in line came back to tell us.”

“The oppor­tu­ni­ty here was missed,” she con­tin­ued. “For NYFW, After­pay, and Kim Shui as well as the oth­er design­ers, this was a cus­tomer acqui­si­tion oppor­tu­ni­ty to ush­er in the new wave of Web3 and be the first to onboard or even build a rela­tion­ship with Web3 enthu­si­asts for the years to come.”

The Web3 com­mu­ni­ty is still very cau­tious of who enters the space and how they will treat users at large. Brands that promise one thing and deliv­er anoth­er will have a very short shelf life with the speed of infor­ma­tion online. This is not say­ing there is no room for error, but that trans­paren­cy and con­sis­ten­cy are the real keys to dig­i­tal success. 

While NYFW goes through grow­ing pains, its out­look is brighter than ever. On top of show­cas­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion, inclu­sion, and diver­si­ty, it has laid the foun­da­tion for brands enter­ing a phy­gi­tal world. Lux­u­ry hous­es are look­ing to the future with learned lessons from the past, and are embrac­ing this new glob­al exper­i­ment where any­thing is possible.



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