Tomorrow, virtual clothes?

What if a good part of our fashion clothes and accessories became digital?What if it was the best way to make the clothing industry more ecological?

The textile and clothing industry has a problem ... and even several.It is first polluting and very consuming in resources: the fashion industry consumes more than 90 billion cubic meters of water per year and "it is responsible for 10 % of the world's annual carbon emissions, more than anythingInternational air traffic and maritime transport gathered ”, as the World Bank said in 2019."Our clothes, shoes and linens pollute water, emit greenhouse gases and clutter up discharges," said the European Parliament in early 2021, stressing that "half a million tonnes of microfibers from washingsynthetic clothing ends up in the oceans each year, or 35% of primary microplastics rejected in the environment ”.

In addition, this industry is also a source of immense waste."On the total of the textile fibers used for clothing, 87% are cremated or end in discharges," deplores Queen of Raw, a B2B market place dedicated to unused textiles.In 2021, the site has already saved nearly 4 billion liters of water, just by connecting buyers and sellers of textile textiles.

From an ecological perspective, the fashion and textile industry must therefore reinvent itself and reorganize production and distribution circuits.Of course, the situation improves: the old brands adapt and transform, while many others, resolutely built on the circular economy and carbon neutrality, appear.

To name just one example, the British brand Yes Friends, launched in 2021, produces cheap t-shirts with a reduced overall carbon footprint of 90%.They are produced in India based on fair organic cotton by continental clothing, without pesticides or toxic chemicals and via factories that run solar and wind energy. « Nos t-shirts économisent environ 6 kg de CO₂ sans utiliser de compensation carbone », note Johnny Patterson, co-fondateur de la start-up, en rappelant que « si l'industrie de la mode ne parvient pas à évoluer, elle sera un contributeur majeur d’émissions et donc en partie responsable de l'échec de la lutte contre le changement climatique ».

Make fashion more eco-friendly seems possible, but we can go further-and imagine radically new solutions.In a world dominated by networks and digital, could we erase part of the problem by combining clothing in the light of digital?Followers of "virtual fashion" think so.

Technological fashion

The principle is simple: whether on classic social networks (Instagram, Tik-Tok and others)), on meeting apps or in 3D virtual worlds, the user is always represented and identified in the form of images ordigital avatars.Therefore, why not "dress" them with clothes and accessories themselves digital?Then develops a purely digital fashion, taking advantage of various technologies (mobile apps, augmented reality, 3D modeling, blockchains...)) to design styles and forms exclusively intended to be "worn" in the virtual.

The phenomenon has already grown.Dedicated market places appear, as a dressx or xr sewing, kinds of "Amazon virtual clothing", where dozens of brands and hundreds of digital clothes rub shoulders."We want to show that certain clothes can only exist in their digital version," describes Dressx, recalling that the clothing industry currently produces much more than necessary, and that we can imagine a digital fashion "without forYou might as well lose the beauty and the attraction of physical fashion ”.

Many of these digital clothes are intended to be simply overwhelmed with existing photos, replacing the original real clothes (the sites provide precise recommendations on the quality and type of photos suitable for this)).Dressx also offers an augmented reality app allowing you to visualize clothes on oneself.All with a resolutely ecological posture."We create the clothes of the future, which eliminate the waste and chemicals linked to production and minimize the carbon footprint of the fashion industry," it is said.

The tendency also telescites the end of the NFT, which has become in a few years the universal means of owning and exchanging any digital property.

Just last August, the sale of NFT on one of the many dedicated market places (OPENSEA)) represented more than $ 3 billion.After the games, the collections of more or less wacky characters and the works of digital art sells themselves at gold prices at Christie’s or Sotheby’s, clothes and fashion accessories will also logically transform into NFT.The very first fashion NFT also sold in 2019: the 100 % digital iridescence dress of stylist Johanna Jaskowska then sold $ 9,500.More recently, in March 2021, the RTFKT brand (pronounce "artifact")), created by three friends at the very beginning of the COVVI crisis and dedicated to digital objects to collect or wear, sold for more than $ 3 million of virtual sneakersin the form of NFT.

Technology primarily concerns 3D virtual worlds, whose increasingly realistic avatars now also have the right to be "fashionable".As Euronews notes, just on decentraland, a virtual world entirely based on Ethereum blockchain and NFT, sales of clothing and accessories to wear totaled € 630,000 in the first six months of 2021 - near the triple tripleof the previous year.

But the major brands in the fashion industry will also be there.For several years, Burberry, Prada, Moschino or Louis Vuitton have made noticed incursions in the digital world, starting with video games.And things accelerate.In May 2021, a 100% virtual Gucci bag sold on the Roblox game platform for more than $ 4,000-more than the same bag in real version.In the process, the brand marketed 25 models of digital sneakers, visualizable on oneself via a dedicated and usable app on Roblox or on the VRCHAT virtual reality service. De son côté, en septembre 2021, Dolce & Gabbana battait des records en vendant aux enchères sous forme de NFT — pour un total de 5,6 millions de dollars — neuf pièces de sa collection numérique « Collezione Genesi ».

The future here is easy to predict.Failing to be stored in a cupboard, any virtual fashion object will result in more and more in unique tokens, matching a market side, whose owners can prove authenticity on a blockchain - and which can be soldsafely. Outre UNXD, la plate-forme spécialisée dans les luxueux artefacts numériques qui a organisé la vente des NFT Dolce & Gabbana, les places de marché spécifiquement centrées sur les NFT de mode commencent d’ailleurs à apparaître.Neuno, whose opening is imminent on the Flow blockchain (specially created for NFT)) thus promises "a new way of buying, carrying, collecting or exchanging" unique fashion items.

Virtual creativity

On the creators side, the virtual brings a new source of inspiration but above all a almost virgin and potentially infinite territory.Departure of all physical constraints (materials, weight, manufacturing complexity...)), creativity can be expressed without limit.Graphic designers or young stylists specialize and are now similar to "virtual designers or designers", some of whom are very successful, both media and commercial.

For its 100 % digital collection called "The Ornament", the stylist Saranya Umashankar used for example 3D modeling, photogrammetry and laser cutting.All forms are made of cardboard, before being scanned and then reworked digitally to produce different textures, "with the possibility of creating graphic patterns, colors or unlimited layers, while emulatoring delicate fabrics", explains-Ar.The result is "a physical collection that can be manipulated in the digital world", while limiting waste and being part of a logic of sustainable development."NFT and digital creations are 100% the future of fashion," concludes the stylist.

Another example: the young Latvian stylist Santa Kupča presented her digital collection "Decrypted Garments" during the Milan design week in September 2021.She explains how, through scanners and 3D modeling, she did not seek to produce realistic styles and materials, but on the contrary to take advantage of a new freedom.Its fluid and pixeled creations are directly inspired by video game imaging, especially Minecraft."The forms can become what we want," she describes."It is interesting to see how to recreate fabric from the real world, but there can be another type of textile in the digital world.Some brands try to imitate real fabrics, but on the contrary we can dare everything in the matter ”.

This movement towards virtual fashion intends to achieve the fusion between aesthetics and digital - while giving it a new meaning.In Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, The Manufacturer is a collective of graphic designers and stylists who defines himself as "a digital fashion house"."We imagine a future where fashion transcends the physical body and where our digital identities permeate everyday life to become the new reality," they describe.The collective has already worked with many major brands, such as Adidas, Puma, Tommy Hilfiger, Under Armor or Atari to produce digital styles, image synthesis films, virtual showrooms and other digital fashion competitions."In this technological time, fashion goes far beyond the simple digital dressing.This is the means by which we are preparing in Metaverse, because digital expression constitutes the front line of our identity in virtual worlds, ”they argue.

A very fashionable metaverse

For new players in this 100% virtual mode, ecological profits are obvious."The real waste in fashion comes from overproduction and overconsumption.Metaverse offers us new opportunities to rethink consumption models, test the concepts and performance of products and change behavior, ”explains Evelyn Mora.

Finnish consultant based in Paris, she created Helsinki Fashion Week in 2014, then founded Digital Village, a social network built on her own blockchain which intends to rethink digital and e-commerce interactions, at the crossroads and fashion,from a sustainable development perspective.The key, in particular, of the “Fashion Weeks” which take place in the Metaverse."We must think about how we can combine digital and physical fashion for more sustainable development.I do not think digital can ever replace the physique, but it can create an impact and change or reshape the functioning of physical fashion and the functioning of this industry, ”she insists.

It remains difficult to understand today how this real/virtual mix will be articulated.But we already perceive the appearance of a new paradigm, characterized by a new duality.On the one hand, there would be the physical clothes that we wear (mainly at work or at home)) and on the other the digital clothes that we use to appear and socialize.

If we admit that the garment has always ensured several functions, this evolution makes sense.And it is part of logical continuity: generalized dematerialization on the one hand (film, books, music or property titles only existing in digital form)), the digitization of identities on the other (pseudonyms, avatars,filters modifying appearance on social networks...)).As a metaverse in the form of a real virtual overlay of the real world is developing, it seems in fact more and more natural that fashion is digitized and that style virtualizes.When most of the social relationships are carried out online, the aspect of our virtual representation counts almost as much as our real appearance.

For generation Z anyway, the cause seems to be heard."Virtual clothes are a new way of expressing your personality," describes Noah, 23 -year -old graphic designer who designs and markets digital kimonos for the virtual world decentraland (and says he has sold for $ 15,000 in three weeks)))."Digital fashion gives this generation the possibility of refining its style by carrying outfits that do not exist in Laréality.She also brings to the generation Z the opportunity to redefine the way she expresses himself by impressing her followers by absolutely spectacular outfits, while being eco-responsible, ”sums up Subham Jain, founder of XR Couture.Even creed at The Manufacturer, for whom "clothes only composed of data and carried by personalized avatars will communicate our moods, our belief systems, our intentions and our desires".

What imagine a fashion, styles and wardrobes with redefined and unlimited contours, blurring a little more the boundaries between real and virtual-without damaging the planet.