New York Fashion Week entered the Metaverse with Nolcha

By Christ Makridis

Independent fashion designer Nolcha Shows is hosting a virtual-reality fashion event at Ward Trade Center for New York Fashion Week, opening up the exclusive world of design to newcomers.

Participants will have the opportunity to experience technology that encompasses fashion in the metaverse, virtual avatars, virtual reality and digital wearables.

The two-day Web3 event will be held on the 69th floor of the iconic 3 World Trade Center. Unlike traditional NFT events, the goal is to “create a new destination or highway, where the Web2 and Web3 communities can work together,” said Arthur Mandel, co-founder of Nolcha Shows at New York Fashion Week.

Although the fashion show is an invitation-only event and there is a limit to how many people can be in the venue, the use of Web3 technologies “allows everyone to experience fashion week – not just a select few,” said Mandel. Participants can use augmented reality to see how they will look on the runway without physically changing clothes, which allows for creativity in fashion styles beyond the traditional.

These runway shows will begin at 2pm on September 13, featuring the Web3 native brand of ready-to-wear, and panel discussions will begin at 12pm on September 15.^ThAllowing opportunities for sharing and exchange about the impact of Web 3 on the fashion industry.

“It’s about educating brands about the differences between NFTs about assumptions, collections and virtual spaces where people walk – and all the real potential for Web 3,” said Brian Wallace, Vatom’s chief marketing officer. “It’s about creating a completely new direct engagement channel with customers where they can reward and incentivize behavior on an ongoing basis.”

Many brands have traditionally viewed NFTs as an exciting show-and-tell technology, but now we’ve reached the “now what” stage. “You have people’s attention, now how are you going to increase brand and customer engagement,” Wallace said. The difference between successful Web3 projects is that they are responsive and engaging with their customers.

“We need to align the technology that we’re looking at with what people want and provide an entry point and a destination… We simply need to get to a point where there’s an entry point where people can engage,” he said. Jacqueline Blackburn at Scout Ventures.

NFTs provide a new direct engagement channel to continuously reward and incentivize consumers for specific behaviors. Marketers don’t need to spend millions on advertising to create content that consumers don’t want to see. Instead, Web3 allows consumers to own their own data, which means brands must win customers over by providing value.

“NFTs aren’t just about intellectual property and monetization or new ways to connect with customers… Everything in your wallet, from loyalty points to data from your breast size to digital wearables suggested by artificial intelligence, offers opportunities for collaboration, local support. Creators, give voice to collaboration and control real-time supply chains,” said Paula Kilgariff, Retail Activation Consultant and Lecturer at Web3 Fashion.

Some innovations are also taking place on virtual land. For example, LandVault has built 100 million square feet in Metaverse for brands. “Metaverse is the 3D version of the Internet, so as the Internet evolves into a new era, all brands and businesses need to know how the new platform works…. We think of ourselves as an experience creator,” said Sam Huber, CEO and founder of LandVault.

Flexible spaces offer the opportunity to integrate brands and build virtual experiences, as they are not constrained by physical or geographic boundaries at the same level. “Each campaign has a different purpose than Web 2 … It’s about fun and entertainment, not specific numbers or a single campaign,” Huber said. Because these Web3 experiences tend to attract consumers who are naturally more interested in the product or service, brands have seen much higher engagement and conversion rates – as high as 70 percent.

“The store of the future is dynamic and a downloadable immersive interactive experience for customers/communities to interact with brands and have feedback or stake in their products and services,” said Kilgariff.

Nolcha’s shows promise to not only create a fun and exciting experience for attendees – in person and in reality – but also to address the use cases of Web 3 that will change the fashion industry forever.