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The day after New York Fashion Week, I can imagine that most of the fashionistas were looking forward to the special after-parties the night before, but instead I was at the self-proclaimed true “future of fashion”. In a nondescript Soho storefront, I came across ZERO10, a virtual reality app that allows users to buy and pick up clothes digitally-only. The company of the same name, in its own words, created the first physical pop-up shop with digital-only clothing.
“With no physical object, the space is designed for people to create, interact and explore content, virtual objects by simply adjusting their smartphone in augmented reality,” read the company’s pop-up promotional material.
Let me tell you, it’s amazing.
According to my guide, Anna, the theme of the space and digital fashion items designed specifically for the event was 90s video game nostalgia – meaning the walls, sofas and ceiling were covered in green, white and grey. Checkerboard patterns and outfits labeled as “video game pants” are available to try on in the app. A sellout (physical) match featured names like “Billie Eilish’s Hair in 2019.” Further into the space, influential types are crushed. But the main attraction, Anna told me, is the collection of dressing rooms in the back. There, users can “try on” digital clothes using an app on their phone or a phone installed on clothes placed in the room.
I put on a hoodie and sweatpants that matched the checkerboard pattern of the dressing room, then deliberately “tried on” the leopard print pullover, which made me feel like half an 8-bit video game character. As I picked it up and put it down, a green scarf was shiny and stuck to my hand. Then I tried on a pair of slim-fitting blue-silver pants, and the idea was shattered: I saw that my hips were outside the bounds of the AR suit. Embarrassed by digital pants now?
ZERO10 (and other apps like it) design and sell digital-only clothing that can be worn the way filters work. This means you can post a picture of yourself in no clothes. These companies were created around real or perceived demand, which is still up for debate: Daria Shapovaeva, founder of one such company, DressX, recently told McKinsey analysts that the digital fashion market is valued at $31 billion. In her view, gamers, influencers and young people make up the clientele willing to drop money on virtual threads.
“First of all, there are millennials who immediately understand the idea of ​​digital fashion and are active buyers of luxury goods; they want to try something new, so they use their social media to promote it,” Shapovalova told McKinsey. “Then there are Gen-Z customers who are on platforms like Snapchat or TikTok.” It’s becoming the primary communication tool rather than a still image.”
As these retailers see it, we’re all born alienated in the metaverse.
If you buy that argument, there is a financial reason for digital fashion to exist. But is there another? Most of these companies’ messages read like buzzword spaghetti thrown against a wall: pushing physical boundaries, allowing self-expression in the metaverse, and promoting sustainable fashion have all been used as industry talking points, but this doesn’t match how. Real people are experiencing digital fashion today.
Maddie Bender / The Daily Beast
The fact of the matter is it didn’t fly off the shelf in digital-only fashion, per se. At ZERO10’s pop-up, the crowd seemed small – I checked with a staff member, who said about 200 people were visiting the venue in one day. The physical space, especially the fitting rooms, baffled May, an employee at a tech company who came to the pop-up because of the need for a “different retail experience.” She decided that the pop-up was a “homage to conventional retail” even though it was “a bit weird”.
In my experience and on the app’s official forums, the clothes pull and don’t seem to fit properly. If the point is to cater to social media influencers who regularly use image-altering apps like Facetune, you should expect the clothes to look like the real thing — or at least not leave collars floating in the air near your neck.
“As these retailers see it, we’re all born alienated in the metaverse.“
“There’s a lot of room for improvement,” Celine, an art criticism graduate student who attended the pop-up and posted about it on Instagram, told The Daily Beast. Instead of making any kind of statement about the future of fashion, she decided to post images from the pop-up that were candid and “fun.” But she says she’s unlikely to spend money in a digital-only fashion (besides free apparel and sometimes as NFTs).
Perhaps the most dangerous misconception about digital-only fashion is that it’s a green, guilt-free alternative to the notorious labor and sustainability issues associated with fast fashion. “Sustainable self-expression” seems to be a selling point for these companies’ products.
However, there seems to be zero estimate of the energy required to move Metavas. Digital fashion is closely tied to the buying and selling of NFTs in cryptocurrencies—something that creates real and devastating environmental impacts. Currently, existing research is primarily focused on how aspects of the Metaverse can reduce carbon emissions and future energy costs for working, trading, and hosting digital identities and assets such as AR wearables.
Maddie Bender / The Daily Beast
But more worryingly, digital fashion has not found its raison d’être. How young people perceive digital fashion is different from what brands currently sell to them. For example, Celine says she wants to see a future where digital fashion offers an accessible option for all bodies and abilities and “fits” these bodies well.
There needs to be more integration across platforms and technologies to bring digital fashion to consumers online, Céline said. Wearables in AR, VR, video games, and NFTs, for the most part, cannot be made separately and become part of a unified “brand.”
More affordability and customization on offer today can attract new consumers and make them feel empowered to use digital fashion as a means of self-expression. But that won’t happen if a handful of small companies continue to corner the digital market in hopes of turning a profit. The lack of democratization of the classic guidebook used by physical retail and traditional businesses, Céline added.
“It’s really just feeding into the well-oiled machine that is capitalism in America,” she said.
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