Auroboros designers Paula Sello and Alissa Aulbekova, who are in residence at Lee Alexander McQueen’s Sarabande Foundation, debuted their first ready-to-wear collection this week, a 14-piece run inspired by sci-fi films, including Ex Machina and Avatar. The collection was released on fashion game and marketplace Drest, in addition to their website, with garments priced between £100-450.
Rather than paying to own a physical garment, customers pay for digital versions they can overlay on images of themselves. Auroboros is the first digital-only clothing brand to sell on Drest.
“Paula and Alissa have carved out a niche and push technological boundaries,” says Drest fashion director-at-large Candice Fragis. “I am wowed by their ingenuity and execution for what is not only their first collection but a first for luxury fashion.”
Digital-only fashion is a burgeoning category for online marketplaces, bolstered by the pandemic, which has shifted interactions to screens and limited travel. XR Couture, The Dematerialised and Dress-X have all launched in recent months as places for designers to sell and for customers to buy digital-only designs. Venture capital is still nascent: Drest, at launch, received an undisclosed amount of funding from entrepreneur Graham Edwards, while The Dematerialised is preparing for a March seed round. The concept is still new to many customers, but all see an opportunity to be the Farfetch or Net-a-Porter of digital fashion. Digital fashion marketplaces can open up additional revenue for designers and brands, says Dress-X co-founder Natalia Modenova, who is based in Los Angeles.
“Digital fashion marketplaces will disrupt the entire fashion industry,” predicts Megan Kaspar, managing director and co-founder of Magnetic, an investment and incubation firm focused on businesses in the blockchain sector. In addition to generating “new visceral experiences and revenue streams”, digital fashion will become more relevant as augmented reality matures, she says. While she hasn’t invested yet in a fashion-specific startup, Kaspar has recently invested in other companies that sell digital assets.
“For the last two decades, this has been a huge market in the digital gaming spheres,” Aulbekova says. “The customer is ready. Now we are just bridging the gap between luxury fashion and creativity and accessibility.”
How it works
Customers browse digital-only marketplaces online as they would any traditional fashion marketplace. When they buy a 3D digital design — prices generally range from $15 to $200, they also submit a photo. Then, digital tailors “dress” their image and send it to them. Instead of waiting for the item in the mail, it arrives via email. Some sites, like XR Couture, which launched in September 2020 and carries digital items like iridescent trousers, take a small commission. Dress-X charges $25 to $200 depending on the complexity of the garment and sells both static versions and motion versions.
The more than 600 items on Dress-X are from both purely digital fashion houses and traditional fashion brands who have created digital versions of their designs. Thirty per cent are from in-house designers. Half of its customers are between 25 and 35. “Our customer is the luxury customer who wants to try something new — they are already wearing Celine bags in the images,” says Dress-X co-founder Daria Shapovalova, adding that she doesn’t think this will obviate physical clothing purchases from Gen Z and millennials, but they will add it to their mix “along with Rent the Runway and The RealReal”.
While digital fashion marketplaces don’t carry inventory, some brands limit item availability to increase exclusivity. The Dematerialised, which is still in closed beta, launched with only one branded €120 product that is authenticated via blockchain. Brands and individual creators can sell their own work on the marketplace, and stores are designed as an immersive virtual world. People joining via mobile can see the item in their own space via augmented reality. “It was important to have the experiential part — not just the Amazon part,” says co-founder Karinna Nobbs, who is based in Ibiza. “We wanted something different and special and curated that will make brands want to join us.”
XR Couture founder and creative director Subham Jain’s family manufactures apparel for brands including River Island, Guess and Asos, and as brands have begun creating digital samples, he saw the opportunity to create an influencer-friendly approach to fast fashion that created less waste. “I know it better than anyone else how much waste a manufacturing unit produces,” he says. When he started XR Couture, he promoted it by tagging influencers. “Everyone loved the designs and would say, ‘I would love to try this — this is my address’,” but once they understand the concept and post the digital content, they see an increase in comments and engagement, he says.
Dress-X’s Shapovalova, who previously founded a wholesale and showroom business in Ukraine, says word of mouth on social media is a key growth driver. Ultimately, she says, digital fashion will be an entry point to luxury, like lipstick and fragrance are today.
Not all elements of digital fashion mimic the physical world. Many digital garments capitalise on the opportunity to create something that is not possible in real life; a recent sneaker created by Buffalo London and The Fabricant, for example, was $60 on Dress-X and adorned with moving flames. “Never before have you been able to wear silicon that is dripping and glowing,” says Sello, of Auroboros. “It’s not been viable before besides in big Hollywood productions.”
What’s next
Some critics say digital fashion lacks a use case outside of Instagram, but The Dematerialised’s Nobbs and her co-founder Marjorie Hernandez are building a bigger value proposition. By authenticating 3D assets on a blockchain, they can be owned and used not just in static images but in video games, virtual reality and to collect and sell as digital art, which is something crypto enthusiasts have been embracing for years. The blockchain is able to certify the artist, the owner, and the edition, such as “1 out of 100”, and it allows the owner to retain the good, even if The Dematerialised were to disappear, Hernandez says. “If Fortnite shuts down with all those billions of goods in the game, you don't own it,” she says.
“Tokenising” digital items, known as NFT, is best for the consumer and for brand monetisation, Kaspar says. Otherwise, digital items can be copied, which diminishes their value for brands. “Primary and secondary marketplaces for NFT-based items are the future of the fashion economy,” she says. “Not only will digital fashion marketplaces make money with primary sales, but for the first time, brands can participate in the secondary market for the life of a digital product.”
With consumers now adapted to always-on screens, there are more opportunities to sell them digital garments for Zoom and other virtual worlds. “There are a lot of conversations of having digital twins or avatars in a game or for other occasions,” Dress-X’s Modenova says. “But what we all have now are accounts in social media — they are our digital twins, whether it’s Instagram or LinkedIn or TikTok.” Dress-X is developing an app — 75 per cent of its traffic is mobile — and working on automation, so that people don’t have to wait the 24 hours to receive their altered image.
The demand for digital fashion marketplaces will rise as use-cases, such as social media AR capabilities, rise, Kaspar says. Jain and others predict a subscription-based service that works akin to Snapchat filters. “My vision is that the next time you're swiping for a filter, you would be swiping for new clothing,” he says. Nobbs predicts brands will sell digital garments on their own sites, in addition to digital fashion marketplaces, and anticipates exclusivity agreements in the vein of those created with companies like Net-a-Porter or MatchesFashion.
So far, major luxury brands dabbling in selling digital fashion have done so only through in-game assets and promotions that tie in to a physical product. “I hope the industry changes from a marketing point of view to implementing,” says Auroboro’s Aulbekova.
Dress-X and XR Couture look and feel like traditional fashion e-commerce sites, with product grids and prices, while The Dematerialised wants to be the “digital department store of your dreams”.
Shapovalova says she does not want Dress-X to be perceived as a fashion website. Instead, she thinks Dress-X is better classified as “a tech company”. This might bode well: Farfetch has said the same thing.
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