How are NFTs being used in the fashion industry?

Many miracle strategies have been attributed to this industry lately to renew it, and the latest is the one that says NFT and fashion, a connection that, although perhaps not as transcendent as upcycling or the commitment to sustainability and circularity, is equally relevant for a sector that increasingly honors the cliché of the avant-garde.

Art and its commercialization would be another example of assets that per se have no economic equivalence (and are even less stable) until someone decides that they do have a value, which usually translates into money. And precisely these types of assets have a translation into NFTs: some NFTs are digital works of art, postcards, messages (Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet as an NFT for almost three million dollars), and cryptocurrencies.

The latter should not be lost sight of, because many of those NFTs conform to the standards of Ethereum and its blockchain, and even if the prices are translated into more popular currencies, it always tends to appear alongside it this change.

The assignment between NFT and fashion has only just begun: model Kate Moss released three videos that serve as this. Drive with Kate, Walk with Kate and Sleep with Kate; are three videos that explore “the idea of moments in time and their ownership.”

What exactly are NFTs in the fashion industry?

Three high-definition videos along with “unique digital voice authentications” were auctioned at over five thousand dollars with a portion of the proceeds going to the Gurls Talk foundation. In them, the model is seen walking, sleeping, and driving, purely everyday acts in close-up shots that Kate Moss has reflected upon.

While it was one of the first approaches by an iconic figure in the industry to NFTs, digital fashion company The Fabricant is not the first action to take place. The piece is a long, flowing dress layered over pants, colored in an iridescent silver hue that shifts in tone as the light created hits it. And yes, it also moves as if the wind floats around the garment softly and delicately.

Mentioning the use of this purely digital piece that does not and will not exist in the physical world immediately brings to mind the whole Animal Crossing phenomenon that has been going on since 2020: it is not just that the video game exploded, but that numerous fashion firms were encouraged to sell digital clothing for in-game avatars. This action is part of a broader trajectory that unites fashion and video games, but, at the same time, it was a milestone that brought luxury brands closer to an audience that either did not know them or could not (and cannot) acquire them. And that is one of the most curious, and perhaps controversial, points of the question that digital fashion opens right now.

This leap is not easy, but it is important, especially for the actors who are writing the NFT landscape right now, to highlight that they are not incompatible, but two different ways to approach design and fashion.