Spending real money on digital fashion may seem wasteful, but luxury and affordable clothing brands are following this trend, which breaks the boundaries of physical clothing and is more environmentally friendly.
In 2018, Norwegian clothing retail brand Carinthia launched its first purely virtual fashion collection, Neo-EX. The following year, Iridescence, the world’s first blockchain virtual couture, was created and sold for a whopping $9,500, leading the fashion industry into a new realm of virtual clothing.
“Isn’t this a stupid tax? Who would buy a dress that doesn’t exist in reality?” “What’s the difference between this and editing the photo …….” Questions about virtual clothing are pouring in. So how did virtual fashion become a fashion trend and have sustainable value?
WearWant is a global virtual fashion e-commerce brand founded by designer Sue wang that collects and sells virtual fashion products from around the world. In August last year, the company began exploring and experimenting with virtual clothing and is currently selling 70 virtual clothing and virtual fashion products.
How to put on a virtual costume? Sue patiently walked me through the steps of buying WearWant clothing.” Browse the photo guide, click on collections, choose your preferred virtual fashion style and upload a photo (high resolution, well-lit, avoiding other shadows) ) Go to the shopping cart to check that the style and uploaded photo is correct. Check that the styles and uploaded photos are correct. The user will receive an order confirmation from WearWant and within 1-5 working days of placing the order, the user will receive a super cool virtual fashion set.”
When we talked about the philosophy behind the brand, she shared, “I wanted to make virtual fashion less out of reach and provide an approachable and warm experience for the masses. Fashion doesn’t have to be pioneering, and simply showing off your design ideas won’t have a positive impact on virtual fashion.”
Sue, as one of the first consumers of virtual fashion, captures the value of virtual clothing, while understanding the needs and ideas of the public. Because the brand’s design team all come from fashion backgrounds and have up to eight years of experience in the fashion industry, they are somewhat immune and numb to good-looking physical designs, but Sue concluded the first time she saw virtual clothing that the visual expression and sense of fashion delivery overwhelmed the physical garments.
She believes that virtual clothing has no limitations on size, shape or gender and “allows you to wear the past (in vintage collectable clothing) or the future (silhouettes and materials that don’t exist in the real world).” Sue likes the fact that virtual clothing is gender-unrestricted, as the gender-fixed typography of physical clothing is very unfriendly to the non-heterosexual community.
Fashion can truly be free when freed from the confines of the physical world.”
What is driving the expansion of digital fashion cannot be separated from the bad reputation of fast fashion, which is like a demon hiding in the wardrobe, quickly abandoned after the consumer has experienced the pleasure of wearing it. The ever-changing fashion styles have pushed consumers to reorder and update at high frequencies, and “I’m always one dress short in my wardrobe” has become an annoyance to many teenage girls.
However, the fashion clothing industry has become the second most polluting industry in the world, second only to the petrochemical industry. Recycling has long been a huge problem, with the EPA estimating that the textile recycling industry recycles about 3.8 billion pounds of textile waste each year, but this represents only 15 per cent of all textile waste, while the remaining 85 per cent stays in landfills. The synthetic and mixed fabrics used to make fast-fashion clothing are difficult to break down during the recycling process, not only polluting the environment but also costing hundreds of millions of dollars a year in textile waste disposal.
If brands used digital samples rather than physical samples, they could reduce their carbon footprint by 30% at the design and development stage. Similarly, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) report for a T-shirt found that a digital T-shirt: reduced water consumption from an average of 683 litres to zero and reduced CO2 emissions from 7.8kg to 0.26kg. It is precise because virtual clothing meets the requirements of global sustainability that it is becoming a new fashion trend.