Red Dao, at Dolce & Gabbana NFT, The Future of Digital Fashion – WWD

October may always be remembered as the month digital fashion really flew.

An auction for Dolce & Gabbana’s luxury fashion non-fungible token raised $6 million this month, apparently calming nervousness that the digital bubble is about to burst in the near future.

Within a year, technology — a piece of data that can uniquely authenticate digital and physical goods — went from an esoteric technobabble to a very hot trend and made words like “crypto” and “blockchain” part of the fashion lexicon.

The newly formed crypto group Red Dao won the Dolce & Gabbana tent NFT, “The Doge Crown,” as well as two pure digital “Impossible” jackets for a total of nearly $1.9 million. The crown-only auction, which includes digital 3D images and actual physical goods, sells for the equivalent of $1.27 million.

According to Megan Kaspar, member of Red Dao and managing director of crypto investment firm Magnetic, the sale is an important milestone for the group, as well as the fashion sector. Understanding the reasons behind it has to do with who the group is and what its goals are.

Members of Red Dao, a “decentralized autonomous organization” of about 40 people from the crypto and fashion industries, came together with the goal of collecting and driving premium digital apparel through NFT. The sale of D&G is the group’s first purchase.

“Red Dao is particularly looking at investing in the future of fashion technology, which for us is NFT digital mode,” explains Kaspar. “We believe that digital mode can only be monetized through blockchain technology [as it] using an intelligence layer on the blockchain, which is a smart contract.”

NFTs are recorded in the blockchain, a essentially immutable decentralized ledger that cannot be copied or hacked. It works like a certificate of authenticity, which is especially important for endlessly ripable digital goods.

The organization had just been formed when it got word of a fashion auction setting the benchmark. It made for the ideal timing, as the members eagerly considered the decline of digital fashion.

Of course, other NFTs have driven millions of dollars in sales before this one — from the $69 million Beeple digital collage that sparked the latest craze to the RTFKT digital sneakers selling for $3.1 million and projects from brands like Rebecca Minkoff, who launched them to have NFTs for photos. fashion that describes her New York Fashion Week collection in September.

But the Dolce & Gabbana auction was different, in the Red Dao’s point of view.

“For us, this is the first public signal to the public [that was] a kind of indication to the world that there is an opportunity emerging in NFT mode like never before,” continued Kaspar. “We had one of the biggest designers in the world launched the Genesis couture collection, selling over $5 million worth of items, and we bought all three of them. It is exciting because it shows the world what is possible with this new business model.”

He noted that in addition to the jewel-encrusted Doge Crown, which comes in both virtual and physical forms, the group purchased two digital custom jackets that come with an exclusive brand experience.

“There are four different experiences over the next two years that Red Dao members can participate in, some of which are very exclusive events and parties hosted by Dolce & Gabbana,” he said. “Your brain can lead you to various ideas about how brands can take advantage of that functionality.” It made Kaspar see the sale as a pivotal moment capable of opening new avenues for fashion and luxury.

As for the fundamental question of what people can actually do with virtual tiaras, jackets, earrings, clothes, or shoes — apart from admiring them or sharing images on social media — crypto experts have a few ideas.

He pointed to a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, where he projected that the $2 trillion value of the fashion industry will double over the next two decades because of digital fashion. She wore various virtual accessories during the segment.

The example demonstrates the unavoidable scenario that people are simply living more of their lives online, especially in times driven by the recent pandemic. Imagine consumers wearing real Dolce & Gabbana or Gucci creations online in video calls or virtual red carpets, or outfitting game avatars with luxury items, authenticated via NFT.

It only scratches the surface. As other forms of technology emerge, so do new uses for NFT and digital modes, Kaspar said.

Karinna Nobbs, co-founder of digital fashion marketplace The Dematerialised, agrees. He looks to projects that blend augmented reality and digital fashion, such as the Carlings AR T-shirt—a blank top that is filled with digital imagery when a user points their smartphone camera at it.

“[I think] we’re going to see some elements of physical fashion become a little more uniform, a little more basic, especially with the advent of AR glasses, for example,” he told WWD in April.

Kaspar also believes AR-equipped glasses will be the next major milestone for digital fashion when — not if — they appear. Facebook has announced its intention to launch AR glasses at some point, possibly 2023. Meanwhile, the tech sector is looking forward to a similar device from Apple.

“I’m also anticipating seeing something from Amazon as well,” Kaspar added. “Amazon is an amazing company. They are just amazing how dynamic and agile they are, they can just move and be flexible. And they don’t talk about it. They just did it.”

It will take at least a few years, if not longer, for such a device to reach the consumer market, let alone gain traction, he admits. But that just means the fashion industry has work to do in the meantime, to prepare—not just for this particular gadget, but other new technologies to come as well.

“There is a chip from a company called Ostendo which is a quantum photonic imager chip. No one else has such a thing. They’ve been working on it for 16 years, and it’s been incredible,” he said.

Ostendo’s work effectively embeds multiple mini projectors around the glasses, which can project 3D or even holographic images, layered over one’s view. It’s a much more immersive and realistic AR experience than pointing your phone and staring at its screen.

That future might seem distant, and it was, but to Red Dao, it seemed like an inevitability.

Until then, there are other things to pay attention to.

For their next NFT, the group is eyeing an upcoming work from Iris van Herpen based on her dress from the Met Gala. It’s also considering various offers for its latest purchase, as celebrities and influencers come out of the woods, hoping to wear The Doge Crown, in both physical and digital form. There is speculation that Snoop Dogg, for example, wants to wear the crown.

“There is speculation he will do that,” admitted Kaspar. “I think the team is very progressive. You know, Snoop has his own metaverse and sandbox world called the Snoop Mansion. And I think there’s a very good alignment there. But maybe there are other celebrities who are more suitable. So it comes down to the alignment of the partnership, and then also what the Dao chooses.”