Metaverse Fashion Week: The next chapter of fashion

WLDFNGZ – Life in New Fang City

Fang Gang may have started as an NFT collection, but it’s always had an interest in launching its own streetwear clothing line, WLDFNGZ. Paca, the Co-founder, Artist and Business Manager, talked to us about Fang Gang’s vision as they prepare to debut at Metaverse Fashion Week.

Wanting to go deeper than “a simple merch collection” was always the goal. Paca says “We planned this since Fang Gang’s creation. You’ll see the Fangsters wearing WLDFNGZ themselves.”

“We’re building from the community to the world – instead of the other way around. We’ve spent time in Decentraland, joined events, we’ve seen what people wear, what people crave for, what works and what doesn’t. And that helped us learn that sometimes you have to go beyond translating physical into digital as an exact copy."

Paca has a unique perspective on exactly how web3 is influencing fashion. He believes we’re coming from a time where digital is shaping so much in our identities – and as we spend more and more time looking at screens rather than at people, we’re starting to see a reflective shift in the fashion industry.

“Nowadays, people flex NFTs not only as their online ID, but as a sign of wealth, of belonging to certain communities, of having a certain lifestyle. I truly believe that this is shaping the way fashion designers see the world and the way they transpose that into their creations.

Traits are no longer meant to stay in NFT characters, but they’re meant to be worn, and the connection between what we wear online and what we wear IRL is getting stronger by the day.

Your digital identity is where you get most of your recognition - likes, shares, follows or whatever you can think of in Social Media.

If you create a persona online, you need that to be translated beyond the screen. And that’s where In Real Life fashion comes into play.”

Fang Gang will be sharing their themed capsule drop “Life in New Fang City”. “It portrays some of the most iconic features we have in our Fangsters and includes references to the storyline we've been creating. The drop will include 4 physical streetwear items, for which buyers will be airdropped their corresponding Decentraland Wearables, and 4 unique Decentraland Wearables sold separately.”

Mortiverse LKRV: Clothe yourself in a better mindset

Mortiverse is building the #1 web3-native personal development brand to help us stress less and feel happier every day – and they’re using virtual fashion as another unique way of doing just that.

Adam Fairhead, Co-founder and Lead designer, told us more about ethos of the brand and the thinking behind their first Decentraland drop:

“We should be able to wear our beliefs wherever we are. The LKRV line of ‘wearable philosophy’ lets us us literally ‘clothe ourselves in a better mindset’ — a fashion choice that would never have existed without the metaverse."

The Mortiverse’s mission is to provide a learning platform to help people make web3 free from fear, uncertainty and doubt. Adam says: “We do that by sharing timeless Stoic insights in a way that’s both fun and culturally accessible.”

“Web3 is making new ways for us all to express our personality & beliefs.

The future of fashion – a medium designed to paint identity on a canvas of human form — will leverage this to discover new depths of self-expression in the metaverse on forms not limited by science.”

The alpha drop for Mortiverse is a design called “Sphere of Choice”. It’s focused on expressing the most fundamental insight underpinning the Stoic philosophy, visualising the concept in an urban-casual style.

The outfit itself is mostly dark, but there’s almost a glow as you move up the body. The hood is bright and illuminating, reminding us that the head is the area that’s important.

“The pants feature an illustrated scene that demonstrates what happens when we let fear, uncertainty and doubt take hold. You can sense the freneticism – it’s a good expression of the state of things when we lose control of our minds, when we let the signals around us overwhelm us and take control of us.”

The Mortiverse are excited to leverage digital fashion in the future of learning, personal development, and self-expression.

The Sevens: anime streetwear

Decentraland has become an integral part of The Sevens NFT project, somewhere for their community to admire art and come closer together.

Nez, The Sevens Metaverse Lead, says: “We are pioneers in the metaverse. We were one of the first projects to have a headquarter in Decentraland and wearables in the fashion of the NFT project. We have been educating people for a while on how to get the most out of Decentraland: how to jump in, make an avatar, what to do, where to go.

Fashion has been a driver since the start. Art Director and Lead Artist, Janz, told us: “The Sevens is heavily focused on the idea of streetwear and the metaverse. The initial collection was an idea to introduce streetwear into the metaverse that had influenced from Japanese/anime culture.”

“We’re one of the first generative NFT collections bringing fashion to the metaverse - where an NFT collection has digital wearable counterparts in the metaverse. We’re hoping to bring something unique and showcase fashion that was inspired by Japanese culture and street wear.”

During Metaverse Fashion Week, The Sevens will be holding a scavenger hunt to win prizes from tokens of attendance (POAPs) to wearables. Using clues to guide you, you’ll be able to visit different Decentraland locations and play games or find art from the NFT collection to win. They’re hoping the event will help familiarize more people with the platform and their project.

“We believe the metaverse will be a focal point in future web 3 development. Decentraland is one that is most likely to stand the test of time and relevence as it is already far ahead of any projects starting right now, regardless of money in hand.”

Moving forward, Nez believes that digital fashion will be integral to our lives. “I think that we will inevitably spend a lot of time in the metaverse, working, interacting, buying selling – all virtually. What we wear and how we wear it will be very important. Web3 metaverse will never replace real life, but people will recreate their avatar in a fashion that they decide – and designers will be looking at web 3 as a mode as or equal to their real life attire.”

The Sevens will be unveiling their streetwear collection at Metaverse Fashion week, featuring clothes that can be found in the main collection of Series 1. “Primarily some of the popular pieces that the community loved from the initial collection,” Janz says. “For now, it’s all digital: but we’d love to make more physical counterparts in the future.”

WYLD FLWR x Phygicode: merging worlds

She was a fashion designer who couldn’t sew…

Now she’s using her own label to elevate marginalized communities to contribute to the industry in ways she never imagined possible.

Despite having never studied fashion, Anya Ayoung-Chee won Project Runway in 2011. “I always had an issue with the barriers to entry in the industry.” She says. “Being able to finally participate in a technology that is all about democratizing opportunity and to be a living breathing example of that is almost not believable in a sense. It’s really a dream.”

WYLD FLWR was born out Anya’s own experience designing for Trinidad’s carnivals, and going to Burning Man in 2017. She realized that carnival fashion – done so well in the Caribbean – doesn't really have a place in the formal fashion world.

Seeing the limitations of scale in the festival and carnival networks, the metaverse was especially exciting as an area for expansion. “I realized that the type of clothes that we design have a space in a much more imaginative world. This isn't cancelling out our physical line: it’s this merging of physical and digital that creates a unique business opportunity, and with Phygicode’s support and guidance, we’re really going after this.”

Freedom is a theme that runs through the brand. Anya has created a direct link to financial independence and financial freedom of the women who make the physical clothing: WYLD FLWR is connected directly to a women's livelihood initiative in Trinidad called Spool, where they are teaching migrant women of Venezuela descent, as well as local Trinidadian women, how to sew for the fashion carnival industry.

“WYLD FLWR is 100% about freedom of expression through the wearing of the clothes, the creative sovereignty of the design and the ability to create in this wildly imaginative way. The social impact aspect of the brand is a key part of the work. And really there's been no other more exciting way to express that than through this collaboration with Phygicode and the entry into the metaverse through Metaverse Fashion Week and beyond.”

Phygicode themselves are a consortium of industry leaders in the metaverse with Andrea Abrams, Founder and Chief Metaverse Officer, being in a unique position to connect the physical and digital worlds through her years of experience in fashion retail and blockchain investing.

Andrea says: “The fashion industry loves an experience, and virtual worlds, like Decentraland are starting to provide a platform to recreate the same activities that you see in the physical world. What Phygicode wants to do is to create a great experience to showcase products, featuring great brands as a collaboration.”

The impact Anya and WYLD FLWR are making was the deciding factor in making this the first Phygicode collaborative project. “We had a lot of choices of brands we could do this with, but it was very important to do the very first collaboration with a brand that represents all the wonderful components of our ethos at Phygicode.”

“WYLD FLWR communicates through their values.” Andrea says. “And I think what Anya embodies is this idea of providing access with her celebrity, with her platform – she's giving access to a creative community that would otherwise never communicate with people like me or people like you.”

“We're all looking for something exciting, unique, more bespoke, and more representative of our values these days. So we’re really looking forward to seeing how we can bring a lesser known brand, that we think has an extraordinary value and an amazing story to a world stage alongside other world-class luxury names.”

Working with Phygicode has been transformative for Anya. She told us: “The WYLD FLWR collaboration is truly a manifestation of what web three is designed to do. I am so glad to not just be talking about this anymore and actually be an example of it.”

Anya is already creating extraordinary change in her community, but believes the reach of this work will continue to expand and transform more lives.

And where does she see the future of fashion? “It’s already manifest in this collaboration and others like it.” She says. “It supports the conscious consumerism approach that has evolved over the last few years in the developed world.”

“Although it feels really idealistic to imagine that fast fashion will start to become less and less the dominant play in the fashion world, perhaps the VR and AR experience will satisfy that very human desire to consume in a different way.”