119tech. A streetwear brand, for example, could release a limited-edition
logo that appears on T-shirts only when viewed through a smartphone.
This may sound like another way for customers to part with their money.
But there are real reasons for going virtual, starting with the environment.
Our current consumption of physical clothing is unsustainable. One estimate
shows the fashion industry contributes to around 1O% of global greenhouse
gas emissions, thanks to energy-intensive materials like polyester. Then
there’s our fast fashion culture: the UK discards a million tonnes of textiles
a year. ‘Expressing ourselves is something we always want to do,’
says Slooten. ‘ H ow do we do that in the most sustainable way? Digitally.’
As well as caring how we look online, it’s also where we spend
our money and increasingly make investments in digital assests – for
example, digital art or indeed digital fashion. Ma, the executive who
bid $9,5OO on The Fabricant’s dress at auction, tells me that he ‘liked
the fact that it’s transferrable, and a functional art piece that serves a
purpose’. It’s ultimately just another tradable asset, like gold, and worth
whatever anyone pays for it. ‘Why did somebody pay however many
millions for the Mona Lisa?’ Murphy asks. ‘That’s the philosophical
question of value. The value in the Iridescence dress is that it’s the
first ever made. In 5OO years, it will be the nextMona Lisa, because it
was the first digital item of clothing sold, and there’s only one of them.’
Until now, The Fabricant has been unable to
price its own clothes for sale to the general public,
suggesting the value of digital-only clothing is
still largely abstract. For now, it makes money
from campaigns for established fashion brands
looking to target digital native Gen Zs, digitising
physical clothes for the likes of Tommy Hilfiger.
Its next move is to automate the tools that
fit virtual clothes to virtual bodies. This means
a digital market, where anyone can upload
a photo and buy digital garments to wear.
Slooten has designed clothes in preparation.
Her first Fabricant collection, DEEP, consisted of seven outfits influenced
by artificial intelligence, with a dystopian vibe: surreal furry trousers,
billowing blouses, a ghostly pink cape that wraps eerily around the head.
Her second collection takes inspiration from ‘the fluid body’. I watch as
she clicks and drags into virtual existence kimono drape and striped
monochrome dresses designed to suit both industry standard and plus-
size bodies. ‘For this new collection, we want to create something that
a lot of people are able to wear,’ she says, optimistically. ‘We want to
create a new ritual, a new way of dressing ourselves, with elements that go
beyond fabric, beyond the body’. The technology just needs to catch up.ELLE.COM/UK November 2O19There are, however, those already making big money. The gaming
industry is a step ahead when it comes to digital fashion. Epic Games’
Fortnitemakes $3OO million a month selling ‘skins’ – digital outfits – for
players’ avatars to wear. There’s also theKim Kardashian: Hollywood
game, whose players have paid $24O million since 2O14 to dress
Kardashian in cartoonish versions of Balmain and Cavalli.hile Gucci is now the ‘exclusive luxury provider’
for Genies, an app with more than a million
predominantly 18 to 25 -year-old users, who create
an avatar for platforms like WhatsApp. These
avatars are customisable with millions of skin tones,
hairstyles – and clothes. Enter Gucci, with 2OO digitised versions of
existing collections ready for avatars to wear. For free. But those seduced
by the virtual can buy the real Gucci products through the app. Even if they
don’t, the brand awareness that comes from peppering conversations
with double Gs (65% of users dress their avatars in Gucci) is priceless.
But will non-gaming fashion lovers take to virtual clothes? Some
retailers don’t buy it. Browns buying manager Heather Gramston
cautiously suggests that the digital-only clothing market ‘could be
interesting, with the backing of an app and the right brands agreeing
their involvement’, but thinks that ‘this area is quite
niche’. She does, however, see a market for virtual
‘trying on’ – customers uploading a photo to get a
better idea of how clothes fit in real life: this would
‘add another dimension to online shopping and
ultimately tackle the issue of increasing returns’.
A virtual shift is clearly occurring. It’s just not
one that will realistically see the physical fashion
world shut up shop any time soon. Watching
Slooten click her designs into virtual existence,
there seems little of the emotion you get with real
clothes. Physical fashion makes you feel things
when you wear it: comforted, nostalgic, sexy. Without the visceral touch,
feel, smell of fabric, digital clothing seems rather one-dimensional.
For Drinkwater, then, virtual fashion is ‘not seeking to replace physical
fashion’ but enhance it sustainably. Imagine Gucci releasing a digital-
only Pre-Fall collection to reduce carbon emissions; seeing what a coat
looks like on your own body shape when online shopping; scoring
that endorphin hit of buying, without the queasy moral flutter over your
overstuffed wardrobe. That’s the virtual reality we can look forward to.
Fleshy scuba suits accessorised with VR headsets for AW3O, though? It
may be a case of investing a little too readily in the emperor’s new clothes.THE CLOTHING
Digital denim (left)
by The Fabricant
and a neoprene
virtual jacket by
Carlings (right)THE SETTING
The collection comes
to life in The
Fabricant’s virtual
catwalk show (left)ELLEFeature“THIS DRESS WILL
BE the NEX T
MONA LISA AS
IT WAS THE FIRST
DIGITAL item OF
CLOTHING SOLD”Photography: Courtesy of The Fabricant and Carlings.