Creating Fashion Outside the Confines of Reality | Operator, Tribute Brand | MVFW 2022 Panel Series

What happens to fashion when it no longer has to look like clothing? David Cash hosts the art house Operator (Ania Catherine and Dejha Ti), Kadine James of Yahoo, digital fashion designer Assaf Reeb, Regina Turbina of Artisant.io and Replicant Fashion, and Gala Marija Vrbanić of Tribute Brand on Day 2 of Metaverse Fashion Week, recorded in Decentraland in March 2022. The panel talks about utility, digital bodies, ultra-realistic avatars, and a signal blocking trench coat reimagined as a metaverse wearable.

Watch on YouTube

Chapters

1. 00:00 Welcome and panel introductions
2. 01:28 Operator introduces their practice
3. 03:39 Kadine James on Yahoo and The Immersive Kind
4. 07:21 Assaf Reeb on MetaHumans and pixel streaming
5. 12:08 Regina Turbina on Replicant Fashion
6. 15:29 Gala Marija Vrbanić on Tribute Brand
7. 17:52 Tangible digital fashion and the box outfit
8. 23:30 Digital bodies and The Electric City
9. 29:03 Realistic avatars, virtual apes, and many platforms
10. 35:20 Blending realities with digital try-ons
11. 40:11 Operator on concept and the signal blocking trench coat
12. 45:33 Closing thoughts

Speakers

• Operator (Ania Catherine and Dejha Ti), art house
• Kadine James, Creative Technologist, Yahoo
• Assaf Reeb, Digital fashion designer
• Regina Turbina, Founder, Artisant.io and Replicant Fashion
• Gala Marija Vrbanić, CEO and Founder, Tribute Brand
• David Cash, curator of MVFW (host)

Key topics

• Fashion that does not need to look like clothing, including Tribute Brand's box outfit idea
• Utility and self-expression as the value of digital garments
• Digital bodies, transhumanism, and Yahoo's The Electric City in Decentraland
• MetaHumans, pixel streaming, and designing for Desperate Ape Wives
• Designing for platforms with very different polygon limits
• Replicant Fashion and trying digital garments on photos
• Operator's signal blocking trench coat and its translation into a metaverse wearable

In their words

"it doesn't have to be shaped as clothing" (Gala Marija Vrbanić)

"Well, digital gives you such a canvas to reinvent yourself." (Assaf Reeb)

How to cite

APA: Cash, D. (2022). Creating Fashion Outside the Confines of Reality | Operator, Tribute Brand | MVFW 2022 Panel Series [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/ISjIDdASMOI

Chicago: Cash, David. "Creating Fashion Outside the Confines of Reality | Operator, Tribute Brand | MVFW 2022 Panel Series." Recorded March 2022. YouTube video, 50:05. https://youtu.be/ISjIDdASMOI.

Recording details

Recorded: March 2022

Format: Panel and talk series recorded in Decentraland for Metaverse Fashion Week 2022

Length: 50:05 · Language: English

Curated and hosted by David Cash, produced by Cash Labs

About the series

The MVFW 2022 Panel Series is a set of ten conversations recorded for the first Metaverse Fashion Week, held in Decentraland in March 2022. David Cash curated and hosted the series, produced by his studio, Cash Labs. Designers, artists, technologists, editors, and founders joined him on the main stage to talk about digital fashion, identity, commerce, and craft. The full series is archived on David Cash's YouTube channel.

About this record

Presented with framing, speaker name tags, and captions added in 2026. Captions were machine-transcribed and reviewed by hand, with names checked against speaker introductions. Speaker roles are as of the recording date and may have changed since.

Shared for educational, research, and archival purposes. For corrections, name spellings, or removal requests: david@cashlabs.io

Transcript

Machine-transcribed and reviewed. Timestamps link to the moment in the video.

[0:07] Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the main stage of Decentraland's Metaverse Fashion Week. My name is David Cash. I am your emcee for these panels and also the curator for the Decentraland Foundation here for Fashion Week. Today's panel, this is the second panel we're doing today. The topic is creating fashion outside the confines of reality, a topic that, of course, is very relevant to this week. And we have an awesome panel of designers, creators, innovators, artists, and really excited to introduce them all and let them share with all of you a little bit more about their individual practices. So today we have Gala, the CEO and founder of Tribute Brand. We have Asaf Reeb, digital fashion designer. We have Regina Torbina, founder of Artisans.io and Replicant Fashion. We have Katie and James, creative technologist at Yahoo. And of course Anya and Deja, the artist duo behind the eponymous operator.

[1:05] Very excited to have all of these folks here with us today and really excited to dig into each of your practices in a little bit more detail. But who better to introduce each of you than yourselves if it's all right. Let's just go around the panel and I would love to hear a little bit more about each of you. So Anya and Deja, I see you in front of me first. Would you like to introduce yourselves and a little bit more about what you do with Operator? Absolutely. And thank you for having us, David. My name is Deja and I'm Anya. And so Anya and I have a collaborative art practice bringing together large scale environments, both physical and digital, as well as, I would say, creative technology and also the human body as essential and core aspects of our practice. And so the reason why we're here is kind of like our practice we like to say is medium fluent. As Deja mentioned, the three main pillars, environments, creative technology and performance.

[2:02] Fashion has played a role in many of our projects, some directly related to fashion for London Fashion Week presentations, for example. But the medium fluency has led us to many products that involve fashion in some way, shape or form. And it's one of the most exciting areas that we think right now for expression in terms of digital creativity. What we're seeing there is just really exciting. And so, yeah, glad to be here. Yeah, and our projects on VUE, Metaverse Fashion Week, is a project called I'd Rather Be in a Dark Silence Than. And this is the origin of this project was we created a physical signal and isolating blocking trench coat. So if you put any of your devices in this pocket, it can't be monitored or tracked. And so what we are doing currently is taking this trench coat and translating it into an NFT collection. And so this will be comprised of, I would say, Metaverse wearables, photography and XR experiences too.

[3:13] Awesome, awesome. And you can see a little taste of what Operator has to offer over in the Cache Labs Gallery. So I'm really happy to have the two of you here today and also as a part of my space. Thank you so much for making here today. And yeah, also worth mentioning that these two lovely ladies are Lumen Prize recipients. They're incredible, incredible artists. And I think I'm really happy to have them here today because they definitely take fashion out of context. And I think that's something that we're going to be talking about a lot in today's conversation. Up next, at least how I see these lovely folks in front of me before me, Kadeen, Kadeen James from Yahoo. How are you today? And tell us a little bit more about yourself and all the lovely things that you do. Hello from London. I am so delighted to be here in such incredible company. I'm a fangirl of everybody that's on this panel that you've assembled today.

[4:03] And I adore all of the artists and creators that you've brought together for the second day of Metaverse Fashion Week, this iconic moment inside the virtual world of Decentraland. So I'm Kadeen James. I'm a creative technologist at Yahoo Creative Studios, which is the branded content and immersive experience hub here at Yahoo. It's a pleasure to be sharing our contribution to the future of fashion. I'm also the founder of the Immersive Kind Collective, which is a digital fashion and immersive art collective, which explores the future of art and fashion across cyberspace and beyond. I'm absolutely delighted to announce that I'm going to be bringing my NFT immersive collection, which is called The Ultimate Seduction. And The Ultimate Seduction is an immersive art and digital experience, which celebrates a unique collaboration between The Immersive Kind and Eternity, which is a fizzy digital immersive fashion studio.

[5:10] I've been working with the artists and activists, Xiaolin Jin and Zhongbo Zhang. We've collaborated to bring The Ultimate Seduction to Metaverse Fashion Week. It's inspired by the interaction between organisms living in close physical association. It's raising awareness around the role that fashion can play in terms of leaving a lighter and more sustainable footprint on our planet. It explores ongoing themes around digital bodies, digital identities and virtual worlds colliding. It depicts my avatar in an underwater sea world surrounded by plastics. We're really wanting to raise awareness around the future of digital fashion as an alternative to fast fashion and landfill and the destruction of the planet. And you'll be able to experience The Ultimate Seduction as an exclusive immersive kind NFT collection, along with digital garments that you can wear in Decentraland and also as an augmented reality wearable.

[6:16] It's also going to drop inside my NFT gallery, which is launching in Spatial on the 24th of May. The Immersive Kind is a new virtual NFT gallery and life event space, which will welcome fashion and creative communities. We're looking to host premium events, bringing music, art, fashion together. I'm really excited about this opportunity to open doors to future talent. And acting is a bridge between the Metaverse and physical real estate and opening up a real gallery in London as well alongside that. So lots happening. I'm really thrilled to be here today. Awesome. So happy to have you here, Cadeen, and really excited to hear about the work you're doing with Spatial on top of the work you're doing here in Decentraland. Of course, we're always promoting and trying to facilitate an open Metaverse with interoperability between all of these incredible spaces.

[7:14] So kudos to you and I love everything you're doing and really happy to have you as part of today's conversation. Thank you for making the time. Up next for me, Asaf, really appreciate you also taking the time today. Love your practice. You've done so much in the space. I would love if you would introduce yourself and let the people know a little bit more about you and all the incredible things that you do. Thanks, David. So I am, as you said, primarily a designer. I come from the more analog, traditional side of fashion. And in the last, let's say, like four or five years, I've been working in the 3D augmented reality. Realms of what can be done with clothes to promote virtual expression in the Metaverse, which I mean, what we now call Metaverse and before that was kind of like a collection of a lot of different things that weren't necessarily connected by one narrative. And I've been exploring different elements of digital fashion for for a while now. So I've been involved in projects that tested the possibilities of digital assets, you know, close virtual closes, digital assets like robot, which was one of the first projects in the space.

[8:29] All the way to augmented reality filters very early on when Snapchat and Facebook introduced these on their platforms. And through my work in a startup called Immersive Virtual Apparel, where we try to connect brands and games through through a platform where we got support from companies like Farfetch and Plug and Play. And today, my main focus is is actually creating new IP that is Metaverse native alongside with working with brands and helping them enter the space. So the project that I'm showing in the in the exhibition is done in the collaboration with a Berlin studio called Project Ave. And basically what we did, we created, well, first I designed a look and put it on an avatar created in MetaHumans. And we created an environment that was, you know, built around this look to create nine different universes. And the main priority, you know, having done different projects in this space, the main priority was to try and create something that is

[9:43] more to the realistic side. I think like one of the one of the constant struggle with making digital clothes and real time use cases for it is the low pollinator of it. And what we explored in this project was working with, you know, hyper realistic meta human avatars, you know, very high poly clothes, creating a use case for real time in a super, you know, like ray tracing beautiful environment that was designed from scratch by the Project Ave team. And all this is being pixel streamed so you can play it through basically anyone with an internet connection can can play it. And of course, you know, everyone is invited to explore this. And there will also be some video and stills from the experience. We also introduced in this experience on the walls as part of this mini meta metaverse that we took a very curated approach towards Desperate Ape Wives, which is a PFP project, very successful one that one of the first ones, or I think maybe the first one, major one that introduced profile picture of female apes into this kind of very masculine landscape.

[10:58] And actually what I'm working with Desperate Ape Wives on now is a new digital fashion brand called House of Door, which is a completely kind of like web free native metaverse brand that was born out of the community using web free content and, you know, principles and everything to really try to create a new form of a brand for digital fashion for the metaverse. And I think some of the people in the panel can can kind of like relate, but kind of like giving a contract to the traditional fashion industry through something that is absolutely like metaverse native from from the very, very beginning, including the content. So this is a little bit about myself and yeah, I'm really happy to meet all of you and I'm excited about the conversation. I'm excited as well. Thank you so much for being here Asaf and appreciate you sharing a little bit more about you and also really happy to have you as well.

[11:53] In the Cash Labs Gallery, excited for people to be able to explore different fidelities in terms of what's available right now in the realm of digital fashion and explore things like meta humans on top of exploring, you know, the Decentraland metaverse. So really happy to have you and excited to have you as a part of this. Up next for me, Regina, Regina Terbina, another one of my favorite virtual fashion designers in the space, somebody who's been working in the in the virtual fashion realm for quite a while now. Regina, would you like to introduce yourself and some of your work and let the folks know what you're going to be activating this week at Fashion Week. Yes. Hi, everyone. I'm Regina, digital fashion designer, physical fashion designer, founder of Replicant Fashion, digital fashion marketplace and art design marketplace. It's NFT, digital fashion marketplace.

[12:46] It's creator economic platform where designers can meet fashion entities and collectors can buy, sell digital fashion items and use them for us. Important topics. It's utility to give utility to digital fashion assets. And that's so cool that we will show our pop up store on Rarible Street where we will show my digital fashion collection powered by Puma and Artisan Marketplace. It's a collection that it's a drop was inspired by Apsaiko, Apsaiko Dopek and it's digital fashion Apsaiko collection powered by Shmoosa story. It's a movement by Puma.

[13:48] We want to improve for women. We want to share our ideas about digital fashion and metaverse and how we can try different garments and be in touch in the metaverse. We will speak with together its collection. That collection will be sold from Rarible marketplace and it will be for NFTs. They will be minted like one of one NFTs. And we will draw variables, the central variables, of course, with these NFTs and it's so kind, beautiful collection and half of proceeds. We want to move to charity organizations and want to create event, inspirational event, educational event for women in NFT by women in NFT.

[15:02] Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much, Regina. Thank you for sharing a bit more about your practice and really excited to have you as a part of Fashion Week and everything that you're doing with, you know, with Replicant, with Artisan, with Puma. It's so incredible all the different avenues that you're working on at the same time. And yeah, so happy to have you as a part of this conversation. On the main stage here, day two, people can check out all the things that Regina and all these other designers are doing live right now in Decentraland. So that's the really exciting thing about where we're at right now. Last but definitely not least, Gala, really happy to have you here as well. You know, you and tribute brand do so much in the space as well and would love to hear a little bit about you, your ethos and some of what you're working on in the space. This week and in general, Gala would love to pass it over to you.

[15:46] Sure. Thanks for having me, David. So, yeah, I'm Gala. I'm the founder of Tribute Brand. My background is in traditional fashion. Before starting Tribute Brand, I was running a physical fashion brand. And then like six years ago, I started experimenting within digital fashion. Three years ago, actually, before starting Tribute Brand, we started developing an app, actually an AR app for digital fashion. And kind of as we were developing that app, Tribute Brand was made. So basically, this is a story in short about Tribute Brand. And for this Metaverse Fashion Week, what are we doing? Basically, we have our store in Decentraland. So we decided just let's do an after party because, you know, after party is always more interesting for me. It's Fashion Week. You need after parties.

[16:39] After parties, I always go for them, not for the shows. So basically, we decided to do an after party at our store. We have a famous DJ and YouTuber called Isaacov DJing. There will be a live set. And also, we are dropping our first Decentraland variables for that event that are inspired. We call this serious role play series, which is kind of inspired. I was inspired by fan fiction because I was always playing video games. My favorite game was GTA. And, you know, you always had those male characters. You couldn't choose what you want to do. And I just realized, you know, I can maybe mix those characters and do what I want. So the first drop is inspired by Devil Jean from Tekken and GTA prostitutes, you know. There are a lot of them there in the space.

[17:28] So we kind of created a mixture and we are going to present this outfit at this party. I absolutely love that. I'm so excited to see it. Make sure you go over to Tribute Brand's headquarters in the Metajuku District, if I'm not mistaken. And, yeah, that's going to be live now during Fashion Week. And make sure you attend their after party. We'll be on the main schedule. Super, super excited. And thank you so much for joining us, Kala. Awesome, awesome. Just to kick off today's conversation. So as you can tell, everybody on this panel is an innovator. Everybody on this panel is a creator. But everybody on this panel approaches this idea of entering the metaverse in a different way. You know, some are artists, some are designers, some are technologists. And when we're approaching the idea of creating fashion outside the confines of reality, it is important to figure out what from reality exists in the space to begin with.

[18:21] You know, anytime we're, you know, when we're having our initial conversations about Fashion Week, I've mentioned this before, but we're talking about what elements of the fashion industry do we want to pick up and take, and what elements do we want to create fresh that could never be possible in real life. So anytime we're bringing fashion, the idea of clothing, something that's so tangible and physical, at least in most of our lives, into this space of the metaverse where anything is possible, our imaginations are able to run wild, and obviously everybody approaches this in a different way. So I'd love to pass the mic around. I have a little bit of an idea in the order that I want to put this in, so please humor me. But I kind of want to approach this from an angle of taking things from a space of what's physical and bringing it to a space of what's digital yet tangible, because I think this idea of tangibility is something that's really important

[19:06] when we're considering virtual garments or any real offerings in the virtual space. How tangible is it? How possible is it for people to interact with it and, you know, have utility from this piece or in some way get some kind of value out of it as we do with clothing, you know, in our general lives, as we're all wearing right now. So I would love to open it up with that kind of an idea in mind. And I'd actually love to start with gala, because, you know, gala, you come from a space of traditional design and then you started looking into AR, and now you're working in on-chain elements. You're presenting, you know, fashion in spaces like the central land that are fully on-chain. But you work in a number of different mediums. So I would love to hear some of your thoughts and idea of bringing fashion from reality into this digital space and also the idea of trying to keep digital fashion tangible

[19:47] and allowing us to have this, you know, connection with these digital garments. So I'd love to pass it back to you and hear some thoughts. Fashion is, you know, not anymore in the physical streets. So we actually don't need fashion in a form of clothing, which is, you know, connected in a physical world. So, you know, what I'm always saying, fashion is not connected to a piece that has to look like a code, that has to look like a dress in a virtual world, because we don't need function in that space. Function, you know, in a way of, you know, why we need clothing now. But with tribute brand, and I think what made tribute brand successful, we are kind of in between. You know, you can always see, you know, you can always recognize it's a dress, it's a code, it's something, but it has this special touch added to it.

[20:45] Then you, like, when you see it, you ask yourselves, like, is it real or it's not? But for me, like the future, the future shape of fashion and what we are building, you know, and what we want to create, it's going to be something that would, you know, it wouldn't look like clothing at all. So, yeah, like, what do you mean by tangible? Like, what's, what's, what do you mean by that? Something that we can feel, something that we can experience beyond just, you know, seeing it, you know, like tangible idea of touch and experience. Yeah. You know, from a digital fashion, it would be, of course, utility. And this is, I think, every one of us here is working on that because, you know, it does, as I've said, it's identity expression is not a thing that sits in your wallet or on your wall. It's a thing how, you know, that you use to express yourselves.

[21:36] And this is why we use this utility for us. You know, we started, you know, from the AR, but it will be everywhere. And this is the most fun part about it because there are so many mediums and also very challenging part, you know, how to adopt this garment or, you know, fashion piece to work in all of those different mediums because you have to know how to convey this idea because basically it's about idea and not about how this thing looks. Actually, our first idea for this Metaverse Fashion Week, and it got rejected because it was too much. We just presented a box. It was just a basic box which had like tape on it. It said fragile. And we were like, okay, this is our full outfit. And, you know, and they said, you know, it has to have hands, it has to have legs. And so, you know, it's staying for something in the future.

[22:25] But, you know, this is what I'm speaking about. You know, it doesn't have to be shaped as clothing. So the box will be issued, you know, sometime later. No, I mean, absolutely. When you're thinking about going outside the confines of reality, you can think about going beyond fashion. And I mean, that's, you know, bringing up concepts that we typically only talk about in art. Like, what is fashion? What is art? Why are we expressing ourselves this way? Why do we have to wear a shirt when we're in the Metaverse? Like, there's no, you know, and why do our avatars even have to be humanoid? You know, there's all these kinds of things that come up. Yeah, like, okay, let's just be a box. You know, it's the coolest thing ever. I'll just be this box in the center and jumping around. Exactly. It's a cube. Yeah, you can be whatever you want. Yeah. At least in theory. At least in theory. Yeah. Awesome.

[23:12] Awesome. Thanks so much for that, Gala. I absolutely agree. And I think it's really important, you know, when people are talking about entering the Metaverse, I think one of the most beautiful things is when we start to feel this connection between us and our avatar and, you know, kind of think about what our avatar is wearing or how our avatar is being perceived as how we're being perceived. And I think somebody who could speak on that from personal experience is Kay Dean, because Kay Dean, I know you have a number of avatars in different spaces, in different places, and you do a lot to adorn your avatar. You integrate your avatar into art pieces. And I really think that you're somebody who's developed this connection between themselves and their digital self, or maybe there isn't even that kind of divide for you. I would love to hear a little bit about your thoughts on this and how other people can maybe take these steps to moving from the physical

[23:56] and the personal to the digital while still remaining personal. Say, I want to get inside that box, Kyla, that you're making, sign me up. I'm really... I don't mean that. I adore everything that you do, so cool. And David, you know, I love this kind of endless possibility that this kind of new way of thinking about fashion or expressing yourself, particularly with digital clothes or exploring these kind of outer body experiences. You know, I've just been working with Abby Sheng, who's an incredible artist. We've been exploring themes around transhumanism and thinking about kind of re-engineering our bodies and what our bodies might become in the future and kind of re-imagining our identity and this kind of reconstruction of garments and how we exist in our bodies and how our bodies can expand in the metaverse.

[25:09] And, you know, I've been wearing digital fashion for many years now. I'm really interested in this approach to encoding new realities into how we experience digital fashion and how my identity can become anything. I can become a completely different being in cyberspace and I think there's something really freeing and exciting about the opportunities that that presents in terms of living out these fashion fantasies and wearing clothes and garments in ways that not so long ago would have been completely unimaginable. I also want to touch on the point that you made around physical and utility. We're obviously, you know, heavily involved in that space at Yahoo, particularly with the recent project that we dropped called The Electric City, which is also here in Decentraland.

[26:10] And I hope everybody's going to have a chance to go and see what we've done. But with Electric City, we created an immersive shopping experience which celebrated 25 years of Pokemon. Prior to bringing it to Decentraland, it was a physical installation at Selfridges, a luxury store here in London. And we were inspired by fashion capitals around the world and inside Electric City you could shop the physical garments alongside Kaleidi Drip, which was an augmented reality wearable that we also created and a collection of digital wearables that you could shop and wear via an AR lens and a customised digital avatar. So we worked with Ready Player Me to create the looks from the collection and you could wear that across over 300, maybe more actually, virtual worlds and gaming apps and experiences.

[27:12] We also released digital packs that included the functionality to mint via a polygon post-set. Also, there was this kind of physical collection that was then reimagined across virtual reality, augmented reality in the metaverse here at Decentraland. And I think that there's something really incredible that's going on in the space right now and I'm really energised by what's set to come. I think we're just on the cusp of it. But, you know, I'm really inspired to do more and to keep pushing it forwards and using my virtual body or my virtual identity to reimagine what fashion can be and what my identities can become.

[28:04] And I always think about David Bowie a lot, who's a big inspiration of mine and what he would be doing with all of this incredible digital fashion. And, yeah, I could speak to you guys about this all day. I think it's such an exciting space to be in. And I've been in it for some time and I think we're all the pioneers and I want to build like this archive for future generations so that, you know, we can store it. You know, I really think that this is so inspiring, everything that we're building right now. Absolutely, absolutely. Great points there and I love your perspective and I love seeing you, you know, push the boundaries of what we can do with our virtual selves and our virtual bodies every time I see you posting about, you know, a new look or integrating yourself into a new art piece.

[28:58] I'm always excited and I love what you do, Kadeen. Huge, huge love for you. I would love to pass the conversation now over to Asaf, actually. As we're thinking about the idea of digital bodies, I'm immediately, you know, reminded of the metahumans that you're building and some of these like ultra-realistic digital spaces, outfits, you know, looks. I mean, I keep seeing these mock-ups you showed me of, you know, people's faces utmost, you know, with the utmost closeness to their eye, to their nose and it just looks ultimately realistic and I think it's really incredible. And I'd love to hear some of your thoughts, you know, moving from traditional fashion design to now a space where you're going beyond just fashion and looking at, you know, identity and spaces and architecture and design on such a larger scale through virtual fashion and through these metaverse spaces. I would love to hear some of your thoughts on how we're moving away from reality

[29:48] and able to do so much more in some of these digital spaces that you're exploring. I think it's super exciting, the range of characters that you can work with. I think, like Kadeen said before, I think fashion is a lot about who you are and changing that and being able to change that in varying degrees. Like, this is actually what drew me into fashion originally, you know, like the image-making side of it is, for me, way more interesting creatively than the production or things like that. So the metahuman that we worked with, you know, gave me an opportunity to actually create clothing for a humanoid character that actually looks convincingly real, gave the chance to use real-time facial tracking, which also gave it, you know, an additional level of realism and life.

[30:45] And it really feels, I mean, there is always this question of uncanny valley and how realistic can we go before it becomes weird. And I think with the metahumans, it was a surprisingly good experience of a character that is obviously digital, looks very realistic, but does a pretty natural good job at kind of giving you a virtual experience of a digital human that's not too uncanny, not too weird and kind of like, you know, doesn't feel dodgy, just feels right. It feels like something new and it feels like, you know, it's quite exciting to design to something like that. And it's also like in a very sharp contrast with the other project that I'm working with because I started designing for apes, which is something that I never thought that I would do, you know, for female apes.

[31:38] And they are actually, I mean, like, I love video games, you know, like I always did, and you can be different characters in a video game. But there is something about, you know, trying to bring a character that is really round and full and create a wardrobe for that character and create a vision for what does fashion for virtual apes look like, which is really like, you know, I mean, I'm speaking to designers, friends of mine who are working in traditional fashion, and they're like, that's so amazing. That's so creative. That's so free. That's like, I mean, they're genuinely like, you know, excited and a little bit jealous about this because, you know how it is in fashion? Like every season you're kind of trying to reinvent yourself. Well, digital gives you such a canvas to reinvent yourself. I'm almost like, I think that also, I think all of us can agree that the idea of planning ahead suddenly became, you know, like it's almost impossible

[32:37] because I have no idea what platform I will be designing for in half a year, you know, in the six months time. I mean, Decentraland of course has a certain, you know, like gravitate in this landscape and I'm sure it will stay. And I think there are a few platforms like that, but I'm also sure that you will have, you know, so many new use cases as we go along. And I also think that it's really about the use cases, right? Like if you have an exciting use case, then it kind of like creates everything around it. I think a game like Invo asks for something different than a game like Zapetto in terms of the kind of content that you would create and something like Decentraland and the low poly requirements for it also define what kind of designs you want to make and how you translate your design into these different worlds.

[33:30] So I think, I mean, the variety of characters can be looked upon as a challenge or, you know, like a very fragmented siloed landscape, but it could also be seen as, you know, pure freedom. And like, as a creative, as an artist, it's just like such an amazing opportunity to be able to design for all these different characters. I also think from a diversity point of view, it really, you know, you can really genuinely be who you want and nobody's gonna question that. Like, and that's very, very liberating. And I think for all of us, you know, like regardless of whether you're dealing with these things in your day to day life or not, I think we all kind of want to step out of our identity for a bit and maybe express ourselves in different ways. So, Metahumans give you that, Decentraland avatars give you that, Ready Player Me avatar give you that, and also the virtual apes that I'm gonna show are going to give you that as well.

[34:23] So, yeah, it's exciting times, definitely. I love that. I think that's such a great point. It's the ability to explore, having the option. People love options, and when we're presented with more than we're currently given, it's really empowering. And I love what you're mentioning as well about, you know, artists and designers being empowered with this limitless potential, because I think that's one of the most beautiful things about this metaverse space, is you can literally create anything that you want. One of the first articles I wrote when I entered the space is thinking about, I was in Italy, and I was thinking about all the sculptures, and I'm like, now these sculptures could make literally anything, and of course, that extends to fashion and art and beyond. And, yeah, I love that. And, you know, think of the idea of identity and our avatars, you know, obviously from, you know, this conversation flow.

[35:10] We've talked about avatars in the central land. We've talked about, you know, avatars and identity. Kadeen, how you relate to your avatar. Asaf, how you're making these ultra-realistic avatars. But once we get to the space of reality, you know, another thing that I think is really important to mention is blending realities. And I think somebody who does that really well is Regina. Some of your works where you create beautiful virtual fashion looks and then integrate them into photographs, photographs of yourself, photographs of models, friends, other designers. I think you do a really great job of blending these worlds and definitely taking these photos of reality and bringing them outside of the confines of typical reality. Absolutely. So we'd love to hear some thoughts from you on how you... I think it does come back to this idea of tangibility and making things immediate and making things accessible,

[35:53] but I think you really do take virtual fashion and allow people to see how they could experience that and be a part of it themselves. So we'd love to hear some thoughts from you on this topic. Oh, yes. Digital fashion trends are available in our project which is called Replicant Fashion. It's a website where people can buy and try different garments on a photo. And it's a community of designers which show their digital fashion items. And we have different clients from different countries, and I know which clothes people like more. They like to wear something unusual that doesn't exist in real life and was made from unusual fabrics and materials.

[37:00] And people really like to try different kinds because it's funny and they look for real clothes but at the same time it's different clothes and it's a new experience. And it's a cool opportunity for designers to interact with your customers to understand what people like more in this space. And it's like a game where you can try different garments and they're not existing reality. And, of course, it's an eco-friendly opportunity to try lots of fashion items.

[37:48] And, yes, I really like how it works in social media because its garments provide opportunity to interact with each other in a digital fashion space to create different content. And, yes, I really like trying different garments because digital fashion garments because I like to create something. And at the same day, I can wear these digital clothes and lots of opportunities for designers, of course, for traditional fashion designers and for digital fashion designers. It's like new wear.

[38:39] Absolutely. There's an immediacy with all of these digital creations. And I talk about this a lot with blockchain. Over the past month as people have been raising funds and trying to participate in actions immediately, I think that this space has really shown up and we're able to see how quickly we're able to access things like funds, create things like designs, experience new worlds. And speaking of, I hope that people listening to this right now take inspiration from this. And one of the things we have to offer this week on top of fashion shows, which you can go and see in immediacy immediately, they're going to happen and they're going to be gone. That's tangible. But also, you're going to be able to go and witness immersive experiences, which are going to be happening throughout the week, experiences like what Katie mentioned, the project that Katie has been working on with Charlie and Selfridges, this incredible experiential fashion,

[39:35] something that's never existed before, really, as it's going to be presented in the metaverse. As Katie mentioned, it's something that was manifested IRL in reality, but this is going to be the first manifestation of this project in the metaverse in this way. So I think it's really exciting to consider immersive experiences and how projects and fashion and art can be more immediate to more people via the metaverse. So love those points and absolutely. And I think that's also a perfect segue onto our last two guests, who are also incredible voices in this space and I think will have great points on this topic. Anya and Deja, obviously your practice involves fashion, but I think calling the two of you multidisciplinary is an understatement because you use so many different mediums and so many different practices as part of your overall art practice.

[40:24] So I think when we're considering fashion outside the confines of reality for the two of you, that's almost inherent because you decontextualize fashion and you use fashion as one of the, let's say, paint brushes or paints on your general canvas and in your projects, like the one that we're speaking about today. So we'd love to hear some more thoughts from you and how artists as well and all of us can work to decontextualize fashion and think about fashion beyond just the clothes that we wear every day. I love how you frame that because I was, even before you frame that question, I was thinking context is everything, but also concept is everything. The way that we think of fashion, clothes, expression on the body in terms of through the lens of our artwork, right?

[41:19] So for us, we have to ask what is serving the concept? So for instance, if the human body is a core aspect of our practice, what the human is wearing speaks to the larger concept. So we can never pull those two apart. They can't exist independently, right? So I think every aspect of an immersive experience is telling one building blocks of a larger story. And I think when we think of whether that is an in-real-life performance or we think of how that transfers into and translates into a digital experience, I think these things always have to be pulled into context. Yeah, definitely fashion is not just a small detail in the work, but when you're making immersive works, every touch point, everything that you see, everything you smell, the temperature of the room are all, like Disha said, serving the concept.

[42:13] So what the bodies are wearing is always important. And I think also just thinking about how we even ended up, in the first place, making a fashion garment and going back to concept. So our first major museum commission was called On View and it was about surveillance capitalism. And so what we were thinking is, what do we do in this situation? When we're being tracked and listened to and our phones are kind of like, just there's privacy nightmares everywhere, extractive technology, what could we do? And so essentially we first got into making this signal blocking trench coat as kind of a way to have human agency within this larger installation that was speaking about living in surveillance capitalism. So yeah, we arrived to making a trench coat, not because we're like, we're gonna make fashion, but because we were like, we need to do something or make something that speaks to a problem in an interesting way that has a sense of agency

[43:05] and function. And then that now being translated into the NFT collection that we're doing, the obvious example would have been, okay, we have this signal blocking trench coat, we can make a digital twin and sell that as an NFT. But as everyone has spoken about here, the possibilities of what you can do in digital fashion are so much greater than this black trench coat that we have in real life. So why would we need it then in the metaverse? But what was really exciting, and I think what we're really stoked on is thinking, what does the coat do? What does the coat represent? What is it about? What are the qualities of the coat? What is the coat? How does it make you feel? And so then we're taking concepts like, it makes you feel protected. It puts you in a silence. It gives you agency. It gives you power.

[43:52] Like, does it silhouette you? So thinking about how those concepts can then manifest in something and love what Gala said about being a box, we're like, is this garment as a metaverse wearable, not a coat, but is this garment a darkness spotlight that just follows you around? Is it a skin that turns you into a silhouette? Like, there's so many ways this can manifest in digital fashion as something that's not a garment, something that doesn't even look like a garment, but is something so much bigger, but represents and still has that feeling, makes you feel protected. You're in a silence. You're in your own thing, not in a nightmare of surveillance capitalism. So that's been a very fun journey, and we're definitely trying to make this the most conceptual, non-traditional fashion expression of this piece for the metaverse wearable, to take advantage of all these exciting possibilities that are here.

[44:44] Absolutely, absolutely. And I think it's really exciting and empowering to think about any of these topics beyond their original context, and especially fashion, something that's considered so normal or something that we experience every day and maybe a mundane way. I think it's really important to decontextualize fashion and to think about it in a different way. And bringing that into another context or an artistic context, as you do, I think is one of those ways and one of those ways that we can think about and experience fashion on a whole new level. And speaking of, I think that this week will hopefully be a revelation to many people as they experience fashion as more than simply the clothes that we wear, but as an art form, and an art form that's being built upon and expounded on in the metaverse, which I think is really exciting and something that we're all experiencing this week as we're here for Decentralized Metaverse Fashion Week.

[45:33] So unfortunately, we've come to the end of today's conversation. I have to say thank you to all of our panelists for taking time out of their very busy schedules to join us for this recording. And hopefully some of them will be able to join us afterwards for our live Q&A. So make sure to stick around after this panel is complete. This is the second panel today. This is our last panel of day two, but we will be back here on the main stage tomorrow for a talk in the morning. Make sure to check the schedule for all details. But just before we end, we'd love to give each of our panelists just one more chance to plug anything going on this week and just for any closing thoughts. So going back in our original order, if that's okay, Anya and Deja, any last closing thoughts or projects you would like to mention? Yeah, just check out what we have in David's gallery in Decentraland.

[46:21] It's a little bit about this project of the signal blocking trench coat, how that's being translated into this Metaverse wearable and a little bit more context of the history of that work. Beautiful. Kaydeen, where can they find some of your work this week? Any closing thoughts? Yes, David, thank you so much for guiding us so expertly in this wonderful conversation that you facilitated this evening. It's an honor and a joy to start my weekend in this way. So I want to ask everybody to visit everyone here's work because it's all outstanding. I also would love for you to come in and have a look at the immersive kinds and eternities that ultimate seduction at Rarible store. Also check out Charlie's installation.

[47:13] We brought the Electric City to Decentraland. We're touring the Metaverse. We'll also be at Spatial inside the Immersive Pine Gallery where I'll be dropping the ultimate seduction collection there. So touring the Metaverse. And I just recommend that everybody, you know, get their avatar dressed up in the best looks, collect digital fashion, support the community, and rock it in the Metaverse. Awesome. Thanks so much for making it, Kaydeen. I appreciate having you here. Next, Asaf, we'd love to hear some final thoughts from you and if you have anything you wanted people to check out this week. Yeah, I mean, thanks, David, and thanks, everyone. It was really a pleasure to be on the panel with all of you. Really, like, everyone here is an optimistic visionary that's doing very hard work to, you know, create the reality that we all want to see.

[48:07] So, like, genuinely appreciate the people that you brought together here and yourself doing this effort. Yeah, I mean, everyone is welcome to come and check out the experience that I, under the Stupid Skin brand, together with Project Ave, a Berlin-based studio for Metaverse experiences created. It's a miniverse that you can explore through pixel streaming as a character. The character is designed in Metahumans and the clothing is designed by me. And the loft where it exists is very beautifully designed with a great art exhibition of NFTs from Desperate Ape Wives. Yeah, like, and I can't wait to see your projects, everyone that is here and everything else that is on the Metaverse fashion week.

[49:00] Super exciting that you guys are doing this really. I think we've all been waiting for this for a number of years to really come together like this. It's very exciting. Thanks so much, Asaf. Such a pleasure having you here today and appreciate having you as part of MySpace as well. Make sure to check out Asaf and Deja Anja, of course, in the Cash Lab Gallery. Last but certainly not least, Gala, would you have any other closing thoughts and anything you'd like to plug that people can check out this week? Your after-party. Yeah, I think this is the only thing. You know, first of all, thank you for this great conversation. And yeah, I would just say on Friday, come to the Tribute Brand after-party. Awesome, awesome. We will see you there. Unfortunately, Regina had to hop off, but also do make sure to go check out Regina's activation. It will be on the schedule under Tribute Brand.

[49:50] Make sure to check it out. And yeah, appreciate everybody taking the time. Thank you again. My name is David Cash, here for the Decentraland Foundation. And check out everybody's work. Explore the Metaverse. Thank you, everybody. We'll see you in the next panel.