DRESSX Founders Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova on Digital Fashion | NFTS.WTF Interview

NFTS-WTF Interviews
Written By David Cash

DRESSX co-founders Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova on building a wardrobe for the metaverse, digital fashion as a currency, and why easy on-chain buying will decide adoption.

Interviewed by David Cash. Book David to host, moderate, or speak: https://davidcash.ca

Recorded at ETH Denver 2022, a day after the DRESSX co-founders flew in from New York Fashion Week, Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova talk with David Cash about merging the fashion and developer worlds. Natalia describes DRESSX as a meta closet that pulls together three things: the utility of digital goods in games, fashion as a language on social media, and ownership through NFTs. That is why DRESSX started with digital outfits for photos and AR before NFTs you can wear in its app. Daria explains the view of digital fashion as a currency, the 15 years the founders spent in traditional fashion, and how social media changed fashion shows. They discuss phygital fashion and big brands, digitizing museum archives so people can wear fashion history, a nine-year-old who cares more about Roblox wings than real clothes, Moxie's essay on Web3 usability, mass adoption, inclusivity for new designers, and wearing digital fashion today.

Watch on YouTube

Chapters

  1. 00:00 Intro at ETH Denver with the DRESSX co-founders
  2. 0:25 From New York Fashion Week to ETH Denver
  3. 1:32 Watching the NFT market arrive
  4. 4:11 DRESSX as a meta closet
  5. 6:34 Starting with digital fashion for photos
  6. 7:14 NFTs you can wear in AR
  7. 7:46 Digital fashion as a currency
  8. 8:21 Fifteen years in traditional fashion
  9. 10:06 Shipping a dress for one photo shoot
  10. 11:50 Phygital fashion and big brands
  11. 13:32 Wearing fashion history from the archive
  12. 15:04 Gen Z and Roblox wardrobes
  13. 16:45 Making on-chain buying easy
  14. 18:39 Moxie and Web3 usability
  15. 19:36 Mass adoption
  16. 21:26 Onboarding friends and responsibility
  17. 22:18 Inclusivity and new designers
  18. 24:12 Wearing digital fashion today

Speakers

  • David Cash, interviewer and editor-in-chief, NFTS.WTF
  • Daria Shapovalova, co-founder and CEO, DRESSX
  • Natalia Modenova, co-founder and COO, DRESSX

Key topics

  • ETH Denver 2022 and New York Fashion Week
  • Digital fashion and the meta closet
  • AR wearables and off-chain digital outfits
  • Wearable fashion NFTs
  • Digital fashion as a currency and status symbol
  • Phygital fashion and luxury brands
  • Digitizing fashion archives
  • Gen Z, gaming, and digital wardrobes
  • Web3 user experience and mass adoption
  • Inclusivity for digital fashion designers

In their words

"DRESSX is your meta closet, is your wardrobe for the metaverse that you can wear." Natalia Modenova

"We do understand that digital fashion will become a currency per se on its own." Daria Shapovalova

How to cite

APA: Cash, D. (2022). DRESSX founders Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova on digital fashion [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/te5naW7Blow

Chicago: Cash, David. "DRESSX Founders Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova on Digital Fashion." Recorded 2022, Denver. YouTube video, 25:50. https://youtu.be/te5naW7Blow.

About NFTS.WTF

NFTS.WTF was a Web3 culture publication and interview series edited by David Cash. It covered artists, collectors, and builders during the 2021–2022 NFT boom. It ran for two years and closed after a board decision by the NFTS DAO, which left many of its interviews unpublished.

More interviews: https://www.youtube.com/@davidcash888/playlists

Recording details

Recorded 2022 at ETH Denver, Denver, Colorado. Originally published on NFTS.WTF, March 2022. This edition: archival re-release with chapters and captions, 2026.

Transcript

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

[0:12] Hello everybody, welcome back to NFTS.WTF. My name is David Cash, editor-in-chief, and we're joined today with two very special ladies, co-founders of DRESSX, Natalia and Daria. Thank you so much for joining us today, such a pleasure. Welcome to Denver. We're here in Denver, Colorado for ETH Denver. And yeah, you guys got in a couple days ago. How has it been this week? What's been exciting or what are you excited about here in Denver? Well, we just got here. We arrived right from New York, where New York Fashion Week was happening, and there was a lot of things to do in terms of fashion, digital fashion. And right after there, we are here at ETH Denver, and that actually describes what we do pretty well. Jumping around. Jumping to the ETH Conference. To the ETH Conference, right, where a lot of developers and like men in New York is like designers and models and all these things. So we are merging these two worlds together.

[1:04] That's exactly what's happening. Totally. Awesome. Daria, are you enjoying yourself here? Yes, absolutely. Here to learn, to meet new people. And basically, yes, we just arrived yesterday and we are flying back tomorrow. We'd love to stay longer, but definitely for the next time, we'll book more time here. And it's exciting to meet all of the people. That's the most important. It's all about the community. Yeah, you get a little taste. And it's interesting, you know, this year, you know, many more communities have collided into this event before it was all DeFi people, all crypto people. But now NFTs, virtual fashion, the metaverse, all of this has become so much more popular. And you really see a shift this year in terms of what people are talking about. You know, there's so many NFT people here. How has it been for you guys? Because obviously you've been around since before this is so popular. How has it been, you know, recently seeing this popularity since, you know, meta and of course, you know, NFTs. How has that been for you? Well, of course, the NFT craze and the rise of the market. And actually when the market actually emerged, I would say in 2020, 2021, mostly it was a great time when people learn about it and got interested. And maybe it didn't translate into mass adoption yet.

[2:14] It's like a lot of people entered the space, but still it's kind of a niche space and there is still so much to do. And that's very exciting that we already had this like speed of like growth of the interest and adoption, and it's amazing. And there is still so much to do in that space. And yeah, that's what we should do all together here. And as we know, there are just 400,000 people who own NFTs currently on the planet, somewhere around that, maybe a little bit more after the conference. So basically we're still in the start and it's so amazing to be in the very beginning, which is not exactly the beginning that happened like a few years ago, but as you've mentioned, we've been in a digital fashion space as one of the first companies. And that felt really exciting when the entire world started to pay attention. And from the very beginning, we were mentioning that digital fashion, digital assets will be your future.

[3:08] And yes, and then seeing like everyone is getting interested into that. That's amazing because I think we should definitely, if you understood that something will be very popular in the future, you should keep sharing that with people because that's how it will continue to evolve. And that's how everyone can be successful. And that's the entire kind of blockchain world is about in the end that it's decentralized and it's shared with everyone, which is so exciting. That's definitely the new world that is being built. Totally. And like the ethos that we're creating is really being perpetuated through all these different mediums. And I think it must be really cool for you guys as well. You know, you create fashion in all different mediums. Let's maybe take a step back and give people a little more info about DRESSX just in case they don't know. You know, you create fashion, virtual fashion in all different mediums from, you know, off-chain AR filters and wearables, you know, superimposing on photos all the way to, you know, on-chain NFTs and really like tokenizing virtual fashion. So I'd love to maybe just take a step back just for anybody who's watching who, you know, may not know all about DRESSX and just let you guys, you know, explain a little bit about how you started and maybe also how you got into the NFT space specifically since you guys are doing so much cool stuff now. Well, DRESSX is your meta closet, is your wardrobe for the metaverse that you can wear. And for us, it was always about how you use your wardrobe, how you use your digital assets and how you use your digital wearables.

[4:26] And we understand that gaming has been around for a long time. It was not NFTs, it was just the digital goods without any blockchain element to it. And that amazing part of this kind of whole ecosystem that already proves that digital assets matter and that they have utility and you can get like superpowers or you can look in a certain way and like communicate that you belong to this alliance and like not to that other team. And that's amazing, that's a great part of this use case. Another part is like communication aspect where actually people in social media, they use fashion to communicate that they like certain brand or they understand like certain trend. And their physical clothes became just this language of communication. We saw a lot of influencers emerging from that space and we saw disruption of their retail in fashion because people would buy something, they would return just only to communicate that, okay, like I get this trend.

[5:31] But the trends are evolving so fast that you cannot keep up and buying, buying, buying all this stuff. It's like just not reasonable. And that's another part that is important here. And then blockchain NFT is something that gives you an opportunity to actually own your asset in digital, not to have the game company owning that. But you can own it, you can sell it, you can do whatever you want with that. That's another important part. So kind of merging those three, it's kind of your new meta closet, your meta wardrobe. And we understand that the kind of adoption of like web3 worlds and like metaverses, open metaverses is still quite low, but we want to give this digital wardrobe to every person in the world. That's why we started from the utility for social media on a daily active usage of social media is so much higher than any of the virtual worlds.

[6:29] And of course games also have a high engagement, but it's like completely closed world. So merging those kinds of elements is something that we do at DRESSX. And we started from like, yes, we're given an opportunity to wear digital fashion on your pictures, share it on social media. It's actually very, very similar to PFP trends. We saw people buying this like it was off chain items, but they would buy their outfit and they would use it as a profile picture. And this is a use case and that's amazing. And we didn't want to launch like fashion NFT, which is just a picture of a beautiful dress. You should be able to actually wear it. That's the value of that. Especially if you own it. Exactly, exactly. So that's why kind of the next interface besides the mobile app that we have, when you can wear your digital fashion in augmented reality, will be the NFT marketplace when you can buy this NFT and you can immediately wear it in your app.

[7:32] You don't have to kind of do any additional steps. The proof of ownership will be already there. So it's a whole ecosystem connected to it. Yeah, that's awesome. No, that's really cool. But yeah, Daria, maybe you add more. No, no, absolutely. That's where we are right now and transitioning into this notion of fashion world, because we do understand that digital fashion will become a currency per se on its own, which is an amazing transition. Because ever in fashion, it was like a commonplace that everything that you own is kind of your status symbol, right? And like your Birkin back, it means something, you can trade it. And the same is happening in the digital fashion world. So that's why and especially with all the adoption of the cryptocurrencies, when digital fashion is becoming a currency on its own, as I mentioned, that's an important transition. But actually, I wanted to also to do a step back and mention that we were in the traditional fashion industry for 15 years and did a lot of things. So we basically did not start from like, just yes, out of the blue or something.

[8:34] We kind of did our research for 15 years of what's important for consumers. And I remember fashion industry without Facebook, without Instagram, because I was already attending shows like you do now, as a journalist and interviewing people. And I remember that unbelievable switch that happened from like a very digital fashion industry when all the shows were visited like by 100 people. And then when everything changed, when Facebook and Instagram emerged and all the other social media, when people started to watch the fashion shows through their mobile devices. So that's the same shift that is happening right now. I feel the same type of energy, the same kind of knowledge of new conversations and everything. And it's great to be one of the companies that kind of defines this future. And obviously, it's important for us to move together with and create this feedback pool from the client and etc. But yes, the fashion industry was for a long time.

[9:27] A huge industry that is consumer, it was not disrupted yet. And that's exactly what is happening. Yes, it's happening right now. It was not disrupted for like 200 years. Maybe just with online shopping. And that's like the latest revolution in commerce. Yes, that's happened. Net-a-Porter and all of those stores that evolved 20 years ago. But since then, there were no big shifts and changes. Maybe in renting also, renting. That's the way how it was changed, because we understood that it's not necessarily you should own the item, you should rent the item. And now it's not necessarily that the item should be produced, it can just exist in digital. And then you can own it, you can rent it and you can do so much stuff. Especially for like single uses and all these things. I mean, it's so interesting when you take the traditional fashion world and you try to resolve problems that we've tried to find solutions for. Like really clunky, ineffective solutions. Like, oh yeah, let's ship this dress, 3000 miles, let's ship it to China and let's pay for a ticket, a plane ticket for this dress.

[10:24] Doesn't really make any logical sense. Doesn't make any sense for like fashion story, for example, right? Just to shoot this dress for one night and ship it back. Like imagine how many resources were sitting here. And when they say that certain things are bad for the environment, it's always interesting when you take it back to these traditional industries that haven't changed in so long. That's really what's bad for the environment when you're looking at that. But I love taking a step back when you're thinking about this, because also for me, I'm into my first NFT in 2017. But I didn't know what an NFT was really, and I didn't fully understand it. But then when I was researching it and specifically talking to some people in the fashion industry and talking about really valuable goods, that really clicked for me. If you're going to buy a $1,000, $5,000 handbag, you need a certification. Even now, they give you physical certification, a card, a document, all these papers. But that's also terrible. What are you going to do with all this stuff? So tokenizing fashion, one of the first NFT use cases that just make perfect sense to me because it's less clunky.

[11:18] And boom, also you have a digital wearable of it. I mean, it's more valuable and it's certified forever. And you don't need to carry anything around to prove it. So, I mean, it just makes perfect sense. But yeah, I think you guys have taken it so much further and really taken... I love the conversation around phygital fashion because I know you guys are doing a little bit of that now too, maybe for some of the first time. So I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on that. But if you have a physical object, all of the things that you can do with it, I know we've talked about this a little bit more, you can take that physical object and then bring it into the metaverse, bring it into AR, bring it into all these other contexts where previously impossible by just taking that further step. So yeah, I'd love to hear some thoughts from you guys on how that's really affecting major brands. Well, yeah, speaking of phygital, it's a bridge that is very important to kind of bring the fashion industry into digital completely. And it will exist. And I believe that this is something that bigger brands will adopt first.

[12:14] And that is something that... Because they can afford it. Yeah, they can afford it. But also it's like an easier to kind of... Justification of the physical products as well. And kind of giving digital as added value to the physical product. But from the very beginning for us, there was a notion that digital only is as valuable as physical. You don't need to have a physical element to have value. And you don't need to have this like supply chain production and everything to create value. There are so many other ways, digital only to create this value for people. That's why utilities are very important for us. So of course, we will see adoption that like bigger brands and conglomerates already work on. Like it's their own blockchain, where they do all the certification and all the things. That will be the kind of adoption going from that way.

[13:09] But at the same time, like all the kind of revolution start, they start from like below, not from the top. So we should not expect... Don't pick up eventually. We should not expect that like the biggest brands will disrupt it itself. So there will be a lot of players who kind of create these use cases, create these pipelines, create this case studies. And of course, brands will be adopting them. Awesome. So well said. No, actually it's... Yeah, we also like imagine this use case when let's say Chanel dress or Dior dress is sold together with an NFT. And let's say I own this Dior dress in physical, right? And I can actually pass to the new generation, the digital file. It's incredible, right? Because previously it was only possible to pass your outfit to the museum if you wanted other generations to see it.

[14:03] And even in the museum, they spend so much money to preserve all those archives. So basically there are so many great dresses and outfits created, but nobody can see them because even in the walls, it takes so much money to keep them, to maintain. Yes, exactly. And we can see everything that was produced, all that beauty. We just literally can't see it. And moreover, we can't wear it, but in augmented reality and digital, it's possible. We can still wear any item that was created if we digitize it. And imagine like the ownership forever. Exactly. And we will continue to own them and we'll continue to wear them. And imagine like all these museum archives can be digitized and we can all continue wearing some items from the past that are amazing. Stuff from the 1600s that isn't even together. Yeah, anymore, yes. Or like everything from the 20th century, 21st century. So that's eventually when fashion history will be reinvented.

[14:58] And that's so important it happens right now because that's exactly the time when people are ready for that. More or less, Gen Z is definitely ready. They're like playing Roblox on a daily basis and changing their digital outfits and their digital wardrobes are way important for them than the physical wardrobes. I can see that of my nine years old son. So he's more concerned about wings he has in Roblox than what he has in his physical wardrobe. He's wearing a t-shirt, but he's wearing some crazy crown. Crazy crown. He knows everything that he owns in Roblox. It makes a lot of sense for him. That's awesome. No, 100%. And we talk about this a lot, but the younger generation, it's so obvious to them because they grew up in digital spaces experiencing this. What I think is happening right now, this shift, and you guys are definitely some of the people at the forefront of this, but by pushing and perpetuating amazing, crazy, out of this world, digital silhouettes, digital outfits in virtual worlds in AR, we're expanding people's horizons and their idea of what's possible.

[15:55] And when they see somebody else wearing this, something that's not possible in reality, you immediately have this FOMO. How is that? How can I get that? So I feel like that's, I'm talking about this a little bit in my talk here, but I feel like that's really one of the things that's going to allow this shift, especially as everybody's now trying to figure out what the metaverse is. And that's actually one of the next things I want to talk to you guys about. But while everybody's trying to figure out what the metaverse is, people are actually going to discover what on-chain ownership means. So they're going to experience something. They're going to buy something off-chain. They're going to buy something on-chain and they're going to own both. And they're going to be like, wait a second, I only own one of these things. So I think it's going to be an amazing phenomenon that's happening over the next year. And that all kind of fits out of the umbrella of what I'm calling, we have e -commerce, but now we're having meta-commerce. And all the work that you guys are already doing with apps like Boson Protocol and other people trying to push forwards and make buying clothing on-chain in the metaverse easier. So I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on what you're working on right now and maybe some things you're excited about in the future.

[16:50] Well, making buying clothes on-chain easier is actually something that will bring this adoption. We see people would buy some of the items like a year ago from us. And when just this NFT craze started, they would say, oh my God, I'm so happy I bought my first NFT. And they'd say, well, not exactly, not exactly. And right now, yes, adoption grew, but still it will be mass market when it will be easier in terms of UX. And there are so many companies are working on that just for the whole industry in general, same as like e-commerce disrupted all the industries and was kind of a good thing for all the industries. The same will be applicable for fashion. So when it's like frictionless, when you just do it like easily, we don't know yet. And I think nobody knows yet whether it will be that like credit card has the like adoption and you just buy this credit card in NFT, which you can already do today or just like all the wallets will be so much adopted that we don't need credit cards anymore.

[17:57] We just sign all the transactions with our wallets or they might be something else, but it must be a good UX. And I would say we solve this kind of problem on our level. And what we do at DRESSX, we just see different kind of technologies and solutions and we kind of implement them to give the best user experience for the fashion kind of oriented community, right? So that's something that we really focus on and watch for, let's say. And yeah, I'm sure it will just come with the better UX and better experience and easier to use thing. There is an article from like Signal founder Moxie where he said, people don't want to run servers, people don't want to run protocols. So there will be some kind of, I don't know, like we are really adoption or whether it's an understanding or I don't want to say like centralization in a bad sense, but like internet was possible when like TCP IP protocol was adopted by everyone, right? So there might be something like that happening in a web3 and we are here to learn about it the first.

[19:13] Absolutely, absolutely. No, no, so many good points. This space is developing right in front of us and yeah, we have to, the easiest solution will win ultimately. So we have to kind of look at all the options right now and see, because if you have two options, what are you gonna choose? If you can buy in one click, one you should buy in three clicks, right? That's what people nature is about. No, that's huge. Anything else? Daria, what are you excited about right now? Oh, I'm super excited about mass adoption. I think everything that can be mass adopted and to make sure that it's not like staying as a small trend for 1000 people, which excites them. This is actually huge when you manage to do something innovative, but that is actually can empower the billions of people. That's what is exciting, like the project that can be built that will be very simple, very straightforward and that can explain all the advantages of the new economy and web3 and et cetera.

[20:11] And in the same article that Natalia quoted, of course, obviously Moxie mentions that so many things that are still yet to be developed and even those people who are in the industry right now, they not necessarily understand it until the very end, but that's a natural kind of development for everything that happens in the world, right? We don't understand at the beginning of what exactly should be done, but then we'll learn, right? And that's exactly what is happening, but how to make this gap shorter between learning and making it understandable for like billions of people who are using that on a daily basis. This is definitely very exciting. I totally agree with you. I talk a lot about the idea of a hypermodernity, kind of what you're talking about. Like we've reached this spot where we find it really difficult to comprehend what our future looks like because technology is moving way too fast. Like industrial revolution, we could easily understand, okay, a car, maybe if that car had wings, it would fly, okay. But now you look at a computer, you don't know what that computer is gonna turn into. Like you look at the internet, how is that gonna be the metaverse?

[21:07] It's not a logical next step. So I think that's really important for people to understand. It's okay to be worried and not understand everything, but one step at a time. And I think solutions such as your mobile app, for instance, are really required to let people kind of bridge that gap and ease that friction of what is this new thing? Can I use it easily and try to understand it? If so, maybe I'll actually do it again, because we see a lot of people try to buy into like an NFT project or something, and then they have a bad experience, and then they maybe don't wanna do it again. Yes, exactly. That's happened to so many friends of ours who we actually suggested to buy certain NFTs, and then they didn't know how to take it further. Or they messed up, or they didn't sell it, or whatever. Or they lost access to the wallet and et cetera. Just because it's so new and they're not doing that on a daily basis, they're working at some companies. And then they somehow blame whoever told them. Yes, exactly. But then you kind of need to guide them every day, or you need to build the project yourself. There's a lot of responsibility, like when we're all doing this all the time. That's why it takes sometimes more time for us maybe to release something, because we want to make sure that something that we built has the infrastructure that can be understood by everyone who is not doing that with NFTs on a daily basis, which is absolutely normal.

[22:18] It's like totally fine. Yes, most of the people don't do that. Exactly, yes. This is about inclusivity in the whole web3 space. And we do it through the fashion, because how we can facilitate it. We can give fashion to more people in the world. We can make the entrance to this fashion world and becoming a designer, becoming as a creator for more people. Because again, it's not that easy to start your fashion brand. It's not that easy to start your fashion brand for the metaverse as well, but it's more accessible, right? You don't have as much of a startup. Exactly, and then you can succeed if you really work harder than other people, right? So you can actually make it. It's like power in your hands, right? So that's something that we also kind of try to bring this notion and show that, yeah, you can start anywhere.

[23:14] It's not too late. Yesterday, it's not too late today, and it's not too late tomorrow, because it's still in early days. Right at the beginning. Yeah, it's all about like inclusivity is a space for everyone, and every voice will actually influence the result that we'll all have. Absolutely, absolutely. And I mean, you say it so well, but I think you guys are building the infrastructure or working to build the infrastructure to allow this onboarding to happen. And I have to shout it out, and I've mentioned it very briefly, but I have to shout it out just because I think it really is one of the best AR platforms right now on the market. You know, the DRESSX app, we'll have it linked somewhere in this article, but please do check it out and go through the process. And there's so many interesting resources. If you go to the DRESSX website, you'll see a lot of the projects that these lovely ladies are working on. But maybe if there's anything that you guys want to share that is currently going on or something you're excited about, when this is out, we're probably going to be coming up very closely to Metaverse Fashion Week and a whole bunch of other events, but you're always up to more things than I can even keep track of. So maybe just to leave us off on an exciting note, what's something that you're excited about right now?

[24:17] And am I in a wearable now? Yeah, we're excited actually to show that you can wear digital fashion already today. You don't have to wait until something will happen. You can just start doing it. Right now. Yeah, yeah. And actually like releasing all these new things that we've planned is amazing because we're working on bringing our vision of DRESSX as a digital fashion wardrobe and soon to be wallet. This is what excites us a lot and starting to work with more people, doing more partnerships. That's definitely what everyone is focused on. I love it. And I love that you're doing it live. Yeah, it's live. And again, it's so much more exciting to start wearing digital fashion than you will understand how to like make it or you'll just get ideas and inspiration or not. Just definitely fine, but it's so much more exciting to actually try it and wear it rather than listen about it or like read about it.

[25:22] So I just encourage everyone to start earlier than later. It's tangible and you can do it right now. So everybody go check out their app, check out their website. Daria and Natalia, always a pleasure. Thanks so much for taking the time. Lovely to be together IRL here in Denver. And also want to say thank you to everybody for watching today. This has been awesome. Appreciate DRESSX for joining us and we'll see you next time. Here on NFTS.WTF. Thanks so much for watching. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Let's all DRESSX. Thank you.

David Cash https://www.davidcash.ca