Enter the Metaverse: Dressing Our Avatars | Genies, Ready Player Me, UNXD | MVFW 2022 Panel Series

The first full panel of Metaverse Fashion Week 2022 asks how we dress our avatars and why it matters. David Cash hosts Giovanna Casimiro of Decentraland, Shashi Menon of UNXD, Timmu Tõke of Ready Player Me, Allison Sturges of Genies, and Steven Leaton of Boson Protocol, recorded in Decentraland in March 2022. They cover fashion as identity, avatars that travel between worlds, luxury on the runway, and buying physical goods inside a virtual one.

Watch on YouTube

Chapters

1. 00:00 Welcome and panel introductions
2. 01:57 Allison Sturges on Genies
3. 03:37 Steven Leaton on Boson Protocol
4. 04:40 Timmu Tõke on portable avatars
5. 06:50 Shashi Menon on UNXD and fashion as identity
6. 09:06 Giovanna Casimiro on community and the week ahead
7. 13:36 Luxury brands on the MVFW runways
8. 16:53 The Fashion District and physical goods as NFTs
9. 19:42 The Cash Labs Gallery and other activations
10. 21:56 Runway design, pop-ups, and community spaces
11. 26:25 Interoperable avatars and the open metaverse
12. 32:34 Closing thoughts from the panel

Speakers

• Giovanna Casimiro, Head of Events, Decentraland
• Shashi Menon, CEO of UNXD; CEO and publisher, Wired Middle East and Vogue Arabia
• Timmu Tõke, CEO, Ready Player Me
• Allison Sturges, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Genies
• Steven Leaton, Head of Experiences and Environments, Boson Protocol
• David Cash, curator of MVFW (host)

Key topics

• Fashion as a primary way to express identity in virtual worlds
• Portable, interoperable avatars that move between many worlds
• Creator tools for avatar fashion at Genies
• Luxury houses on the first MVFW runways, including Dolce & Gabbana and Etro
• Boson Protocol's Fashion District and buying physical goods as NFTs
• The Cash Labs Gallery, SHOWstudio's fashion film festival, and community districts
• The detail work behind digital couture at UNXD
• Wearables that unlock functions inside virtual worlds

In their words

"we really see fashion as the first killer use case in the metaverse" (Shashi Menon)

"It makes sense to have a portable avatar that travels with you across the metaverse." (Timmu Tõke)

How to cite

APA: Cash, D. (2022). Enter the Metaverse: Dressing Our Avatars | Genies, Ready Player Me, UNXD | MVFW 2022 Panel Series [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/CaXwCsVY2FI

Chicago: Cash, David. "Enter the Metaverse: Dressing Our Avatars | Genies, Ready Player Me, UNXD | MVFW 2022 Panel Series." Recorded March 2022. YouTube video, 44:17. https://youtu.be/CaXwCsVY2FI.

Recording details

Recorded: March 2022

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

Length: 44:17 · 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.

[0:09] Hello, everybody. Welcome to Metaverse Fashion Week, the first ever full-scale fashion week here in Decentraland. My name is David Cash. I am your master of ceremonies for the panels over the next four days. This is our first official panel. We really appreciate you joining us for this, and we're really excited to kick off this incredible week of fashion, art, and innovation. So the title of this panel is Enter the Metaverse, Dressing Our Avatars. So we have a collection of experts here, ranging from reps from Decentraland, UNXD, and Boson Protocol, to reps from two of the leading avatar companies currently in the market, Ready Player Me, and of course Genies. So really excited for today's conversation. Just running through the panel, I'm going to let everybody introduce themselves in a little bit more detail. But of course, we have with us Gia Vana, Casamiro, head of events at Decentraland. We have Shashi Menon, CEO of UNXD, and

[1:00] CEO and publisher of Wired Middle East and Vogue Arabia, amongst other companies. We have Steven Leighton, head of experiences and environments at Boson Protocol, Alison Sturgis, head of strategic partnerships at Genies, and last but of course not least, Team Mutoke, CEO at Ready Player Me. So we have an incredible panel of folks here today, and I'd love to take a moment to let each of them introduce themselves in a little bit more detail, and tell you a little bit more about what we have going on over the week at Fashion Week, and what all of these incredible experts are excited about right now in the space. I'm really excited right now about this series of panels that we're going to be doing over the next few days. We hope you join us twice a day here on the Decentraland main stage, every day of Fashion Week, from some thoughts from leaders in this space. So with all of that being said, let's kick it off. If

[1:44] it's okay with everybody, I'm just gonna go in the order of people as I see them before me. So why don't we start off, if it's okay with you, with Alison Sturgis. Alison from Genies, would you like to tell us a little bit more about yourself, what's exciting you right now with Genies, and what you're looking forward to this week at Fashion Week. Awesome, yeah, thanks so much for having us on the panel. Really excited to be here and for Fashion Week. I'm part of the founding team at Genies and head of Strategic Partnerships, and for Genies, you know, like you mentioned, we are an avatar technology company. Our mission is to really empower humans to be able to create and fully own their own avatar ecosystems, where we're really looking to provide the tools that empower creators, designers, artists, and brands, you know, to create their own avatars, their own avatar fashion lines, their own avatar worlds, and even their

[2:35] own avatar interactive experiences. You know, over the past few years, we've been representing thousands of celebrity talent through their avatar identity, ranging from Justin Bieber, JLo, Cardi B, Migos, Paris Hilton, even performed at Decentraland a couple months ago for the live stream concert. And so we've really seen talent and tastemakers as kind of the pioneers of our avatars and avatar utility. And that really led us to our partnerships with UMG and WMG. And now we're really looking to expand our creator tools over the next coming months. Again, to really empower creators to, you know, design, monetize and create their own avatars, avatar fashion lines, and avatar ecosystems. Awesome, thanks so much, Alison. Really happy to have you here. Up next, in my view right now, Mr. Stephen Leighton from Boson Protocol. How are you doing? And tell us a little bit about what you're excited about here at

[3:33] Fashion Week and what Boson is activating here in Decentraland. Wicked, thank you, David. Yeah, real pleasure to be here with you all. My name is Stephen, Head of Experiences and Environments of Boson Protocol. For those of you that don't know Boson Protocol, we're a decentralized web3 commerce stack, and we've built the network to enable future commerce. So our contribution for Fashion Week, we're a strategic partner enabling the sale of physical goods as NFTs. Alongside that, we've built out the Fashion District as one of the main areas for the Fashion Week. So yeah, really excited to be here. Our main focus is kind of bridging this gap between digital and physical. As we explore digital lives, digital citizens, what does that mean? And how do we connect backwards to the real world? So excited to explore these topics later on in the conversation.

[4:24] Awesome. Thanks so much, Stephen. Very happy to have you here. Again, up next, in my view, is Teaboo from Ready Player Me. Really happy to have you here. Give us a little bit of an insight what's going on in your world and what you're excited about in terms of fashion and avatars right now. Yeah, yeah, so nice. Great to be here. Yeah, my name is Timo. I'm the CEO of Ready Player Me. We're building a cross game avatar platform for the metaverse. We see that the metaverse is not a single place. It's a network of dozens of different worlds. It doesn't really make sense for users to create a new avatar for themselves for each world. It makes sense to have a portable avatar that travels with you across the metaverse. That's what we are for end users. And we actually achieve portability by working with a lot of developers and providing them an avatar system.

[5:13] So they wouldn't have to invent a new avatar system, they could just use Ready Player Me and focus on their game. We work with 1,600 companies that use our avatars and you can use the Ready Player Me avatars across all those places. You can attach NFTs and fashion to the avatars that then becomes portable and interoperable across those worlds. And we're really focused on outer interoperability and creating kind of an outer layer. And also potentially including other avatars and Ready Player Me in the future and helping those travel across worlds as well. Yeah, what I'm excited about is you know, I think virtual fashion and avatars are kind of like, you know, they're kind of, they need to exist together basically. And I think, you know, for fashion creators, the problem is like getting your fashion used, you know, to be used in in worlds like how can you make it usable in games since it's not obvious and so easy. And that's kind of how

[6:11] we fit into the ecosystem is like, you know, it can build that fashion for our avatars and then we make sure that they become usable across, you know, the metaverse. So anyways, that's what we do. Awesome, awesome. Thanks so much, Jimo. I'm excited to delve into the avatar conversation in a little more depth as well. Gigi, I would like to end with you if that's okay, because we have a lot to talk about in terms of what's going on here as a whole. So up next, a huge part of Fashion Week this year, Shashi and by extension, UNXT, Vogorabia and all the other incredible companies you're leading. Tell us a little bit about what all the things you're doing at Fashion Week this year, and what's exciting you within the realm of virtual fashion right now. Cool. So big, big, or big thanks to everyone here on the call. And of course, to Decentraland and you, David, for helping to architect all of this. As a quick intro to

[7:00] UNXT, our vision is on bringing luxury and culture to the metaverse. And we work with some of the world's greatest brands and designers and creators to bring that creativity on chain. We are one of the few teams I think that really sits at the intersection of crypto and luxury in particular. And our background in luxury is over a decade and longer than we've been in the crypto space. But thinking about fashion and identity, we really see fashion as the first killer use case in the metaverse. And having spent a lot of time in the fashion industry around the world, I've really gotten a sense and we've really gotten a sense for how important fashion is in the real world in terms of identity. But in the real world, we have all of these other cues that help to express identity. You have personality, you have communication, you have non-verbal cues. All of that is way less pronounced in the metaverse. So the role

[7:53] that fashion is going to play in building the conception of identity is far more pronounced in the metaverse. So that's something that really excites us. As it relates to NFTs, we really see culture as the underlying currency there. And NFTs have already started revolutionizing the market around what digital culture is. And that's really what we're looking to build. Coming from a background in editorial and media and entertainment ourselves, what we've tried to do is just create and craft stories around important cultural moments, which I think is a perfect segue into what the metaverse fashion would give. I think it is a defining cultural moment in the early story of the metaverse. And we're so excited to see just how much interest there's been from well-established brands all the way down to the earliest creators and all coming together to share the responsibility for building what that future looks like.

[8:53] Beautiful, beautiful. Very well said, Shashi. And really excited to delve into a little bit more all of the incredible things that you and your team are doing this year at Fashion Week. And we'll do so momentarily. But just to give a little bit more context into all the things that are happening this week, I'd love to just give the stage over to my colleague and now dear friend, Gigi Giovanna, really the backbone of Fashion Week and somebody who I can safely say this week would not be able to have happened without. Gigi, you've done so many things on so many levels. I'm sure your head is spinning now that this is finally actually happening. Tell us what you're thinking about and maybe a little bit of information on some of the general activations happening this week as we're just getting started. What are you excited about at Adverse Fashion Week this year? So first, thank you, everybody, to be here and

[9:40] for the invitation and welcome everyone in the event, right? We're opening the event with this conversation. And I really liked a lot of things that all of you mentioned, but Shashi, I think your point on identity and how fashion is going to play a big role in representing the identity of the players. I think that's very true. And I think all of us personally and professionally are interested in seeing how this ecosystem and this particular creative economy is going to expand more and more as users understand how they can appropriately fashion as part of their self more in the metaverse. Definitely a lot of things are going on in my head because we have so many fronts, but it's a great sense of accomplishment because it's a team effort. There are so many people involved, including the team from UNXD, Boston Protocol and so many others that have been doing an excellent work. And I think the word that keeps coming

[10:37] to me is the idea of community and really proactivity. There are so many amazing initiatives that were created by so many communities and groups. And that's one beautiful thing to see, that fashion belongs to all of us, right? And it becomes even more beautiful when the fashion is created by us to us and we give back. So I think that that's a lot of what I see happening. And definitely one of the things that I see that I would love really to explore and maybe Shashi can even at some point elaborate, is how we see traditional brands going beyond. So this is something that really excites me personally, thinking about the creative process of going beyond what they're used to do and our physical world, how we can go even further and play more, enjoy more and not just do the fashion from the business sense of it, but in a playful way, including the users in that process in many ways, right? So we have a very

[11:44] diverse event. Today is just the beginning of so many things that will be happening. And I think the beautiful part is that we can see a diversity of activities going from runaway shows, amazing districts being built. We have luxury shops, new designer shops. We have different high end brands and community spaces where you can purchase different kind of creations. And we're going to have several immersive experiences being watched through the week. Pretty much special stores where you'd be able to have a very artsy, immersive experience, not just going for shopping, but for other activities. And we have different after parties, which I think it's going to be always the end of every day. We'll be able to have a few after parties to relax and join with our friends and celebrate with good music and good wearables, the day and the accomplishments of the day. So I invite everyone to be part of that and I hope you

[12:42] all enjoy. Awesome. Thank you so much, Gigi. I'm really excited about all the things we've had planned. And again, I said it before, I have to say it again, it would not have happened without you. So thank you so much for everything that you've done. And now I'd like to take a moment and just touch on a few of the things that Gigi mentioned. And those are the activations taking place this week. So if it's all right with everybody here, I'd love to just segment this conversation a little bit. Let's talk a little bit about the activations that are happening via Boson protocol, UNXD. And I'll also talk very briefly about what I'm activating as well. And then I'd love to go a little bit more in depth with our two avatar experts and talk a little bit about what we can, you know, think about this week as we're looking towards the future of, you know, identity in the metaverse. So if it's okay, Gigi just

[13:26] passed it over to you, Shashi, so I'll pass it back over to you. We'd love to get a little more detail on some of the brands you're activating, what you're really excited about this week and what people can attend and get excited for over the next few days. Yeah, so I mean, the role has really been to try to bring a little bit of the of the sizzle to the process and really elevate the overall platform by bringing luxury brands that people know and recognize in the real world to help to create an effective on ramp into thinking about what fashion might look like in the metaverse. And what we think and really one of the drive forces behind even coming up with this idea of a fashion week was to create a format that already starts by resembling something that people understand in the real world. Because that becomes an effective platform to then innovate and do something that is completely different from what

[14:12] people experience. So we've brought brands like Dolce & Gabbana, ETRO, Dundas, Jacob & Co. as well as really, really fantastic designers like Guo Pei from China that have a long track record of innovating in the real world and producing some of the most spectacular real world products, but be some of the most spectacular real world experiences. And I think, again, coming back to this idea, the metaverse fashion week is going to be this historical cultural moment that will define how people think about the evolution of fashion in the metaverse. Like this is stage zero from which everything else will spawn and from which everything else will be compared to. And so we were so excited to see brands that we have grown up experiencing being willing to come in at this point when no one really knows what the metaverse is yet or what fashion might look like and be part of that creation story. So some of these brands are

[15:11] producing really incredible runway shows and taking the time to produce pieces that may or may not ever exist in the real world, which I think takes a special special degree of adventurism, which we really admire. And then other brands are producing these really immersive pop-ups and special experiences that Gigi mentioned that will only ever exist in the metaverse. But again, somehow creatively resemble something that people might be able to associate with the real world. So across the four days, each day, there's a series of runway shows and then these pop-ups that will exist throughout the entire period that people can come and explore and really mix their conception of fashion and fantasy. And I think that combination is what will make this this whole week so fun. I know myself included, but I think we're all really looking forward to checking out all the things that you and your team have

[16:06] put together. Really excited about this high fashion district that you've presented and can't wait to check it out. Up next, I'd love to pass the mic over to Stephen. I know Boson Protocol has done a really 360 activation this year. We have a shopping area. You guys have integrated a whole new realm of what I mean, you guys have some beautiful names for what I'm calling it meta commerce or metaverse commerce, because you're really, I believe, innovating and pushing things forwards and allowing people to buy virtual fashion NFTs as NFTs the way that they've experienced them on other platforms, which I think is really important, you know, allowing EAT native users to be able to buy NFTs with EAT. So that's my two cents, but I'd love to pass it over to you. Would you like to let the people know a little bit about what Boson is activating this year and what they can go check out in the Boson Protocol area?

[16:53] Yeah, absolutely. I'll start off about why it is that we built in and why we're focused on this. And as I mentioned before, we're set to revolutionize the future of commerce and we've built the network upon which it will run. As we see it, it's important for everybody to be able to access this from your top tier brands that we're working with, Shashi mentioned that we're bringing in. But all the way down to your community led independent makers. As Gigi said earlier, it's such a community led space and we shouldn't necessarily just provide this evolution in tech to existing big global names. But what can we do for citizen empowerment, user empowerment and also give them the tools to create and monetize their creations? So it applies to all.

[17:40] Excited to say that we're working with top end brands, people like Tommy Hilfiger, a lot of your crypto NFT projects, Deadfellas, Fang Gang, and then there's some independent creators there as well. We have our land within Decentraland called Portal. It's a fully customizable brand environment for brand experiences that gives rise to commerce as well. And I think we've also touched on culture as an important one here. People are coming in for reasons and that reason has to be there first. Why are they coming in? Why are they visiting? What is the intention there? And I think if you bring in these new innovative, immersive ways for people to absorb content and interact with brands, it gives rise to future opportunity. So inside our land, inside Portal, we built the fashion district and it's a beautiful boulevard of what you'd expect from a web three activation, a very future bound, very, very

[18:34] innovative in its aesthetic. And yeah, come along to find out more. Twenty stores, twenty retail units from a whole host of brands that gives rise to exciting, innovative opportunities, digital items. And then our specialism is being able to attach physical products, real world assets, exchange of digital value. So, yeah, for the first time ever, excited to say that we were able to bridge the gap. Digital campaigns, digital strategies are no longer detached from the physical component of that. You can buy physical goods from within digital worlds. And I think that just extends as well to people's projection of themselves. You want to project yourself in these digital environments. It doesn't have to be detached from your real life now. You can buy and your avatar can wear the brand and you can also wear that brand.

[19:25] And yeah, bridging the gap between digital and physical. A digital barrier has been reached. We have the bridge. It exists. Thanks so much, Stephen. And I'm really excited about everything you and Boson are doing and make sure you go check out the Boson area. There's a lot of amazing brands activating in whole new ways. I would love to take a quick moment and chat about the activation that my brand is doing. And then I'd also love to pass the mic over to Gigi to just mention a few of the other core partners and activations and things that are happening, what you can expect. And then, of course, we're moving this on to the avatar conversation, what I'm sure many people are here for. But I just want to really quickly mention, I think that we have a whole bunch of different bases covered in terms of representation, as Gigi mentioned this year. We have high fashion. We have community projects.

[20:07] We have NFT projects. We have digital fashion native brands. But the angle that my company, Cash Labs, wanted to come from is exploring the intersection of art and fashion in the metaverse. So if you come by the Cash Labs gallery, another one of the core activations in the Decentraland area, we were also one of the strategic partners helping curate and put this event on alongside Decentraland and, of course, all the other core partners. And yeah, in our space, you'll find a mixture of digital fashion brands, artists and fashion designers all with all working at this intersection. We have folks like Christa Kim, the Fabrikan, DressX, or Aboris, also traditional fashion brands like Botere Paris or Avavav in Italy, kind of these interesting up-and-coming brands. And then, of course, two activations that we're very excited about.

[20:54] We're going to have a mini art gallery by Bright Hall on the roof. We have a sculpture garden in the foyer featuring brands, including Karl Lagerfeld, Luxo and others. And then, of course, we're doing a partnership with SHOWstudio, presenting a fashion film festival on our roof. So really trying to fill the gaps and present fashion in all of their different forms. And this is the gap I'd like to bridge right now, moving it over to Gigi. I think one of the things that we're really exploring, all of us are really exploring right now in this space, is how can we present fashion? What are more ways that we can present fashion, both that have been done before and that couldn't be done within the confines of reality? Because obviously in this metaverse space, the doors are open and we can do anything we could imagine. So, Gigi, just to pass it over to you before we start talking specifically about Avatar's identity,

[21:39] etc., do you want to let people know maybe what they can expect in terms of how our runway is going to be presented, how can fashion be presented in a retail space, and all of the exciting things that the central end are doing with immersive experiences to bring fashion to this new level in the metaverse. Gigi, I'll pass it over to you. Thank you, David. So absolutely, we're going to have quite a few experiences that are different than what people are used to see, I would say, in the physical world. So the catalog specifically is where we are trying to put a lot of effort to bring a new static. So you will see a lot of things that are out of ordinary. There is a lot of work being done with animations and, of course, the mannequins we're creating. And we are trying to create a special move for each brand, mixing in a very, like, with a very playful environment.

[22:29] So our whole team has been working in several kinds of special animations, special effects, particles and lights that I think will make not just the runaways, specifically the strip, but the overall space, very immersive and unique for all the users to be there. And I would like to highlight that I think the pop-up shops themselves, they are quite immersive. We have brands really putting effort in telling a big story inside their spaces. So not just the items that we showcase, like the garments, but we have very unique shops. We have some shops really telling stories that are about the universe. Some are immersing yourselves inside their patterns and their traditional couture. We're going to have very engaging shops. So I think that's nice because it's a way to continue the identity of the brand beyond the physical spaces.

[23:20] And of course, I think it's super relevant to say that we do have quite a few communities involved in the project. So we have Metaparty, we have Dragon City, we have Metatokyo, Fangea, DAO. So there's so many community-based initiatives as well, and they are very free to create the way they want. So they will be able to express passion through the community lenses, which is quite interesting as well. So I would expect a lot of playfulness. Of course, there will be a lot of glitter, a lot of particles, and a lot of things around the users that they can interact with. And particularly our runaway, I would like to highlight the design of that. It's the simple infinite that you will be able to see, and you're probably already walking around and seeing because there's an entire dynamic of how the mannequins will be catawalking in there.

[24:12] And we created a special emojis and emotes for that. So you'll be able to see voguing emotes and all their very full movements for our avatar is that we do this, which will be available for the player. So I hope everybody enjoy that. Awesome. Thanks so much for that, Gigi. Yeah, I think it's safe to say that all of the central land, and even you could say by extension of the metaverse, is really activating this week. This is a week to celebrate fashion in the metaverse across all barriers, and we're hoping to remove some barriers this week. I think that's a big thing. One thing the central land I know pushes for, which I think I can speak for most of the people, if not all the people on this call, that we all believe in an open metaverse. You know, we're seeking to facilitate a metaverse that allows for interoperability and being able to move from one space to another space with ease. And I think the central

[24:55] land is one of the spaces that really facilitates that, you know, even from its core, the fact that when you view an NFT or an artwork or a piece of fashion, you can click on it and go to wherever that creator would like to send you, their website or an NFT, you know, marketplace, et cetera. And I think by extension now in Fashion Week, we're going to see a lot of examples of people bringing in AR filters, being able to scan something in a metaverse on a wall and see it, you know, in your physical environment, being able to go to external sites, other spaces like Spatial or another metaverse, or even, you know, going to external Web2 sites where people can do things like build a meta-human. You know, there's a whole bunch of different activations taking place over this week that are going to facilitate kind of exploration on all different levels in the metaverse. And I think it's awesome to mention that

[25:36] so many of our community members beyond, you know, the core list of activations are activating this week across the central land and across the metaverse. And just to I should mention, just because there are another set of activations that a lot of brands are activating in that I would recommend checking out. And I do recommend checking out all of the central land this week. Please explore. But the Rarible Shopping Village has a number of awesome brands that are also activating, including Perry Ellis and Fred Segal amongst others. And of course, also Collective has a runway series featuring a lot of your favorite virtual fashion brands, including the Fabricant, DressX, KidSuper and many others. So definitely look out for all the activations that we have coming up this week. And hopefully this was a this was a decent, decent segue. But given the idea of the open metaverse and given what we're

[26:20] all trying to push for and facilitate, I would love to talk about that idea in a little bit more detail. So we obviously have two experts here from two of the leading avatar companies. Teemu, I know that you, you know, rush today, you're at South by Southwest in the past magically and you took time out of your day to see us and join us for this conversation. I would love to hear some thoughts from you in terms of, you know, how we can all work towards facilitating this open metaverse and how having maybe one core avatar or, you know, something to identify with through an avatar can be, you know, instrumental to facilitating that future. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for the question. So I think like what we what we see is obviously metaverse is going to be extremely important and we don't want to see like one metaverse win and, you know, we don't want to live in the meta metaverse.

[27:09] So and for like lots of worlds to kind of exist side by side, they need to be connected. There needs to be an easy way to, you know, go from one virtual world to another and have a consistent virtual experience. And then I think, you know, essential for building the metaverse. I think that's kind of like what makes the current kind of gaming world look more like a metaverse as well. It's like having more connected virtual worlds. So that's kind of where it starts from. And then it's like, you know, what are the kind of services? What are the what are the things that need to exist that are interoperable, like on an essential level, right? Like you need an avatar in every place. It doesn't make sense for you to create a new avatar everywhere. You know, like it doesn't that like breaks the experience. It like it doesn't make sense. So it's good.

[27:57] It's an essential part of building the metaverse. It's like interoperable avatars and and, you know, there's other things that need to need to exist as well. But that's what we are focused on. And I think it's like extremely unlikely that people will just have one avatar that they will use for everything. You know, it's like just not going to happen. You want to have a little bit like different different actors for different use cases. You know, I might have one primary avatar, but you still have one to have several. And that's why also, like we don't see ourselves as just you know, like an avatar company. We see ourselves as a network that provides interoperability for avatars. And today it's just our avatars because it's kind of a good starting point, basically. But but overall, I think there needs to be kind of a free yeah, interoperability for avatars and identities like that's an essential part.

[28:50] And it goes to the economy and the fashion around the avatars as well as others. Awesome. Yeah. Thank you for that insight. I think that, you know, as we start thinking about where we're at right now in terms of virtual fashion and once people have fully wrapped their minds around, you know, buying wearables and existing within this ecosystem, which I'm sure many people listening right now either have done or in the process of doing this week. I think these are the types of thoughts that I would love for people to start thinking about about interoperability and have they maybe experienced Sandbox and Decentraland now. And what are the differences and yeah, how can how can we bridge those worlds? So thank you so much for that, Timmu. I'd love to pose the same question to Alison, because I know that, you know, I would say that these are two of the leading avatar companies. But I know both of you

[29:30] come at this from slightly different angles. But at the same time, you know, both release be really beautiful products. So, Alison, maybe you want to explain a little bit more of the approach from Genies and how your work is also moving towards facilitating this open metaverse we're all moving towards. Absolutely. You know, I think something that all of us here on the panel have discussed is really around empowering creation and exploration and even ownership of these digital assets in Web 3. And for us, we really view avatars as a tool across all of these different landscape, digital landscapes as people are spending more and more time in the digital world. But a tool for them to have that freedom of expression, freedom of creation and really build, like I said at the beginning, you know, their avatar ecosystems, you know, similar to how Apple has built apps.

[30:19] And now any developer can comment and create these apps. In the future, we're going to have avatar ecosystems and avatar worlds and, you know, having an avatar identity that's something that people can relate to, they can attach to and then they can build their creations beyond that. And I think interoperability is definitely a big component of that, you know, similar to what Timo was saying. You know, people are going to be able to port their avatars into different platforms, use it in different experiences. That's going to open up different use cases and even interactions with other people within these ecosystems. So, you know, I think for us really empowering that kind of creation from the beginning for us, you know, we're starting with fashion as kind of the first creator tools that we're looking to provide. And that'll be for non-technical, technical users alike.

[31:08] So a pretty wide range of technical capabilities that people will be able to create these avatar fashion, NFT collections that they'll be able to drop in our marketplace. But over time, we do see a world where that'll even have, you know, cross chain, cross marketplace capabilities. And then, of course, when it comes down to the avatar and the different use cases and utility points, you know, I think the more that companies like all of us here are working together, collaborating, innovating together, you know, we're only going to find more and more use cases for, you know, anyone that's leveraging these digital identities. Absolutely. Absolutely. A lot of really important points there. And, you know, I really encourage people who are listening right now, no matter where you're at in your journey in terms of the metaverse or digital identity, just to start exploring some of these notions.

[31:56] You know, I think that that's one of the most exciting parts about this week. This is an amazing, you know, petri dish of experimentation on all levels from the biggest companies in the world to local brands just making it happen. So I think there's so much you can learn and explore over the course of this week from all the activations that we've talked about today and beyond. So I really encourage people to explore, even if it's your first time in the metaverse, experience some of these spaces, figure out what they're all about and see how these folks are making sense of the metaverse. And then go beyond. If this is something that interests you, you know, I highly recommend you to check out the brands of all of the speakers today and especially, you know, what some of these avatars of the future look like through genies and through Ready Player Me. Just to end this conversation off, I'd love to pass the mic around

[32:36] just one more time to hear some closing thoughts from each of our incredible panelists. I'd love to start it off this time with Shashi, if that's all right. Shashi, I know that you have a really amazing approach through UNXD of digitizing garments that go beyond the confines of reality, right? They're incredible. They're made in Unreal Engine. They're like these heightened garments. And obviously, you're bringing those pieces into Decentraland. So I just want to talk maybe a little bit about this idea of interoperability and how we can go beyond just one space to create experiences that go beyond one space can be experienced in the metaverse, but are have multiple touch points, if that makes sense. So I would love to hear some closing thoughts from you. And yeah, I appreciate everything that you guys are doing. Sure. Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of creation, one of the things that we really wanted to lean into

[33:20] is what makes fashion and specifically luxury special in the real world, because fashion as an industry and luxury as a subsegment of that industry for a very long period of time has just not been known to be an early adopter of technology. And one of the reasons why that is the case is because there's been an intrinsic fear that in digitizing, they're actually losing what makes them special in the real world, which is physical artistry, physical craftsmanship. So our starting point was to try to solve for that by taking an incredibly hands-on approach to creating garments digitally that look and felt like they do in the real world. So almost a digital couture process in creation. So the first collection that we launched with Dolce & Gabbana, our team literally spent thousands of hours obsessing over the smallest micro details of texturing and fabric movement and lighting and shadowing.

[34:14] And the specific way light would reflect off of a specific portion of a garment from a specific angle, like things that most people may never notice. Yeah, but things that most people would would never necessarily notice unless it was pointed out. But in doing so, people understood like how this was different and why it felt different for the first time. And it wasn't necessarily the greatest innovation. It was just a tremendous amount of time and a tremendous amount of energy in doing that that no one had done until that point. And that, I think, solved for a key fear in this sub-segment and removed one of the obstacles to onboarding brands into the space was showing that we could actually natively bridge the world of luxury and the worlds of crypto or the metaverse.

[35:01] Now, how that plays out in platforms like Decentraland and any other platform is really a case of adapting to what the medium supports. And this is where the experimentation part of it is really fun. I've kind of likened it the process of building a plane and building the instrumentation and writing manual for how to use that instrumentation while the plane is already in the air. And I think the fun part is that everyone on this call is kind of great at in real time and none of us really know where it's going yet, which is which is fun. And to see large established brands being willing to participate and experiment and potentially fail in real time is incredibly powerful because it kind of gives an environment where everyone can do the same thing on equal footing.

[35:49] Absolutely, absolutely. It's really empowering and hopefully it encourages people on all levels to take the leap as well. Thanks so much for that, Shashi. So happy we can have you here. We'd love to pass the mic over to Steven. Steven, I know that, you know, you and all the folks at Boson are doing so much to bridge physical and digital. So you are inherently going beyond, you know, a single digital space. So maybe if you just want to wrap up with a few ideas on how we can facilitate this open metaverse through solutions like yours. I think overall, Fashion Week, as we've said, is going to produce such an iconic historical moment. And I think there's a few underlining changes in the world that brought us to this moment. We've gone from web one to web two and now we're arriving at web three. And so we have a community owned platform. If we think about consumer behavior and retail experiences,

[36:39] we've gone from higher streets into 2D websites and now we're going into 3D worlds and more and more our lives seem to be becoming digital, the technology that's available to us, the fact that we can now connect to loved ones around the world instantly, more and more our lives are becoming digital. And I don't think it needs to be looked at as a replacement of real life. This is an extension of our real selves. What is the psychology of appearance, the psychology of self, tribalism, society? What does this mean in digital worlds? Fascinating conversations that no doubt we can dive deeper into. But the point I'd like to make is that it's not a replacement of real life. It's an extension of ourselves. These are new environments that we can take ourselves into. And so we place a high importance on bridging the gap.

[37:26] And that's what we try to solve with our technology. Come into these digital worlds, remove the barriers of what is physically possible, and we have new creative boundaries within these worlds. But it's the importance of connecting it to ourselves in real life. And that's what our bridge does. So come into these digital worlds, explore what it means, but connect back to your real self. And for fashion specifically, we all understand the importance of how we project ourselves and you can replicate what you do in the digital world with what you do in the physical world. So, yeah, open, open metaverse, interoperability is key. Who I am in real life, I'd like to extend that into the metaverse. And they're saying what I do in the metaverse, I'd like to be able to have it in the real world. Cross-platform, inverse, in real world.

[38:13] So, yeah, I think it's going to be a great four days and excited to see what this one holds for us all. Awesome. Thank you so much, Stephen. So happy to have you and the team as a part of this week. And thank you so much for everything that you're doing. Please, everyone, do make sure to check out activations from UNXD and Boson Protocol. You will absolutely not regret it. Gigi, if it's OK, I'd love to end with you. So let's go back to our two friends. Alison, let's start with you. Any other closing thoughts or thoughts or things that are you excited for this week? Seeing fashion really emerge in the metaverse at this level? Yeah, I guess, you know, for the for the Fashion Week, definitely excited to see all the different kind of collaboration and innovation touch points. I know there's a lot of really exciting brands and web three companies and projects and technologies kind of joining for for the week.

[39:02] So really cool to see so many people collaborating such a grand scale. And it's going to be fun to kind of explore the space and check out all the different creations. You know, I think for genies looking forward ahead, we're really excited again about our creator tools that we're already starting to roll out. We're currently accepting applications from creators, designers, artists, brands and more. So I think anyone listening in the audience, if you're interested in trying out our tools and being one of our first creators for the genies app and Mark Place, definitely check out our website. But really excited for for everything to come in the space. And thank you guys again for having us on. Perfect announcement. Very appropriate crowd. Hopefully people get some values value out of that.

[39:49] Thanks so much, Alison. Appreciate you joining us today. Next, second to last, but of course not least, Timmu again, thank you so much for being here. Any closing thoughts on, you know, the state of the art in terms of avatars or what you're excited to witness this coming week? Yeah, so I mean, I definitely agree that fashion is a big part of our identity and will be in a virtual world as well and brands. And like that's that's a big part of like how you represent yourself. I think, you know, like the challenge to scale virtual fashion and NFT fashion will be, you know, kind of usability for an average user. So like what makes fashion usable? What makes virtual fashion valuable for an average user of the metaverse is like being able to use it in a game you play or in a world you visit regularly, right?

[40:40] And I think that's, you know, that's a part that needs to need to get solved and needs to get more energy, more attention, like because that's what it takes to scale that industry, right? Like we can we have we have the kind of early collectives market right now that, you know, is driving the market, but ultimately it will be important to get these things usable. And that's a technical challenge, right? It's not just creating the assets, it's creating assets that are actually usable in the metaverse. Otherwise, the value will be limited. So yeah, and then, you know, always that's what we work on. We drive it by me. And yeah, like we can offer access to thousands of worlds through our avatars. And that's just one way of achieving that utility. But yeah, anyways, that's kind of that those are my thoughts and enjoy the rest of the week.

[41:31] I'm sure it will be exciting. Awesome. Thanks so much, Timmu. So happy to have you here again. And everybody watching, please do make sure to check out Ready Player Me and Genie's two companies really leading the space in terms of what the future of avatars look like. Really happy to have both of you here. And finally, our queen here. We have to end with Giovanna. So Giovanna, really appreciate you being here. Any final thoughts before we close out this conversation here today? I do have the final thoughts. And actually, I would like to take something that Timmu was mentioning about the functionality of wearables. And I was really thinking how our team internally, when we were making the fashion meetup, we were really thinking how can we create portable experiences where fashion items they trigger specific functionalities in the world.

[42:19] So I just wanted to extend a little bit that thought that I feel that what we will see from now on in the fashion inside the metaverse is that they can be functional like bad and all that full of utilities value that you can actually put those two to the game and play with the fashion literally as well. So that will be an interesting perspective, Timo, that I just wanted to to expand on what we said. But overall, I hope everybody enjoys this week. It is a week that was tailored with a lot of care and a lot of passion from all of the people in this panel, but by all the teams that I'm representing and by the brands and the creators. And I think that the name when we created metaverse session weekend and that was Sam Hamilton, who who created the name, was exactly thinking that one day that fashion week will not be contained in the central and will be doing that with other platforms.

[43:15] And that's why it's metaverse, not the central and fashion week. Right. So that desire stays from the day one that we wish to have that interpretability there so we can extend that fashion week across worlds and do a beautiful fashion to grow among all of our universities and creators. So enjoy the week. And thank you for everything, everyone. Absolutely, Gigi, thank you so much for those closing comments. That was beautiful. And yeah, I mean, I'm really excited and I hope that everybody listening to this right now is too. We're about to get started. The week is about to begin. We have so much programming happening over the next four days. Please check out the central and dot org dot events. If I'm not mistaken, to find out all of the details, check out all of our socials at UNXD both on protocol, Cash Labs and, of course, the central and or the central and underscore foundation on Instagram.

[44:04] Thank you so much for watching our very first panel. We have entered the metaverse fashion week officially, and we can't wait to experience it alongside all of you. Again, my name is David Cash here for the central and and appreciate everybody listening. Have a great first day of fashion week.