History and Future of Virtual Fashion: The Fabricant and Polygon | MVFW 2022 Panel Series

Amber Jae Slooten of The Fabricant, Brian Trunzo of Polygon Studios, and Adriana Goldenberg of The Dematerialised join host David Cash for the closing conversation of the main stage series: the history and future of virtual fashion. Recorded at Metaverse Fashion Week in Decentraland, March 2022, the panel traces the road from video games and early NFTs to digital-only garments on chain, and looks ahead to co-creation, interoperability, and new forms of identity.

Watch on YouTube

Chapters

1. 00:00 Welcome to the final panel
2. 02:29 Amber Jae Slooten on graduating with a digital collection
3. 05:38 Brian Trunzo on trend forecasting and digital scarcity
4. 09:21 Adriana Goldenberg on footwear roots and The Dematerialised
5. 12:30 The ramp on chain: from video games to NFTs
6. 14:49 Amber Jae Slooten on The Fabricant's early collection and dress sale
7. 20:36 Brian Trunzo on digital ownership, identity, and vanity
8. 26:35 Adriana Goldenberg on price, aesthetics, and interoperability
9. 34:35 Amber Jae Slooten on The Fabricant Studio and co-creation
10. 41:26 Brian Trunzo on onboarding brands and culture Legos
11. 45:20 Adriana Goldenberg on cultural convergence and identity
12. 48:50 Closing thoughts

Speakers

• Amber Jae Slooten, co-founder and Creative Director, The Fabricant
• Brian Trunzo, Metaverse Lead, Polygon Studios
• Adriana Goldenberg, Head of Growth and Metaverse Partnerships, The Dematerialised
• David Cash, curator of MVFW (host)
• From the conversation
• "it's like a delicate balance between realism and surrealism" (Amber Jae Slooten)
• "the only limitation is indeed our imaginations." (Brian Trunzo)

Key topics

• Video games and online worlds as the roots of virtual fashion
• The Fabricant's early digital-only collection and on-chain dress sale
• CryptoKitties, ERC-721, and the idea of digital scarcity
• Self-expression and vanity in digital ownership
• How prices and aesthetics for digital fashion have matured
• Taking one garment across Zepeto, Roblox, and Decentraland
• Co-creation and revenue sharing on The Fabricant Studio
• Composability and helping legacy brands enter Web3

How to cite

APA: Cash, D. (2022). History and Future of Virtual Fashion: The Fabricant and Polygon | MVFW 2022 Panel Series [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/U1P03HEOpPw

Chicago: Cash, David. "History and Future of Virtual Fashion: The Fabricant and Polygon | MVFW 2022 Panel Series." Recorded March 2022. YouTube video, 50:09. https://youtu.be/U1P03HEOpPw.

Recording details

Recorded: March 2022

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

Length: 50:09 · 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 during the first Metaverse Fashion Week in Decentraland in March 2022. The series was hosted and curated by David Cash and produced by Cash Labs, bringing designers, editors, artists, and technologists together to talk about where fashion goes when it moves into virtual worlds. Several of the artists and brands in the series also showed work in the Cash Labs Gallery in Decentraland during the week.

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 back to the main stage panel series of Decentraland's Metaverse Fashion Week. This is it. This is our very last panel. It's our second panel, day four. We have had a great week with all of you. Thank you so much for coming to our panel series. Over the course of this week, we've had over 30 speakers from a range of industries join us and discuss what it means to be here in the Metaverse, celebrating Metaverse Fashion Week. So to cap off our week, we wanted to discuss a little bit of context. So we wanted to give you a talk that we're calling the history and future of virtual fashion. And what we hope to discuss in this talk is where this all came from, where we are now, and hopefully where this is going as we're ending this week, and hopefully thinking about what the next Metaverse Fashion Week is going to look like. As I know so many people are already asking, when's the next one?

[0:57] Brands that didn't have a chance to be involved are emailing. People are really excited about the Metaverse and virtual fashion right now. As we all know, as we've experienced this week. So to kick off this final conversation, I would love to introduce our lovely panelists. So first we have Adriana from The Dematerialized. We have Brian Trunzo from Polygon Studios. And of course, my dear friend, Amber J. Slooten, creative director and co-founder of The Fabricant. So happy to have the three of you here today and really looking forward to this conversation. We'd love to go through each of you and let you introduce yourselves and just discuss a little bit about where you started in virtual fashion. And just since I know a little bit about your background personally, I would love to start with Amber. As I know, virtual fashion goes way back for you as a long time passion. And when we talk about the history and future of virtual fashion,

[1:48] there's a few brands that always come up, but of course The Fabricant is one of them. And on top of your own work and your own designs and your own innovation, of course, I think you've done so much to help bring up so many other brands and so many other designers and artists in this space. And I feel like that's really what this is all about. You know, we're all Web3 folks and, you know, we really believe in helping on board, helping educate and providing resources for people to be able to do whatever they want. And you definitely facilitate that through The Fabricant and a lot through what you're doing now. So hopefully we'll get to what's going on right now as well. But, Amber, would you like to kick off, introduce yourself a little bit and tell people about how you started in virtual fashion and The Fabricant? Yeah, sure. Yeah, thank you so much for having me, David. I'm really happy to be here with all of you.

[2:36] I think the journey really started quite a long time ago when I was still in school. I was studying traditional fashion design, learning how to do things, everything in a traditional way. But I always felt like something was missing because we were living our lives more digital, you know, every single day. And I remember my friends, like, that's when just Instagrams just started coming up around the time when I was studying. And my friends were posting things on Instagram. And there was this really big splurge. And moving more towards this digital space. And as a kid, I always was a gamer as well. So I was used to moving myself in digital spaces. And I loved the idea that you could shift identities. So I started playing around with 3D software because I thought it was at least better to create things digitally than in the physical world for the planet, but also for experimentation with what identity can mean in the future.

[3:29] And I just thought that the technology is just so terribly exciting when you don't have any limitations holding you back from creating whatever you would like to create. So I graduated with a digital collection, even though all of my teachers advised against it and called me absolutely insane. And I'm still very happy that I was able to graduate. But, yeah, ever since then, it's been this interesting journey where it's always been the question like, oh, yeah, do you really think it's going to happen? So little people believed that this was actually going to be a thing. And luckily, we gathered a few people around to start the fabric since 2018, which was amazing. So together with Carrie, I started it. And then more and more people joined, like our co-founder Adriana.

[4:18] And, yeah, it just started to grow and grow. And now it's become this huge movement. We decided also to really share resources, team up with all the people that were in the space, like really try and find like-minded souls to change things in the industry. And for me, it's incredible to see now that so many brands are interested because in the first place a couple of years ago, we had to convince people that this was going to happen and really trying to get them to join us into this crazy world which is called digital fashion. But right now, it's just become like this term that everybody understands and knows why it's necessary because, well, also the pandemic, but also because our lives are becoming more digital. So I think, yeah, we've seen massive, really beautiful developments. And I can't wait to see where the space is going because if it develops at this pace, it's going to be absolutely crazy

[5:12] next year and the year after. And I don't really know where it's going to go. So it really excites me. Beautiful, beautiful. Thank you so much for being here, Amber. Such a big fan of yours and I love the journey that you've had in this space and looking forward to delve into some more of the ethos of the fabric and the work that you create, your ideas of co-creation. And, yeah, I'm sure we're going to delve into some of these thoughts in a little bit more depth in this conversation. So definitely looking forward to that. Up next, I'd like to introduce Brian Trunzo from Polygon Studios. Brian is somebody that we've had on some of other chats this week and has had some great thoughts that he's shared and would love to bring you into this conversation, especially to contextualize your experience with fashion because obviously you come from the traditional fashion industry. You've now come into the Web3 space working with Polygon

[5:58] with a whole bunch of other brands. And, yeah, I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on kind of that entry point into virtual fashion and how that's been for you and how you've experienced virtual fashion really become a thing over the past decade or so. Yeah, thanks for that, David. Yeah, Brian Trunzo, Polygon Studios. Polygon Studios being the investment advisory and biz dev arm of Polygon, the blockchain upon which many decentralized applications are built, one of which is Decentraland. So love having them built on our rails, of course. So a little bit about myself. You know, I come from the traditional fashion business having owned and operated stores and brands in New York. I exited those businesses a few years back and I found myself on the trend forecasting circuit.

[6:46] That's to say, telling multinational large corporates what the kids are doing. And around that time, I had crypto-pilled myself pretty heavily and found myself just absolutely enamored with the emerging ERC 721 contract, of course, which would become the standard for what we know today as NFTs. And I started slipping into my presentations, images of cats, right? Like, crypto kitties. And I would have those images next to images of little Michaela, you know, shout out to Brad and Dapper Labs and all the great work they had done with little Michaela. And then next to that, maybe like Decentraland, actually, because late 2017, it was already a thing. It was happening, right? And even Axie. Axie was in development at that time. It was early 2018. And it was my way of trying to explain to some of these contemporary brands and in some instances, even luxury brands, because some of the slides would also contain cosmetics.

[7:39] That's to say, including items that had no sort of, had no effect on actual gameplay, right? So like skins within Fortnite, League of Legends, Louis Vuitton had already done collaborations. I would make this slide in such a way to try to explain that this concept of digital scarcity was coming, that it was important, and that it would eventually create an economy digitally that would dwarf sort of the real world apparel economy, which is over $2 trillion a year in revenue. And I was met with, I want to say mixed response. There were some dreamers in the room who would resonate to it, but it wasn't a mixed response. It was usually laughter or sort of like snarky remarks. Oh, this is not going to happen. And over the course of five to six years, eventually it did and is happening, right? And here we are today.

[8:28] So, you know, a big role of mine at Polygon Studios is working with legacy, real world, world class IP. Prada and Adidas have collaborated on chain, DNG, Macy's, and the list goes on of developing strategies and implementing them on chain, such that they do not step into Web3 sort of, you know, so that they step into Web3 with their best foot forward, right? I mean, we've seen some sort of lazy, low effort, vapid attempts by some to get into Web3, and it's our goal at Polygon Studios to make sure that's not the case for our partners. Awesome. Awesome. So happy to have you here, Brian. And yeah, looking forward to delving in a little bit deeper on some of the early days of the NFT space. And of course, the central end was right along there with all that.

[9:16] So yeah, really excited to delve deeper and chat about that a little more. Happy to have you here. Last but certainly not least, Adriana from the Dematerialized. We'd love to put some context into how Dematerialized fits into the space. Obviously another, you know, what we could call a legacy brand in this very new burgeoning Web3 space. Definitely, you know, really integral to a whole bunch of Web3 and traditional brands and their journey into the space. We'd love to hear some thoughts from you on how all of this has emerged and also maybe if you want to give us a little bit of a history of DMAT. I can relate to Amber on almost a spiritual level of kind of being addicted to the Sims as a kid and really kind of having a pink Game Boy and dressing my Barbie and, you know, having that kind of addictive, almost gaming and gamifying fashion mindset from a really young age. So I think, you know, my entryway into kind of the digital fashion sphere

[10:07] came from, I actually have a footwear background, traditional kind of footwear making, and got into kind of the digital side, working both kind of in-house and on for different kind of agencies, working in both the kind of fashion and technology side and stumbled across DMAT after having kind of, I actually worked very closely with Corinna Grant, who's one of the founders a few years prior, and essentially I was one of the early, early beta testers on the platform in DMAT when they launched back in December of 2020. So I remember, you know, Corinna and Marjorie Hernandez getting together really to try and build kind of a destination for digital fashion, and I think, you know, since the launch of DMAT being kind of that first digital fashion marketplace for fashion NFTs back in 2020, they've, you know, really kind of built almost like you say, a legacy in this space for, you know, working with physical first brands,

[11:07] things like Virtu Worldwide and Vice Media, and we're on the almost kind of like cultural shaping side. With, you know, Vogue Talents and also kind of smaller studios like Roberts Wood, as well as kind of curtailing or working with kind of digital first brands as well from the likes of Tribute Brands, Teflon SEGA, and Artifact way back one as well. So yeah, I mean, from our perspective, what we're really trying to do is really kind of, I guess, change the face of what it means to own digital fashion and be able to kind of transport that into different environments and, you know, be able to use that as a means of kind of curating communities, both in IRL and in URL. And so, you know, currently we kind of integrate into Zapetto, Roblox, IMVU, Sansar, Decentraland, Snapchat, and Instagram as well.

[12:01] So in a nutshell, what we're really trying to do is kind of curate new aesthetics and forms of culture, very complementary to, I guess, what Amber and Brian are doing as well. Awesome, awesome. Super exciting and great to add some context into how different brands in the space fit in. And of course, I think you've been really instrumental to a lot of folks' journeys, especially some pretty large companies entering the space. So yeah, really happy to have you here as well, Adriana, and looking forward to delving in a little bit deeper in this conversation. So in order to do that, like I said, I'd love to take a step back and kind of discuss some of the early days of virtual fashion and consider what I call the ramp on chain, the kind of multi-year journey where we went from the concept of virtual fashion, digital spaces going from the real world to IMVU to all these online spaces that existed,

[12:53] even to video games. You could include any video game pretty much in that. I've heard people, one of our panelists this week was mentioning how she took inspiration from the GTA strippers, and that was like a whole, you know, the GTA strippers and the GTA, like, streetwalkers, it was like a whole reference point for her in her fashion. I'm like, I love that, you know, because it comes from, you know, just the idea of digitizing fashion. And then, of course, moving that on chain through solutions like Decentraland and others, the idea of NFT-ing a piece of virtual fashion or even just selling something on chain. You know, these are all kind of thoughts that have been developed over the past few years, you know, even conceptually since 2014, but more realistically, you know, since 2017, 2018, you know, when Amber and very few other people were kind of, you know, experimenting with these ideas.

[13:38] And, you know, there's always a few brands that kind of come out, you know, of course, the Fabricant, DressX, Ouroboros, the Dematerialized tribute brand, Replicant Fashion, but there's really a short list, Artifact, of course, but it's a super short list. And, you know, there are a lot of designers that have come out, and there's a lot of people who have, you know, been champion and have created beautiful looks, but actually creating a brand around virtual fashion is super difficult because it's not just one look. It's, you know, creating a sustainable business model of any kind around something that up till very recently didn't really exist for any kind of market. You know, it must have been and I'm sure was a challenge. And I'd love to delve into some of those early days, and, you know, obviously you are the pioneers and the people who stuck with it till now, and now, you know, this is the rage,

[14:19] and it's super successful, and you see brands of all sizes, you know, really pushing to enter this space and clamoring, and I'm sure everybody's inbox in this call is absolutely full with brands trying to enter the metaverse, whatever that means. But let's take a few steps back, and, Amber, I'd love to hear from you some of your thoughts on the early days of, you know, trying to sell wearables as a business model, and also the idea of trying to bring fashion on chain. We'd love to hear maybe some of your earliest memories in those senses. Yeah, I love that. I also love this reference to video games, right, because that's really where it all started, and I think, in a way, like, this is what really inspired me as a kid, like, moving into these digital spaces, like, that is just extremely inspiring, coming from, you know, being in the real world, kind of born in the real world, but growing up into the digital world more and more,

[15:09] and I think that is really what, yeah, really inspired me. I've read this story lately about this trans woman who actually programmed different genders in a video game already back in the 90s, which is incredible, because before that, there was just one gender which was male, and she actually programmed in four different genders, which was really, really cool for that time already. So I think, yeah, there's many, many things that is left unexplored within this space, but, yeah, the kind of history from this end is really for us as the fabric in itself. I think we started out with really putting out this digital collection into the world, which is what we did in 2018. It was this big guess. We put a lot of our work into it, designed a collection, and Carrie kind of did the whole visualization, and, yeah, we put that out into the world, and these images are still circling the Internet, which is crazy.

[16:05] It's still being played in museums, because it's like it was a really iconic moment where we basically said, do you still need a fashion show when you're able to create this level of images and this level of visualizations because a lot of people wouldn't believe that it was digital. And I think that's kind of the line we always like to play as the fabric, and is it real or is it not real? And we make it so realistic, but yet play with the fantasy ideas or the fantasy, yeah, elements to it. Not that it goes too far out that you don't understand it anymore, but it's like a delicate balance between realism and surrealism, and that's kind of where we love to play the line. And, yeah, so we did this collection. We put that out for free online on our website so people can download and learn from it, which was also this massive, you know, like fashion brands would never do that because, you know, it's IP and you can sell it,

[16:55] so why would you do that? So it was also a massive guess, but it really did help the sort of community go forward, and that was really cool. And then, yeah, basically next to that, we were always servicing brands to create campaigns and work with them and try to really create this new industry by taking them along, and that was our income, let's say. But slowly and slowly, the market started being more ready for digital-only goods, and we always thought this would happen, so it was always in the back of our minds to basically be able to sell digital clothing at some point, but back then, the market was first not really ready for it and then slowly, slowly it started transitioning and more and more brands started to come on board, and it also really helped in 2019 when we sold that first digital-only dress on the blockchain, which was this massive moment in history at an Ethereum conference

[17:49] where we sold this dress for 54 ETH. Well, back then, it was for $9,500, but 54 ETH, still quite a lot of money. And this marked the spot in the history of fashion because all the brands were like, are you serious? Like, are people paying money for a garment that doesn't exist? Like, you know, so many reactions from people, like, stop the press. Like, what has this world come to? Can we please stop? Like, oh, my God. And I think this moment really was this moment where people started seeing, oh, there's value in digital items and it gets more valuable over time, and that's the moment when we decided, yeah, of course, our whole business should be on chain, and all the things moving forward should be on chain, and everything that we do, even though it's free, even though it's downloadable, it should be having some kind of recognition and some kind of, yeah, link to the chain, let's say.

[18:43] What year was that? Sorry, I don't want to interrupt because I love the story. Yeah, 2019. So that was, I think, May 2019. Yeah, it was pretty crazy. And then it was together with Dapper Labs, of course, the creators of CryptoKitties. So we did that together with them. It was the year after CryptoKitties was sold there in the Ethereum conference, and, yeah, this year they did a digital-only dress. And, yeah, I remember that time. It was really crazy, and we didn't really expect what would happen. But, yeah, we dressed Johanna Yaskowska, which was a really cool influencer, with all the sort of face filters on Instagram. And afterwards, yeah, we decided to create a platform which could host all of these digital garments, but could also become this co-creation place where everybody could create digital garments together.

[19:33] And, yeah, that became the Fabrikan studio, but I can explain more about that later as well. Amazing, and hopefully that gives people some context. And I love when we talk about the history of this space, and even when I might do a lecture at a university or something about the history of NFTs, we're talking about, very few years ago, the history of this space really begins in, 2014 is the beginning of Ethereum network, right? 2017 is really early days. I think you can maybe find a tokenized something or other from 2014, maybe, maybe 2015, but really before that didn't exist. And I think that's really exciting. You know, when we look at the past, but that's a pretty recent past, I think that can really inspire us to what's possible in the very near future, especially now that adoption's happening and more people are coming into this space.

[20:20] If we've done this much in this short period of time, what could we possibly do in the next year, let alone five or ten years? So, yeah, looking forward to delving into the now and the future with you a little bit more and talk a little bit more about the fabric and studios, but yeah, so happy to have you here, Amber, and yeah, it's an absolute pleasure. Brian, we'd love to go to you next, and as we're talking about some of these early days of the blockchain, you were definitely around, as you said, OG CryptoKitties. Amber was collaborating with Dapper Labs and you were definitely all in on the Dapper Labs even back then, so we'd love to discuss some of these early days and some of the ideas around digital identity and what were some of your thoughts when you were thinking of buying an NFT back when nobody else was, what really attracted you to something like some of these PFP projects like CryptoKitties

[21:06] or some of these other concepts around identity in the early days of on-chain ownership? Yeah, for me it was so obvious. I didn't have to emerge towards this concept or figure it out over time. I had a moment where it just made complete sense. I was almost embarrassed that I had been hesitant and resistant towards crypto generally up until that point when I had learned about CryptoKitties and what these ERC721s could do. So that's a little bit of background. It was almost like it's corny to say and everyone has interesting origin stories, but for me it was like it came to a religious experience. It was like this come to Jesus moment, like wow, this is what I've been looking for. And what was it, this thing, right? It was this way to self-actualize and self-express digitally in a way that was never possible before because prior to that moment in time anything that you had quote-unquote owned digitally,

[22:04] you didn't own. It was just a license to use, right? And we discussed that on the last panel, David. But what's even more interesting about this for me is how there's a thread line and how some of the greatest brands in the world do this either consciously or subconsciously. Some of the greatest products in the world do this. There's this thread line between what I just said, self-actualization and vanity, right? You saw this with Web2 with social media, right? The vanity side, the clout chasing side, the look at what I'm doing, the consumption part, right? That's there, right? We all know that's there with NFTs. And that was there and it's still there with Instagram and Twitter. It's look at me, look at what I'm doing, the vanity side. But it also encourages one towards self-actualization, right? It encourages one thinking about Web2 to travel more so that you can post your vanity, right?

[22:51] To discover more products, to discover more cultures. So it's this delicate balance between the two, this concept of people finding their voice in personal brands and with digital ownership and with NFTs and with crypto, excuse me, with crypto even more generally, it's just that turbocharged, right? And one can only begin to imagine, and I'm sure Adrienne and Amber have done this imagining, as I often do myself, of where this can go, right? And that's some of the fun and most fun parts of this is that there's no wrong answer of where this could go and for as cliche as this sounds, the only limitation is indeed our imaginations. And the last point I'd like to make here is how, for anyone who works in this industry or who engages with NFTs and crypto again more generally, will tell you, and no, it's dog years.

[23:43] This stuff is moving so fast. I often say that one year in Web3 is like 10 years, in the 80s and 90s, maybe even the early aughts. I mean, it's just moving at a blazing speed. I remember when I was a teenager, an AOL, so I guess I'm dating myself, and AOL was the leader in the world wide web, the internet versus intranet battle. One could get to the end of AOL at the end of the day and like, oh, I got to the end of the internet. There's nothing left to consume. I'm here, I'll check in again tomorrow. And I feel like that was the case up until NFTs with crypto. You could get to the end of crypto for the day. You kind of know everything that's happening in DeFi, what's happening with the infrastructure place, social good, DAOs, social tokens, et cetera. And then NFTs burst onto the scene and that just was no longer the case.

[24:35] Yeah. And here we are now. No, amazing. Thanks so much for that, Brian. And looking forward to delving a little bit more about how that transitioned into where we are now again. And yeah, where that's going to look like. And again, one year, let alone five years because the growth is really exponential. And I brought this up in a couple of different talks, but I think the idea of hyper-modernity is always very relevant to any of these topics because we're progressing at a rate that's difficult for most people to understand. So I think it's important for us to kind of double down on the topics that we are passionate about and just really focus on those because so much is going to change every year, let alone every month. Especially people like Amber, for instance, who have really doubled down on a very specific asset of Web3 or a specific corner of Web3, I think have been quite successful because you saw the virtual fashion future

[25:28] and you stuck with it. Brian, similarly, you saw the future of NFTs and this idea of virtual ownership and you stuck with it. And I think there's definitely a similar narrative that you could spin around DMAT as well. I'm sure the idea of coming off of some of our jury's work with Luxo and then simultaneously building virtual fashion through DMAT, I think there's definitely another story here. And I'd love to once again rewind and pass the mic over to Adrian and take us back to even if you would just at the beginning of DMAT in 2020 and what was going on at that time for everybody. Obviously, fall of 2020 was a period of mass realization for many people in terms of NFTs, the blockchain, what all of this meant. A lot of people had aped in over COVID in some way, shape or form. They've either bought crypto and had some success or bought an NFT and had some success.

[26:18] Still a very niche population, but I think that that fall of 2020 was a really pivotal time. So just taking us back to then and the dawn of DMAT, as one could say, do you want to give us a little bit of context and let us know about how this was all built and how you got to where you are today? Yeah, I mean, I think there's probably two points in which I would start to compare kind of the then and the now. And I think the first one is really thinking about the price that people were willing to pay at that point for virtual fashion. I know Amber kind of touched on this a little bit around kind of the general appetite and from DMAT's perspective, we can kind of evidence this from a price point perspective and looking at some of our first drops with the Fabricant and with artifact and thinking about the price of how those items were actually kind of unveiled to the market, thinking, you know, 10 euros, 15 euros

[27:14] and really kind of posing that question of how much would you pay for this? And it still very much isn't, but an exercise around almost tempting that curiosity much more so than thinking about kind of achieving a sale. But at the same time, now, by comparison, we're selling items for 10,000 euros. And I think it's, again, this has nothing to do with the price. It's about the maturity of the actual industry and how digital craftsmanship has come to light, how the idea of wearing and ultimately owning digital fashion and being able to take that into different environments is obviously evidenced within kind of the first pieces that we had were just almost kind of like two-dimensional, almost like art pieces.

[28:08] And they're so beautiful. And they are really like genuine kind of artifacts of that time, whereas now you're starting to see this real utility being able to pour it into different environments. And I mean, you know, we're not at kind of seamless interoperability yet. But like I said, I think, you know, as evidence from our Metaverse partnerships now, being able to kind of take your DMAIC garment from Zepetto into Decentraland and back into Roblox is a really interesting thing. And, you know, the second point I was going to say in kind of comparing then and now is in that kind of aesthetic as well. And I think, you know, DMAIC has always been a kind of champion as, you know, promoting that hyper, hyper-realistic style. And I think, you know, from the very beginning, that was something that Corinna and Marjorie really kind of wanted to promote is having that kind of super high-quality aesthetic.

[29:08] But obviously, like we said, you know, maybe playing with that and kind of how that, you know, actually then transforms into different environments. But I think on top of that, it wasn't necessarily that hyper-real aesthetic. It was also that almost kind of like everyone's first impression of what digital fashion would look like was super cyber-looking. And I think, again, an evidence of how far we've come is look at now the types of aesthetics that we have in virtual fashion. We have things like, you know, the J.W. Anderson sweater was the perfect demonstration of how digital knitwear can be, you wouldn't even know it's fake. And I think, you know, we just did a launch with Rebecca Minkoff where, you know, these assets are so high quality that honestly, if you showed it to me right now, I wouldn't know whether or not it was real or fake.

[30:01] And, you know, I think, again, comparing that kind of price point to then and now, comparing that aesthetic from then and now, and, you know, to Brian's point, really, creativity is the limit here in terms of, you know, where this goes and how far it can be pushed. So I guess to try and kind of summarize, you know, how we are actually building a brand for ourselves within that kind of entire space. I think DMAT is really fortunate that, you know, we have almost kind of that consistency in aesthetic and how we present the assets on the website. But we are really trying to develop that sense of exploration and almost, you know, utility and access by the Metaverse partnerships as well as thinking about kind of that, ultimately creating a familiar user experience because, you know, one of the other things is that we actually attract kind of both sides of, I suppose, the aisle in terms of an audience base.

[31:00] So we have really kind of this crypto, this kind of crypto-native base, as well as this kind of fashion-forward base. And in terms of language, in terms of aesthetic, in terms of, you know, kind of mutual circles, they are almost diametrically opposed. So for our perspective, to be able to kind of have those two in the balance, it's almost thinking, okay, you know, what is the consistency of aesthetic? What is the consistency of experience? And how do we then kind of lower those barriers to entry to get both, you know, on the platform in the first place? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think you brought us to where we are now in a really great way. And yeah, yeah, great, great points. So yeah, considering the kind of current state of the arts, you know, I always find that a little bit difficult when we're dealing with something like virtual fashion.

[31:50] As mentioned by almost all of our speakers, you know, we are all like futurists here. We all look to what's next, you know, especially the creatives in the room. And, you know, the designers in the space are always, as mentioned by Adriana and Amber, you know, trying to build something better and more realistic and even beyond realistic. I think this idea of paper reality and, you know, stuff you see only on metahumans and, you know, the coolest thing that I always bring up in these talks about the metaverse and about virtual fashion is the only limit is one's imagination. You can literally do anything. And Brian brought that up through the idea of creativity. But anything is literally possible if you can imagine it. And obviously that can be manifested in virtual fashion. Nothing is impossible. You know, the confines of reality is the way I frame it a lot, are removed.

[32:39] And, you know, when we're considering what's going on right now, I think we're always trying to push forward. So, you know, obviously, I'd love to hear a little bit about what each of you are, you know, considering right now. Maybe you want to mention something you're activating during Fashion Week. But more so, I'd be really interested to hear from each of you because I know the way that, you know, brands like The Fabric and the Materializer, Polygon think, you know, the plans are for the next year. But, you know, there are also, you know, overarching goals that span, you know, years if not decades. You know, it's general, grander visions, and that's really what I think sets this space apart from, you know, most, you know, let's say entertainment or production or, you know, fashion companies. You know, we kind of approach this from a tech company point of view and think of larger vision versus, you know, immediate deliverables.

[33:24] And I think that's one of the things that makes this space really powerful. So I'd love to hear from each of you, you know, considering what you're working on now and then going into a little bit of detail and how that can dictate the future of your brand and the space in general. And then also, if any of you have any thoughts you want to add to that on, you know, considering where the space is right now, maybe it's, you know, thinking about Unreal Engine or maybe it's thinking about on-chain storage or, you know, any way you want to really pull it. But if anybody has any thoughts about where this is going or what we might see in the future, I'd also be really interested in that. So to kick off that lofty set of questions, I would love to pass it to Amber. I would love to let the people listening right now know a little bit more about the Fabricant Studio and all the beautiful work that you're doing

[34:08] building a co-creation environment with artists and designers and everyday people all over the world. And also how you're using that as a backbone to continue building out, you know, some of the beautiful collaborations and designs that, you know, you and your designers continue to execute. But yeah, obviously you can speak on it way better than I can, so I'll pass it over to you and I'd love to hear some thoughts on where you are now and where it's all going. Yeah, thank you. You describe it actually pretty well. You know, I think, like, the thing is, at some point we realized, just making collections, it's not going to be scalable. And how are we going to dress the entire metaverse on our own? Like, and that's even thinking about these Web 3 allergies where you're like, we want to work together and we want to do this as, you know, not as having competitors, but actually working with everyone in space.

[35:01] That's sort of always been our notion is how do we change this entire fashion industry the quickest and the best, and that's by doing that together. There's no way that we can do that on our own. And I think that's why we work with so many, you know, companies and also dematerialize, but also, you know, DressX. We try to really forge bonds between every single person in the space because this is really how we build this industry together. And the change really needs to come from all of us, and all of us have all these different sort of islands, but, you know, we work together, and I think that is so different from, for instance, the traditional fashion industry, where everything is secretive, where nobody shares things with each other, where everything is like, oh, look at what this person is doing, and oh, my God, now we have to do this too. And it's just like this, and there's all these ways of, you know,

[35:51] being toxic even to the workers working in fashion companies, right, where you're being extorted, like if you're not productive or whatever, you have to stay late, like so many stories of people working so, in such horrible conditions just for clothing. And, you know, that maybe sounds really crazy, but we're not saving lives with fashion, right? Like, why are so many people taking themselves so seriously? And to us, like, that was feeling like, you know, we wanted to just put some fresh air into this industry and create something that is fun, something where we can have fun together, where we can build stuff together and actually create a better future, where we can create livelihood for people, where we can create new economic systems for people to create assets and earn money off it and actually equalize everyone.

[36:40] So on our platform, you can basically pick a garment that you like by a fashion designer, a fashion brand, or anybody who wants to upload garments, maybe even crypto communities. We, of course, have a collaboration coming up with World of Women, which we're super excited about. So, yeah, so it can be any type of garment you like, and then you can pick a fabric that is, for instance, a material that's designed by a crypto artist or another artist of traditional fashion fabric factories we've also had on the platform. And then when you put those two together, you create your unique design, which makes you become a fashion designer yourself, and we call those co-creators. So it's not us longer deciding what things need to look like, but it's people taking ownership back of their identity and the way that they want to express themselves in this new world.

[37:30] So it's no longer a brand telling you, you should wear this because otherwise you're not cool. No, you get to decide on what you want to wear and how you want to sell it and how you want to create it and share it with your friends and actually monetize off it because all the people in this chain, so the garment creator, the material creator, and the co-creator get equal split in the revenue. So for us, that's really important, creating this leveling playing field between all of these entities, like right now we have these brands on top which are deciding everything, and then it's just going to tug down. But we just think that even there's so much talent coming from the fashion schools, for instance, and a lot of big brands are actually copying these young designers. They just look at Instagram and then they just copy that without ever giving these young designers credit. And we are so sick of that.

[38:19] We want to create a better system for all of the people that work in fashion, and yeah, the studio is kind of the first exploration of how we can do that, but our plan is to revolutionize the entire fashion industry, and we want everybody to come along. So for us, the bigger we can go, the better, and the more things we can set up, the better. And this actually is also playing out in the fact that we have our own fashion label, which is going to work together with a lot of interesting artists, dressing people. So next to the studio, we also have our own expression of what we think digital fashion can be, and what if you use the technology, what it can really be to its fullest fruition. And then we have our academy, which is really educating people how to make digital fashion creative. Twitch streams we have weekly, where you can tune in and listen and see what we do. And then, of course, we have our community,

[39:09] which is the base of everything that we do. And in Decentralized Fashion Week, we now have a community fashion show, which is all the co-creators who created their digital fashion are able to walk on the catwalk, and they have a community store as well. So it's the first real decentralized fashion show, not created by one person, but by the whole community. So we're super proud of that. Beautiful, beautiful. So excited for everybody to see everything that you've been working on. Hopefully, people already had a chance to check out your beautiful installations this week. And, of course, also, if you want to go downstairs and check it out, Amber also has a collaboration between the Fabricant and Christa Kim Studios in the Cash Labs Gallery. So, yeah, really, really excited to have you, and so happy to feature the Fabricant, of course, as part of Metaverse Fashion Week, because it wouldn't be Metaverse Fashion Week without the Fabricant.

[40:01] So happy to have you, Amber. And, yeah, everybody, please, let's co-create a better future for the fashion industry, because we can, we can. And if you want to see why, I highly recommend just to plug it to go seek out. I'm sure there's a recording of it now. Our sustainability conversation is dress-exed through a whole bunch of statistics that I think back up everything that Amber said and will allow us to create a more equitable, more sustainable future for the industry that is currently just, you know, is not any of those things. Let's put it. Let's be real. But, yeah, you know, passing it over to another fashion industry veteran who I'm sure can add some thoughts to that. Brian, would love to hear some thoughts from you. You know, obviously, we've come from, you know, a place of tradition and, you know, of course, also everything from streetwear to luxury, you know, in your background.

[40:49] But I think when we're considering where we're at now and where we're moving in the future, I would love to discuss what you and Polygon Studios are doing. You know, I think that you're bringing up a lot of projects similar to the Fabricant. You know, you're helping incubate a lot. You're helping, you know, support, sustain, and helping hopefully dictate what the future of the space might look like, you know, through a whole bunch of different ventures that Polygon is involved with from base camps to, you know, personal initiatives. So, yeah, I'd love to pass the mic over to you because obviously you can speak to it much better than I can. And just to let people know where your mind's at right now and what you think is exciting in terms of where the space is going. Yeah, thanks, David. I mean, being that premier onboarding engine for both, you know, world-class legacy IP holders and those emerging designers who are now considering

[41:38] whether to take digital fashion and the metaverse seriously. You know, being there for them, teach them best practice, consult, and basically play point guard to composability, right? Like distribute the ball. Let them know who are the players who you need to be talking to because one could have a poor experience in trying to sort of get onboarded into Web3, maybe get some bad advice and end up in a bad place by some opportunistic people because there are grifters in the business. So, you know, that's something I definitely want to point out as one of the strengths and benefits of working with the Polygon studios and building upon Polygon. You know, think about what Polygon represents, you know, each of the blue chip. I call them blue chip because they're the biggest and most well-known and well-represented and have the largest audiences. That's not to say other projects aren't as ambitious

[42:24] or as good. Metaverses or virtual worlds that comprise the metaverse decentralized being one, of course, are built upon Polygon rails. And as such, you know, we feel this responsibility of making sure that interoperability and infrastructure is there, right? And I think anyone who has spent even a little bit of time researching the subject knows that we're not there. So, you know, working with those who are addressing this, you know, the metamundos of the world, working with Boson Protocol who are developing an incredible pre-market sort of like options, price discovery, fidgetle product, which is just absolutely incredible. And I know that they're activating here in Decentraland's Metaverse Fashion Week as well. Basically getting these component parts in front of designers and brands and letting them know, these are the sorts of tools that are at your disposal.

[43:14] This is what we mean by composability and culture Legos. This is how you build upon the Ethereum virtual machine. You know, that is really important to us at Polygon, making sure that we put forth those values. And, you know, to strike on some of the things that Amber was saying, Amber, I cosigned everything you just previously said. That was an amazing soliloquy. I was just bopping my head as you were talking. But, you know, sort of erasing some of the terrible stains in fashion culturally, you know, you were talking about how guarded some designers are and showrooms are. And it reminds me of some of my experiences being inside showrooms where, you know, you're making your selection as a retailer or the current season that you're purchasing to be in store within the next few months. And everyone is sort of like watching each other's movements, like hiding garments and like sort of moving their racks around

[44:02] so no one can see what they're buying. And it's sort of like the anti-Web3 value system that was sort of crystallized into Amber, that, you know, people who came up through the traditional fashion system were taught and continued to sort of espouse. So I just wanted to cosign everything you said, because it was incredible. And point my own experiences, yeah, erasing that, sort of finding a better tomorrow, definitely important. That's what we're here for. That's what we're here for. And I just want to mention one thing that you said, because I'm obsessed with it now. I'm going to quote you on that. Cultural Legos. Love that idea. And I think that that's excellent. And hopefully we can create more robust and facilitated building blocks for more creatives. Snaps. I love that. You know, David, I would be remiss if I didn't give proper credit to that phrase.

[44:54] Trevor McFedry's from Brudd had used that phrase once before. I gave him a shout out on Twitter for it, and it has stuck forever. And it's something that I'm trying to make sure I push forward as well in talking about composability on the Ethereum virtual machine. So shout out to Charlie. And I love that you gave credit as well, very Web3. Last but certainly not least... You can't take credit. Sight your sources. Sight your sources, kids. I love it. Last but certainly not least, of course we're coming towards the end of our conversation. Unfortunately, I've loved talking to all of you, but I would be remissed if I didn't pass the mic over to Adriana. Adriana, we'd love to hear some thoughts on where you are at right now with all the work that Dematerialize is doing and what your vision is for the future of the space. Yeah, I mean, I think first off, I just want to say Amber for president,

[45:42] because definitely I'm with your monologue as well. A hundred percent. But yeah, I mean, I think maybe I'll just skip to the future predictions. And I think it's a really exciting time for the space. And I think from our perspective, like I said, we're in a really privileged position in being able to work kind of across platforms, across brands, across industries. And I think we're really excited about almost the kind of convergence or we card sorting of all the different types of cultural spheres and subcultures and how these things actually re-categorize themselves. So thinking about how fashion is going to influence art and arts influencing music and music is influencing how we experience life both in IRL and URL. And having worked with the likes of Teflon SEGA, I think this is a really, really interesting kind of experiment in terms of, he's a meta true born as he calls himself.

[46:40] And how, I don't want to call him a character because he's not a character. He's like as much of a person and identity as any of us are. And so that's why I think this is such an interesting convergence of creating music in the metaverse and how his music has then inspired digital clothing and digital trends. And almost, I guess, at that point where identity becomes almost embedded within the virtual environment that you're in as well. So it's more than just the garment you're wearing and thinking about kind of the entire space you're in and how you interact with the space around you as well. So yeah, I mean, we're really excited about how this can evolve and I suppose the evolution of garments and fashion as well and thinking about the possibilities are really endless as to how garments can transform from maybe things like seasonal changes or being able to, I know the Fabricant I think is actually experimenting with that as well.

[47:41] And thinking about kind of how I guess things and the environment can evolve around you instead of, like Amber said, someone or a brand dictating to you what is the things you should be looking into and how you should be kind of establishing yourself. So yeah, I mean, I think from our perspective just to insert the plug as well from the Decentraland side of things, we are obviously kind of infiltrating all the panels as well as showcasing Karl Lagerfeld yet again. I think another really interesting example of kind of is that fashion, is that art? Is it something that is a trading card? I know what kind of relationship do we see pieces like Karl Lagerfeld who what we would classify as a collectible, is it actually your avatar or are you the collectible?

[48:38] So yeah, anyway, I think to kind of experience or maybe answer those questions for yourselves be sure to visit David's gallery to be able to see our Karl figurines as well. Amazing. Unfortunately, we have come to the end of today's conversation. I wish I could speak with all of you for hours and I'm sure we will at various points in time, hopefully soon. But I just wanted to thank the three of you for taking the time to join us today and for everybody who is watching. This was our last panel in a series of nine panels I believe over the course of this week. Actually, ten if you include the boasts on one. So it's been a great week and I really appreciate everybody spending time with us over the course of these last four days. Please do make sure to check out activation from the Fabricant and the Dematerialize, of course, my gallery. And as always, just go look into what Polygon Studios is doing because it's super, super cool.

[49:28] And finally, last but not least, I think that just because of where we're at right now, I should mention that you should go check out the Fabricant's app, is it? Where can they find out the Fabricant's studio if they want to look into how to co-create this future that we're building right now? It's very simple, the Fabricant.studio. That's all I need. Fabricant.studio, you heard it here first. So just want to thank everybody once again and of course our speakers, they are incredible. Make sure you're following them on social media. You'll see their ads right below their lovely faces and we'll see you next year, I suppose, for the next Metaverse Fashion Week 2023. We're looking forward to it. We're already thinking about it. And we'll see you there. Take care, everybody.