Phygital Fashion: Danit Peleg, DressX, Rarible, and more | MVFW 2022 Panel Series

Danit Peleg, DressX co-founders Natalia Modenova and Daria Shapovalova, Holly Wood of Rarible, Francine Ballard of MetaGolden, and Seth Pyrzynski of Subnation join host David Cash to talk about phygital fashion: garments, jewelry, and wearables that live in both the physical world and the metaverse. Recorded at Metaverse Fashion Week in Decentraland, March 2022, the panel covers 3D-printed clothing sold as NFTs, digital twins, AR styling, and how brands decide what belongs on chain.

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Chapters

1. 00:00 Welcome and panelist introductions
2. 04:03 Going beyond the digital wearable
3. 05:02 Seth Pyrzynski on avatars as tribal identifiers
4. 07:36 Holly Wood on Rarible, GLB files, and NFTs as a mechanism
5. 10:32 Danit Peleg on selling 3D-printed garments as NFTs
6. 14:06 Francine Ballard on MetaGolden jewelry and wearables
7. 18:47 Natalia Modenova on digital twins and digital styling
8. 22:38 Daria Shapovalova on phygital drops and digital inheritance
9. 26:45 The on-chain and off-chain dilemma
10. 34:44 Danit Peleg on Nouns, on-demand production, and evolving NFTs
11. 40:31 DressX on choosing on-chain and off-chain items
12. 43:59 Fashion as a voice for society and closing thoughts

Speakers

• Danit Peleg, 3D-printed clothing designer
• Natalia Modenova, co-founder, DressX
• Daria Shapovalova, co-founder, DressX
• Holly Wood, Head of Creator Relationships, Rarible
• Francine Ballard, founder, MetaGolden
• Seth Pyrzynski, VP of Strategy and Innovation Web3, Subnation; advisor, Fred Segal
• David Cash, curator of MVFW (host)
• From the conversation
• "digital will be a new physical" (Natalia Modenova)
• "if you want to lead, you have to do." (Seth Pyrzynski)

Key topics

• Digital twins and pairing physical items with NFTs
• 3D-printed clothing sold as NFTs with printable files and authenticated labels
• Tokenized fine jewelry and matching Decentraland wearables
• Avatars, PFPs, and digital identity as tribal signals
• Digital styling: AR pieces worn over physical clothing
• Provenance, archives, and passing digital garments down
• Sneaker drops, gaming skins, and community-driven NFT culture
• When a drop should be on chain and when AR is enough

How to cite

APA: Cash, D. (2022). Phygital Fashion: Danit Peleg, DressX, Rarible, and more | MVFW 2022 Panel Series [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/Iohf0OKN2kQ

Chicago: Cash, David. "Phygital Fashion: Danit Peleg, DressX, Rarible, and more | MVFW 2022 Panel Series." YouTube video, 2022. https://youtu.be/Iohf0OKN2kQ.

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.

Transcript

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

[0:09] Hello, everybody. Welcome to day three of Central Land's Metaverse Fashion Week. I'm very excited to be joined with today's panel. This is the first panel of today. I am joined with a whole bunch of thought leaders in the space, from designers to change makers to leaders at various companies. And today the topic is digital fashion, so the combination of digital and physical, which is a really relevant topic right now as we're discussing digital fashion throughout this week. So I'd love to just go through the panel and let our incredible guests introduce themselves. And let's just go in order of how I see them before me, if that's okay with everybody. Seth, would you like to introduce yourself? Hi, everybody. I'm Seth. I'm a VP of Innovation and Strategy of Web3 at Subnation. Subnation is a gaming and Web3 cultural lifestyle agency, brand strategy, media. Happy to be here. Excited.

[1:07] Awesome. Thanks, Seth. Holly, so happy to have you with us. How are you doing? Hi. Hey, David. Super nice to be here. Thank you for inviting me. So I'm head of artist relationships at Rarible. And as you know, we have an incredible kind of diverse selection of creators on Rarible, and we're very excited to be welcoming so many more fashion creators to the platform. So it's been amazing being part of Decentral and Fashion Week. And we have some really exciting designers showcasing work in the fresh drip zone, which Rarible have sponsored. Awesome. So happy to have you as a part of this, Holly. Up next, Denise Peleg, another incredible designer in the space. How are you doing, Denise? Would you like to introduce yourself? Yeah, sure. Thank you for having me. So my name is Denise Peleg. I am a 3D printed fashion designer.

[2:01] Last year I got into NFTs, and I'm super excited to present my fashion collection that is funded by Noun Style. So yeah, very happy to be here. Later on, this collection that you saw on the Fashion Week is going to be 3D printed. So definitely, you know, having this whole full circle between physical to digital, and happy to be here. Awesome. Thanks so much, Denise. Happy to have you. Up next, Francine. How are you doing today? Tell us a little bit about yourself. Hi, David. How are you? I'm so pleased to be part of this panel. I'm a CEO and founder of that. This is a blockchain jewelry brand. We tokenized NFT art with a fine ball jewelry. Thanks for joining us, Francine. Appreciate having you.

[2:54] Natalia and Daria, thank you so much, both of you, for being here. Natalia, appreciate you taking the time. Would you like to briefly introduce yourself? Sure. My name is Natalia Modenova, and I'm one of the founders of DressX. Daria is also here. My background is in traditional fashion and journalism, and now happy to develop the ways for fashion to be integrated into the metaverse and to be a part of Web3 and digital economy. Awesome. Awesome. And our other amazing representative from DressX, Daria, how are you doing for joining us? Thank you so much for inviting. So basically, yes, the second co-founder at DressX, I'm the CEO of the company, and we started in 2020, and quickly started to scale, and we have a mission to enable everyone on the planet Earth to have their digital wardrobes together with the physical wardrobes that sometimes probably will become even more important than the physical ones. But, yeah, we'll talk later about it.

[3:58] Awesome. Awesome. So happy to have all of you today. You know, you're all, for me, thought leaders in the space, also from very different backgrounds. I feel like that's what's going to make this talk specifically interesting. So the concept today, digital fashion, obviously we've been experiencing a ton of virtual fashion over the past week here in the metaverse, here in the central land, and across various metaverse solutions. Obviously, the central land harkens itself as an open metaverse. We really encourage and hope to facilitate AR experimentation, digital fashion experimentation, and other metaverse solutions on apps, etc., in real life. So that's really what we want to be talking about today, is how can we go beyond the digital wearable when we're bringing clothes into the metaverse? How can we pair those items potentially with physical items and tie the experiences of physical and digital to create new tangible

[4:50] experiences for consumers? So I would love to, again, go through the panel. I know everybody approaches this in a different way, but we'd love to hear everybody's thoughts, and they can be positive or negative, about digital fashion and where we are right now. So Seth, do you want to share any thoughts about digital fashion as it pertains to you and the work that you do? Thank you so much for having me here, but also thank you to all the other panelists. I am fans of all of your work, your innovations, and each of your companies. So it's great to be with such luminaries inside of the space. Digital fashion, for me, is interesting because for me, it started with being home more and then working more in this digital. My second screen is my first screen now. I'm always connected digitally, and most of the time you see this. And black is my everyday carry. Raining champ is my bag.

[5:56] And that's how I express myself here. Inside of the digital world, I have opportunities that I do not have in the physical space. One, access to being able to go to every event that I want to go to, being active and social globally now in these instances. And so when you look at these, what these are is they're identifiers. They're like tribal symbols. One, you want to stand down and be an individual, but then two, you want to stand in because you want to be recognized by your group. You'd have that flex of your PFP on your watch or I'm rocking a G-Volt for my avatar across everything because that's where we're at today. And so my visual identifiers in the digital space are a little bit more allowed, bolder, and maybe stand out a little bit.

[6:56] I think most of my avatars have green hair. For some reason, that's my choice. And for me, that's the first entrance is that tribal acceptance and a part of a group. And then I'll leave that there for now. It's just like my experience, but I'd love to hear how this goes into the physical. We have a position on that too, but I'd love to hear other thoughts. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks so much, Seth. And we'll delve a little bit more into your specific activation here at Ashmeet as well a little bit later, because I think that's also a great example in a use case. Moving on to Holly, any thoughts on digital works from your point of view, working with so many artists at different places all over the world? Yeah, for sure. Obviously, the main part of what we're doing at the moment right now on Rarible is a marketplace for NFT creators. And so it's been really exciting to grow with the space and grow with the creative community. And so we actually just literally implemented

[8:00] the option of uploading GLB files, literally about two weeks ago. So we're always trying to push boundaries. We're always listening to creators about what they want, what they need from us as a marketplace. So the opportunity now that you can upload GLB files is really big for fashion in particular. But also the fact that we are multi-chain, so we are literally just launching with Polygon. So that's going to make different access super interesting, especially with the descent. But what I'm really interested in at the moment with fashion, my background is in fashion from like 20 years ago, I kind of like started out in the fashion industry was super lucky to have been a stylist in London, a really exciting moment. So I kind of know that world and that network incredibly well. But I'm kind of coming into the metaverse space and seeing fashion in a very different environment. And it's beyond exciting to me the way that kind

[9:02] of communities are forming around different projects, like you were saying, Seth, you know, like how we kind of flex and rock our PFP projects. And I kind of see the future, like the way the NFTs are going to be more intrinsically linked to fashion and metaverse and beauty, all of those kind of like cultural culture industries. I kind of see like NFTs as the mechanism. So I'm really interested in how you kind of use that as a tool to kind of like, as an independent creator, you're able now to put out your work in a completely different way. And what does that look like? So again, I work very closely with some of the best art schools in the world, Central St. Martin's and others. And they are still like, really, so we're at a really kind of exciting moment, I think. I refer to other women in the space in particular as being pioneers, but absolutely Daria and Natalia have been like, supremely ahead of them. So I'm excited to start playing more with

[10:21] like, lots of the tools that you guys have developed as well. Awesome, awesome. Thanks so much for that, Holly. Appreciate everything that you do in the space. Up next, Danit, your practice is so inherently fidgetile. We'd love to hear some of your thoughts, maybe let people know a little bit more about your practice and how you create the work that you do, and then a little bit more about your thoughts on where this is all heading. Sure. So actually, my whole process is completely digital. When I started 3D print my textiles back in 2015, I realized that I'm restoring a piece of a jacket on a USB card, and the whole process is completely digital. So when I'm working remotely with an event or a customer, I can send a digital simulation of the garment, and then after we approve it, I send it to print. So when NFT started, it's really helped me. One of the most common questions I was getting during the years when I was talking about the idea of 3D printed

[11:29] fashion, where I think it's going to end up, the common question was how fashion designers will secure their files and how they can actually sell files. And now with this whole revolution of NFT and digital fashion, it really makes sense for creators like me, because I can sell NFTs, I'm selling garments as NFTs, and my collectors are getting an unlockable folder with the files that they can see using this file at the Metaverse, where it's in digital life, see it in an AR filter on their Instagram, or send them to print. And after they send to print these garments, they send me pictures of the final object, and if I like the quality and I approve it, they send them a label, a 3D printed label with the NFT number embedded into it. So I made sure that this is an authentic item, and I know the collector, and now they can present this garment in events or museums, or use it as they want. So both the physical and the

[12:45] digital has value. And again, I think 3D printed is really closing the gap between digital and physical, because I don't need to be in the middle or be in the production for these garments, but I can make sure that it's made as, you know, as I planned it to look like. So yeah, so yeah, my experience with digital fashion started a long time ago, but now it really makes sense, and I'm happy to show it on real runway or on the Metaverse as well. Awesome, awesome. I love your work, and yeah, I'm definitely going to show some examples of some of these 3D printed looks that can exist digitally and physically, identically, which I think is very cool. So yeah, I really appreciate you joining us, Danin, appreciate your point of view. Up next, just going to tell you really quick to unmute, Francine, I did mute you previously. We can cut that out, but if you want to go ahead and unmute, then we can get started. But yes, up next we have another incredible designer who is creating work

[13:53] both in real life and in NFT format, designing 3D models and designing real jewelry. Francine Ballard of Metagolden, how are you doing? Tell us a little bit more about your work, and yeah, your thoughts on digital fashion today. Hi, I think it's so fascinating because, you know, we are all, like you said, deep in the space, but really and truly it is such a small space because I know each of you or know of you through what I do. Seth, I know we work together on people collaboration with Doug and the team, and I have a collection on Rareable, and I mean, I'm working on something for DressX and F8 with Daria and Natalia. I've been a beauty designer on our Instagram. I had a, I love digital fashion, and I had a profile picture that I wanted to use.

[14:50] It was like a strapless jumpsuit I was wearing, but I thought it would be a little inappropriate to have as my clubhouse PFP, so I actually bought something on DressX and had it converted to like a black, you know, like a digital garment that is still my profile picture, and I'm obsessed with it. But anyway, I just am so honored to be, you know, speaking to all of you here today, and I'm enamored with this space. I just, I can't get over how much I'm learning every single day, you know, with what we're doing with creating and, you know, even just the whole process of creating wearables was fascinating to me. We have multiple touch points in my company, Medical, because the reason I started this company in the first place was sort of to make it more real for women, to make the crypto and NFT space more real, and what better way than to draw them in with fine gold jewelry. And the way that we do that is by creating art, digital art,

[15:57] that features our jewelry in it, and then the jewelry is the token once you purchase. So it's allowed us to really kind of go many different directions in terms of what our capabilities are. Wearables are the latest, which is really interesting because, you know, I've got several pieces in your gallery, David and others here to speak, but, you know, it's fascinating because someone can actually wear, so for instance, we do a pair of bold earrings, they're like diamonds, they look like little butterfly wings, but here in the metaverse, they're actually, they're actual wings. So your avatar can actually wear diamond wings. And that's what I love so much about the space is that, I think that you mentioned this, is that you can actually create and do and wear the wildest things. You can have, you know, way more creativity in terms of the way you express yourself. And that's what I find so, so magical about the digital fashion space, is that I too

[17:08] wear black most days and I'm very understated and minimal in my regular life, but in the metaverse, I can be anyone or anything I want. And that is so cool to have that freedom of expression and at a very different price point. But that's what I love the most about digital fashion. And the way that we're pushing boundaries specifically is we're working with many big brands. Here this week, we're working with Fiat, the diamond brand. We have a $1 million emerald necklace that we've created. So the person could actually purchase that necklace in the real world. And it's a 33 carat emerald in the shape of an Ethereum symbol. But then also they can wear that necklace and we're selling it as an NFT, which is a wearable in Descentaland. So it's really fun because the possibilities are truly endless in terms of, you know, how you want to express yourself or your point of entry, how much you want to spend.

[18:12] You can have both, one, neither. But it's just really fun. And we are just loving pushing new boundaries and experience. Awesome. Thanks so much, Francine. Love, love, love the points you brought up there. I think it's really important to think about what's possible in real life and then what's possible in the metaverse. And obviously, you know, you can do pretty much anything you would imagine. You could manifest pretty much anything you want to imagine in AR or in metaverse spaces. And speaking of manifesting in AR metaverse spaces, up next, the incredible leaders at DressX. Natalia, really interested to hear your thoughts on this. I mean, obviously, right now you're exemplifying digital fashion wearing, if people didn't notice, these earrings are AR earrings integrated into the chat. And then, of course, she's wearing IRL clothing. So right now she is wearing digital fashion. So Natalia, obviously,

[19:08] this is a big part of your life at DressX. You all create so many different formats of digital fashion. We'd love to hear some of your thoughts on digital fashion as it pertains to your practice. And yeah, some thoughts on where things are going. Thank you, David. And that's absolutely great space to be in digital fashion and to be understand that digital element will be important one to this transition from physical to digital only. My personal excitement is more on the side of digital only clothes. But again, bridge is inevitable, and it's very much needed. And same as at DressX, we built the meta closet for everyone to give an opportunity for everyone to wear digital fashion across every platform where people appear in front of eyes of other people. But also, not everyone has their own avatar yet.

[20:08] That's why social media serve as this proto-metiverse where people discover things, where people communicate with each other, and where visual element is very much important. And that's also some kind of a bridge to the metaverse. Let's put it this way. And digital is a part of it. We did a project with the digital NFT drop. I'm sure Daria also will be happy to talk about it more. But also, my excitement lies not only into digital twins, when you have a physical item and the same digital item, but in the digital styling. When you can have one item in physical and make it different in digital world with augmented reality, or when you can style a physical item that you own with a number of different digital items and digital outfits. And that is something that opens up even more creativity and provides an opportunity to apply technologies in more ways. That's briefly about this. I know we still need to talk about other things as well.

[21:42] Yeah, the topic is really broad. Yeah, it's huge. We can talk for hours about it. But yes, David, go ahead. He wanted to ask me, but I guess... No, I was just going to say that Natalia is, of course, exemplifying right now what she's talking about, which I think is awesome. Styling digital items with physical items. I hope to see a lot more of this moving forward. And you can do this, I think it's worth mentioning, with the DressX app. You can today go and add a headpiece or earrings or a corset or a bodice to whatever you're wearing right now. So especially as we're here for Fashion Week, and I'm sure some people are going on Zoom calls and doing interviews, especially if you're involved in the week, do consider trying these types of integrations. And then, of course, transitioning to you Daria, of course, I would love to hear more. I think Natalia already set it up perfectly, but some of the digital work you guys are doing, I think maybe we're all thinking of the same thing

[22:29] with your recent Super Bowl activation and the piece that you did there. And of course, anything else that you'd like to mention in terms of a digital. But yeah, pleasure having you. Any thoughts? Thank you so much. So basically, I guess Natalia started to mention the project that we did, but it actually was not about the Super Bowl, but with both on protocol and another player on the market who actually are a part of Natalia Fashion Week. So basically, we did a very special NFT drop with them when the client, like the purchaser of the NFT, he or she will also receive a very special item that was grown in a laboratory of one of the LVMH nominee designer, Piero D'Angelo, who went at the LVMH prize. And he's kind of a scientist designer, a very unique person. And it's the first time ever he produced an item for someone, and it was called Dress Hacks. And basically, like it is created from the moth. So it's like,

[23:25] it's with our vision for sustainability and fashion that was really important for us when we took things in the physical realm to make it as sustainable as possible and to make it a statement out of this world and very creative. So basically, it's still like we launched those NFTs, whether it's possible to sell them and we will do like extra activation during the fashion week around them. So basically, there is an aqueous and the dress. So basically, if you purchase that NFT, then the designer will produce the physical item for you. So that's the collaboration that was quite unique for Dress Hacks because we're usually as mentioned by Natalia and the thesis of the company is to sell digital fashions. But yes, we briefed out to that realm as well. And I agree with Natalia on different dimensions of how physical and digital can coexist, but also I wanted to delve into a small thing that I also personally find very exciting is that

[24:21] when you purchase like a couture item fashionality or any fashion house that is like super expensive, it's not possible for your son's daughters to inherit it because it needs to be preserved in a very certain way. But with the digital twin, it can be preserved and it can be a part of like your inheritance to the next generations, which I find very cool. Because previously, like the only thing that you could do is either to donate it to a museum, but it wouldn't be there for like more than a hundred years or to like sell it and twist it. But now you can kind of figure out what to do with physical items and then in digital they can say with your family forever or they can monetize it. So this is something that was never possible in fashion before and definitely excites a lot of people in the fashion industry because as Natalia and I think David you've mentioned, we are in a fashion industry for 15 years. So a lot of

[25:16] things happening in fashion. And this one is really exciting and that changes the approach towards like archives and so many other things. Awesome, awesome. Such a great point. And yeah, I think it's really important for us to think about how much has changed and how, you know, fidget fashion and also adding an on-chain element to fashion allows us to do so much. I mean, yes, preserve garments well after they might naturally deteriorate, but also the provenance of fashion. I mean, unfortunately, you know, we've tried to keep records of a lot of garments in the past, but even garments from the 1600s are complete dust at this point. So, you know, I think it really helps. Also, I like to bring up the idea. You know, this is one of the first things that clicked for me about virtual fashion and especially NFTs in fashion is, you know, when you buy something and it's a luxury item, let's say, anything of,

[26:05] of, you know, significant value, you'll typically get some kind of a certificate or paperwork or you have to join a membership club or often all of the above. And I think a lot of people don't realize how much easier it would be to pair a physical item with a digital item, a digital twin or an NFT or both ideally, and just, you know, wrap that whole process up into one, you know, system. So I think that it's, you know, that's something that I hope that people watching this think of and I hope that that can lead us into the next part of our conversation. I'd love to pass the mic around. Again, I see you, Seth, I think you have some thoughts. I'm sure everybody has some thoughts about everything that's just being said. But if I may just leave the following conversation with just one thought and then I can let everybody kind of chime in as you're thinking about these topics, I think what's happening right now and something really integral to where we stand right now in the fashion

[26:55] space, especially the digital fashion space, is this on and off chain dilemma. And I think as it stands right now, what we need in order to kind of access the whole web width and breadth of what's available to us, AR, VR, metaversus is a CDFI solution or a centralized decentralized solution. So a solution that in some way integrates on chain elements and off chain elements. So as I'm kind of passing the mic around, I'd love to, you know, maybe talk about some of the activations that you're each doing at Fashion Week, and maybe just for people to realize what's possible right now. Obviously, decentralized is an on chain metaverse, but we're talking about digital and physical here. And physical components, you know, often do require a web to implementation or something. So I'd love to pass the mic around. Seth, please lead with what you're about to say, because I don't want to interrupt you. But yeah,

[27:42] if you have any thoughts, maybe as it pertains to your arcade and yeah, digitality and centralized decentralization. Well, we'll touch on arcade at Fred Siegel. Fantastic collaboration, innovative in the space, part high end collectibles, rare items, you know, cause supreme, you know, one of a kind items that you know, the hype beast culture love. It's a perfect blend with the NFT collectible space. You know, podcasting in gaming studio inside of Fred Siegel, really cool. We're bringing that to life inside of the wearable drip zone, which we love the wearable, as well as Metagold and and then DressX and then now Danita as well. But it's the innovation piece that pulled me into this space. And what is possible and what I've gotten, first of all, just, you know, I believe, Francine, you had mentioned it. I've been following each of you since this started. And since I saw that first blip on the screen, I was all like, whoa, things are

[28:49] changing. And it's the innovation that really is, you know, where you tie it in. You had mentioned sustainability. Absolutely. Yes. But like, you know, when we look at the profile picture is kind of like that identifier. And then in game, I'm now not seeing nobody even knows my last name in real. It's a couple of emojis. It's a space invader. It's a robot, a mushroom and a lightning bolt. And then I own the dot eth address too. So people don't even know my real name. So having the same digital good inside of the land that relates to that is going to make sure that everybody notices me and recognizes me. But we're really interested in the the authenticity to the almost the Rosetta Stone aspect of the blockchain to preserve these ingredients, these, these fabrics, these processes that we have now for thousands of years into the future. So I just got somebody had mentioned that about innovation. I know that's what

[29:50] strong the end of the space. And then Holly, you had spoken about the learning aspect of it. I can't get enough. It really is. It's a it's a learn by doing space. And if you want to lead, you have to do. And so I'm really excited to be here. I'm here for all of it. So yeah, David, I got excited about the innovation. Absolutely. It's a it's a time of innovation. I have to say, Seth, that's what I kind of say. No, go ahead, Holly, please. You're up next to a lot of partners that kind of come to us. I was going to say to a lot of partners that come to us at Rarible and are super excited to join Web three. And but they don't necessarily know how to come into the space. My advice is always the same, whether it's like a tiny creator or a massive brand. I'm like, you're going to learn the most just by doing it. And it's been really surprising and interesting, actually, to speak to different fashion partners in particular, because you have

[30:42] kind of, you know, bigger partners like Gucci and, you know, they are already in the space doing things. And you have other partners that are just kind of a little bit, I would say shell shocked, maybe, and not quite sure how to traverse the space, which is that this is why I'm really excited about digital, because actually, I think for a lot of people, it really helps kind of like, bring them into the space in a way that kind of makes sense to them, because you still get the kind of like the digital, the physical, physical moment of owning a thing. And it's kind of, that's why I was talking about the sort of mechanics of NFTs earlier, because you have this whole kind of like, we come from this, you know, this whole hype beast sneaker culture, where we're, you know, waiting for these drops. And, you know, this has been happening for a long time in the space, in the fashion space, for instance.

[31:39] And I think like the NFT culture is emulating that to a certain extent, but actually takes it on a different journey, because of the way that we kind of like are growing and developing communities around these different NFT projects, whether that be fashion related, art related, music, dance, all the kind of like different verticals that NFTs kind of like give creative license to. But yeah, going back to the point around like physical fashion and digital fashion, I'm kind of really excited about the moment where you kind of like, I had a great conversation with a brilliant sneaker store in LA called Zeros. And Zeros have like an amazing selection of like specialist sneakers, highly collectible, tiny little store on Melrose, super cool. And they're, you know, they're passionate about their community. So but they love the idea of working with the NFT space. So the idea that you could potentially be like somewhere else in the world and still engage

[32:46] with Zeros, little store in LA, I know it's not a little store, it's a legendary store. But the idea that you could transact with them through the mechanics of an NFT, I think is really exciting. So whether you kind of like would purchase your NFT and then trade that potentially, it's kind of like that decision moment. Do I keep the NFT and get the actual physical sneakers? Or actually, do I want the NFT more than I want the physical sneakers? Do I have to burn my NFT if I pick up the physical sneakers? So this whole kind of like opportunity to kind of like trade, transact, and grow community through all of those like really fun and exciting. I mean, we talk a lot about gamification, but there's like so much that we can do in the space. And I definitely have kind of like newfound respect for the gaming community in particular, I think it's really, you know, has been like created and it's been operating in its own world for a long time.

[33:53] And I'm really excited now that we're kind of like getting an opportunity to kind of bring some of those aspects into other worlds, other creative elements that we're all working on. I would say just to dovetail on that, David, really quickly is that I believe that the gaming space with digital skins was what began this whole one of the aspects of this movement. Outside of fashion's needs for sustainability, gaming did that as an identifier in digital skins. And digital skins are one of the biggest selling goods in the world. And there's 3.1 billion gamers. And we can be a gamer casually pro or, you know, as just somebody who plays, you know, with friends and family. So it's everybody's a game. Totally. Thank you for that, Seth. And absolutely, Holly, I completely agree with you.

[34:44] Danit, anything that you'd like to add, especially in terms of centralization and decentralization, how all of that pertains to your practice? Would love to hear some thoughts. Yeah, I can totally relate to the community sense of making, you know, being a creator on Web3, you know, collaborating with Nouns, which is a CC0 NFT brand. CC0 means that there is no right reserve, so anyone can use the art in any way they want. But they also have like an incredible treasury of about like 50 million dollars on which they choose, you know, you can propose a creative project and they will found it and help you spread like your creativity to the world, which is incredible. And then it's not only like, you know, supporting creators to bring new value to the world and, you know, and letting you bring in your, you know, inspiration, using the inspiration as like using Nouns as inspiration for your creations. It's like a whole community that's

[36:01] being involved in your proposal, in your project. It's really incredible to have more people in like the creative process and like making something on, you know, Discord, having a channel when anyone can see, you know, your sketchbook basically and then see it on the runway. So it's really unique time where we at, where it's really bringing, you know, democratized fashion in such a way that anyone can be part of, you know, cool project and the creative projects like these. My work with 3D printed fashion started because I wanted to find a way to make more sustainable way of, you know, fashion manufacturing. So all of my designs are completely digital. So that means I have no inventory when I need to produce my designs as NFTs. I can just do it on demand.

[37:03] And there is no waste and the materials are completely circular. And of course, it's evolving over time, but it's really incredible to push the limits and, you know, doing it through such an interesting way, you know, supporting by a doubt. And I'm very interested about this idea that, you know, NFTs are not only here to stay for the next 20 years. It means if someone collecting my NFT today, I can truck this jacket from 20 years ago and see which material I can produce at these days compared to what was able back in 2020. These NFTs can also change over time. So that means once you collect a jacket, it can change using this smart contract. So there is like, you buy a jacket, but then it's summer, so it's turning to be a vest or, you know, it's turning to be something else. So it's also cool to see this evolution of clothing thanks to what's possible to achieve on, you know, on the blockchain.

[38:11] And I think that's so interesting, Denis, what you're saying, because, you know, the gamers started everything, right? You know, to your point, Seth. But I think, and then art followed, and that's where most of the attention has been focused via NFTs or digital art. But really, the fashion will make the biggest impact and I think affect the most people in the immediate foreseeable future. Because if you think about the potential for where the fashion industry can go with blockchain technology, if you think about the way you buy art, it's a buy and hold kind of purchase. But fashion is transitional. It is iterative, and it goes and goes and goes. So if you can harness like a tiny royalty to fashion NFTs at a lower price point, that potential is huge. And I think, you know, fashion is in all ways, is usually first. They find a way to get there first. And that's just like the way that this industry has always functioned. So I think, you know, that's really where our interest is,

[39:14] onboarding fashion brands. We're doing some things with helmet Lang and theory and kweyat. And we're even working with Sotheby's with, you know, just with bigger brands and how to connect to a, you know, crypto native audience. I think there's such a fascination with this space right now. And it's really the early adopters that will, you know, champion this cause and get us there, you know, quickly find a bridge and get us there quickly. But I think that when you talk about digital, the word digital, it didn't exist a year ago. If you think about that, really, because I mean, we founded our business as a digital business, but that word didn't exist. David, I remember being in the room the first time someone asked, like, what is that digital? And, you know, that was like a very short time ago, relatively speaking, but now it's everything. And where it's the next evolution of where NFTs are going. And

[40:11] I think it's the future of NFTs and especially digital fashion. It's sort of like finding a way to pair them together. So I just think it's really interesting, like the evolution of where fashion has come, where they're headed. And I think digital is the thing that will push it forward. Great point, Francine. I just want to make sure we have time for the amazing girls at DressX. Obviously, digital is so integral to, you know, what's going on right now in the space. A lot of brands are kind of mandating that. How are you approaching it? And especially in terms of what you're hosting on chain, what you're, you know, releasing as an NFT versus what you're just choosing to, you know, integrate as an AR filter. How are you kind of towing that web to web three line? Because about as it stands right now, whoever wants to go first. So, yeah, to the point that digital and physical are coexisting, I believe that in the

[41:05] coming future, digital will be a new physical. So just every physical product will have some kind of digital passport or digital application. So there will now be something that is not related to the digital world per se. And getting to the point of choosing what goes into the open of chain items and what goes as on chain items. Great question, because we started DressX without any blockchain element to it. Because for us, it was very important to introduce the use case for digital fashion and to explain how it can be worn, how it can be a wearable, which is now considered to be a utility for the NFT. But NFT and blockchain is just a technology to distribute it and to track the ownership, to transfer the ownership. It doesn't change the application itself. We can wear the on chain item and we can same wear off chain item. It's the same kind of wearable. But then what NFT and blockchain technology gives us is an opportunity to

[42:25] make limited editions to really track the history and to really kind of use it and have it as the item as a collectible versus like off chain items are more of a kind of analogy of very democratized mass market fashion, very inclusive, which is for everyone. But high fashion always has an element of exclusivity. And this is what blockchain does. And that's why exclusive items, limited editions, something that is special collaborations, we do it as on chain drops, example of the Superball NFT drops that we've done with Danda's fashion designer. It's an example of those outfits that Mary J Blige wore during the Superball halftime show is available for people to wear in their digital life to wear it as the digital outfit. And it's available for the owners of the NFT. It's inclusive in one way because there was no way to wear the same outfit that the performer is wearing at the Superball before. But now there

[43:53] is an opportunity to do it. It's available as an exclusive luxury fashion NFT. Awesome. Daria, anything you want to add to that? I do also want to maybe add into what you're about to mention that you were all working in, well, the two of you were working in traditional fashion much before this. And I know that you were thinking about blockchain fashion. I know you mentioned to me in a previous conversation that you actually had a blockchain fashion week before any of these NFT conversations or any of these virtual fashion conversations were happening. So yeah, I would love to hear from you just before we wrap up this conversation. Yeah, it's interesting because 10 years ago, I co-founded the project that is called Mercedes-Benz Key Fashion Days. It was sponsored by Mercedes-Benz. And then Daria was CEO of that company. And then it was renamed to blockchain fashion week like six years ago,

[44:42] five years ago. So pretty much in advance. But I actually stepped down five years ago, like we kind of finished working together with that previous partner. But long story short, has a lot of experience in the fashion weeks. And I just want to add to everything that we discussed, that basically, yes, absolutely. Vegetable will be very important. And as you can see, the excitement of the creators who shared the ideas on that of the platforms, we share it in variable and said, thank you so much for contributing all that. But also using this opportunity, I want them to mention that fashion will always continue to be the voice of everything that is happening currently in society. And probably you all know about the situation that happens in Ukraine. And being Ukrainian, I will definitely mention that. We use fashion as our means to communicate more kind of complex questions that are usually communicated through fashion. And we will continue to take this further, this particular dialogue.

[45:46] And like using fashion as a medium, digital fashion, digital fashion, it's easy in digital, because this was like so fast for all of our community to embrace our campaign for the safe support Ukraine, right? Because it wasn't physical. But who knows, maybe we'll take it digital too, because the dress became so popular, it was worn by Madonna and some other celebrities. So just to finish, because I understand that probably I'm the last to speak before David you rip off, I think every time, whether it's physical, digital, or physical fashion should always be on at the forefront of the society and all the events that are happening in the world. Totally agree with you. I just want to take a moment and thank everybody for taking the time out of their day to have this conversation. Unfortunately, we have reached the end of this talk. For everybody listening, I'm sure people are very inspired and have a lot of thoughts

[46:39] that they'd like to follow up on. So you can reach out to any of the panelists here, all of them are integrated in fashion, we can some way shape or form DressX, of course, have some multiple activations, you can see Denise work and Francine's work in the cash labs gallery. And of course, go see some of Holly's incredible, very hard work in the wearable shopping area, where you can also see Seth's French Eagle arcade. So yeah, just want to thank everybody again for watching. And we'll see you in the next panel, which will be digitizing couture, high fashion in the metaverse later today, here on the main stage. Thanks again, everybody. And have a great rest of your day. Enjoy Fashion Week. Take care, everyone.