As fashion weeks plow on, fashion writer Jessica Testa leaves her post at the New York Times telling Vanessa Friedman: ‘This industry can be silly but deserves to be taken seriously.’
This precisely mirrors my thoughts on digital fashion.
Though virtual clothes can seem frivolous, with many of their use cases redundant or niche (for now!), I have no doubt that digital fashion will play a pivotal role in our future. It’s just a question of when.
Under this belief, where part one of my September Issue outlined 5 predictions for how digital fashion will form over the next 12 months, part two will focus on which digital fashion related questions, organisations and segments should be taken seriously.
Let’s dig in.
4 segments to watch:
Virtual try-on — Since the early 00’s brands, startups and e-comm players have all been vying to crack virtual try-on.
During the pandemic Shopify doubled-down on try-on lore, declaring that in 2020 it had seen a 40% decrease in returns thanks to AR visualisation softwares, with 71% of Shopify consumers saying they'd shop more often if AR features were available.
In the years since these zealous assertions AR-fetishisation has died down, as the world shifts away from COVID’s ‘new normal’ and brands realise ‘AR typically still doesn’t cut it when it comes to luxury fashion’.
While a phantom arm is one thing, the biggest impairments to virtual try-on have historically been size and fit. With extreme variability in both body types, and clothing sizes, the best virtual try-on has been able to offer is a cursory glance at how a shape or colour might look when worn. These superficial insights are not enough to tangibly dent the rate of online returns (despite what Shopify claims) which accounted for approximately $212 billion USD in 2022. However, this year things seem set to shift.
WHY NOW: The past 12 months have seen an explosion of AI-tools centred on size and fit innovation. In the face of increasingly harsh laws around overproduction and waste, they have the potential to transform virtual try-on from a nice-to-have to a necessity.
Google announced their virtual try-on integration last month, whereby clothes found through ‘Search’ will be equipped with a ‘Try-On’ badge – allowing users to see them on a diverse range of models. First wave start-ups like BODS and Zyler, have already taken this one step further — asking consumers to submit 2 photos and 3 measurements to generate a custom avatar bearing their exact face and body. This approach comes far closer to accurately predicting size and fit that its predecessors. Plus brands like Balmain and Khaite have already integrated it into their e-comm.
Where 79% of UK brands already charge for returns, I see the mass implementation of virtual try-on as an inevitable roll-out. As brands vie to court the ever more considered consumer.Avatar-based interactions — At the start of this year I introduced the idea of ‘uncannyvallefication’. Coined in 1970, by Japanese novelist Masahiro Mori, the uncanny valley is a psychological phenomenon that describes the feeling of unease people experience when something is close to human-like but not quite realistic. The argument I made then was that the prevalence of AI-tools and in-game worlds has left us increasingly desensitised to the synthetically surreal. And that over the next 12 months this comfort with irreality will only grow.
Whilst utilisations of the synthetic have been baked into our everyday lives for the past few years (Memoji came to iOS in 2018, SNAP acquired BitMoji in 2016, and Roblox reached 100 million monthly active users in 2019) recent announcements have cemented the fact that in the next 12 months their uses will become increasingly evolved.
WHY NOW: Monday marked the launch of Apple’s AI-generated emojis on iOS 18. Now, by typing in a word, iPhone users can generate any emoji they could possibly imagine. As 10 billion emojis are sent every day, and there are 1.46 billion iPhone users worldwide, this seems like a clear gateway to avatar-customisation becoming a common part of everyday life. A gateway I believe will grow consumer’s willingness to use personalised avatars in other areas — like social interactions and e-comm.
Compounding this behavioural shift is Roblox’s announcement that they will be integrating with Shopify. This means brands will be able to sell physical pieces directly through Roblox as soon as early 2025.
As I wrote in part 1, this is a watershed moment for virtual-commerce, as well as a move that will normalise avatar-based interactions for the general public. Brands offering avatar-native perks (buy-one-physical-handbag-get-an-in-game-one-free) will generate closer connections between shoppers and their digital twins. And this familiarity with the surreal will spin over into other digitally native behaviours.Connected clothes (and beauty) – Connected clothes first debuted at London Fashion Week in 2010—when OG fash-tech maven Cassette Playa sent models down the runway in outfits that transformed when they were placed in front of a lens.
In the years since the pandemic, connected clothes have often been hailed as digital fashion’s gateway drug. With NFC provider IYK raising $17 million USD from Andreessen Horowitz and everyone from Hugo Boss to Prada experimenting with digitally linking physical pieces. Whilst these developments are undoubtedly significant, the next 12 months will see new legislation leading connected clothes to become more than just a one-try wonder.
WHY NOW: Late last year the EU reached a provisional agreement on Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). Under this new set of rules ‘Digital Product Passports’ (DPPs) will be adopted by the EU, and mandated between 2026 and 2030.
With Europe responsible for 74% of all value in luxury goods, infrastructure providers like Aura Blockchain Consortium—who have chipped 50 million luxury products to date—will grow exponentially, while those outside their high-status remit (e.g. Zara) will frantically seek out alternative providers.
The mass adoption of DPP’s will also serve as a layer on which both innovators and brands can build. We’ve already seen first-wave founders leading this connected clothing charge, with GMoney’s 9dcc gamifying products to incentivise consumer-brand interactions and Tribute Brand linking their physical pieces to digital worlds. Most recently Chipped Social launched in connected beauty with four sets of press-on nails, each embedded with an NFC chip, to allow wearers to instigate and log social interactions with a tap of the finger.
Whilst the industry is still testing what consumers actually want from their connected products, as chipped goods become abundant, our comfort with leveraging their digital layers will expand in ways that are currently un thought of.Mixed-reality hardware — I’d be unable to write a September Issue without mentioning the aspirational advances in mixed-reality, pioneered by Apple, SNAP and Meta.
Last February the Apple Vision Pro sold out in under 18 minutes. For just $3499 a pop its lucky buyers have access to the latest advances in ‘spacial computing’—’a technology that combines the physical world with its digital counterpart in pursuit of a seamlessly integrated experience’.
Apple’s venture into mixed reality is not the first time we’ve seen a tech giant try to create a seamlessly integrated virtual world. Alongside its Meta Quest VR headsets, Zuck and co. launched the ‘Meta Ray-Bans’ in Q4 of 2023, and quickly sold out the first 500,000 units. Plus, just this week SNAP announced v.5 of its smart spectacles (which first launched in 2016). Branded as the world’s first set of ‘self contained AR glasses’, the spectacles allow users to interact with AR in real world environments, with abilities to AI-generate imagined 3D objects from voice, virtually interact with other spectacle wearers, and access Lens studio apps, all built in.
WHY NOW: As a disgruntled Sterling Crispin notes, all mixed reality devices thus far can be categorised by a collection of tradeoffs, and this will likely be true for the next few years at least. However, this year’s developments show extreme dedication to a world where our physical lives contain integrated digital layers. And these layers are increasingly optimised for fashion.Since the launch of the Apple Vision Pro, Balenciaga, Mytheresa, J.Crew, E.l.f. Cosmetics and SYKY have all come to market with apps designed around spatial compute. While none of these go much further than enhancing storytelling for now, these first ventures are indicative of fashion players placing their stakes in the ground for further mixed reality work.
The way this work might look has already been preempted by Tribute Brand. Who announced they were building an AR app— ‘CWETEK TRACKER’ in late July. Using Apple’s ‘Object Tracking’ capabilities CWETEK TRACKER allows Vision Pro wearers to automatically overlay digital clothes onto those around them, then track them seamlessly using their gaze.
It’s a well known fact that both SNAP spectacles and the Apple Vision Pro leave much to be desired. However, as real-time digital fashion thus far has been dominated by clunky phone-based augmented reality, these developments in XR are understandably exciting. Future versions of CWETEK TRACKER, and the innovations that accompany it, will pave the way for a world where digital fashion is something you see and shop, as part of your daily life. We just need hardware light (and cool) enough to support it.
3 questions to mull over:
The latter half of 2024 has seen extreme strides in the commercialisation of internet culture. From the rapid co-option of ‘brat summer’ by brands and politicians to trademarks levied against viral creators like Jool’s Lebron.
With the realness that once marked Gen-Z’s internet, under enterprise-endorsed fire, I’m asking myself: is our current brand of bottom-up internet cool about to die?As our uncannyvallification fortifies, and we’re represented as personalised avatars across retail experiences, social (media) lives and operating systems, I’m thinking: will consumers start identifying more closely with virtual influencers1 OR will the abundance of perfectly-curated digital forms drive us back towards performances of human imperfection? (aka. brat summer and it's the same but it's all year round so it’s not)
Finally, following Meta’s decision to remove the AR work of 600,000 creators in the next 3 months, one of the most pertinent questions for the future of fashion and retail is: do new marketplaces and social media platforms have what it takes to capture creators in a post-Meta world? Or are their offerings too sparse to uproot incumbents?
2 organisations that could shape the space:
Modamorphosis — A joint venture between socialite Jamie QQ Wu, and former Smithsonian/ SXSW producer Brooke Smith, the organisation terms itself a ‘fashion alchemist’ — bringing different mediums and industries together to create magic, with a particular focus on fashion.
The Digital Fashion Designers Council (DFDC) — The DFDC launched with a host of big-names, and expansive ambitions to bring traditional brands into digital fashion. This month has seen their first event series ‘Fashion Week Connect’ showcasing the work of talented digital designers, and building out an interoperability toolkit.
1 personal note:
I’ve been writing This Outfit Does Not Exist sporadically for almost 5 years, giving whatever weekends and early mornings I can to explaining the world of digital fashion.
This Outfit Does Not Exist is my way of getting the world to take digital fashion seriously. And, in light of a crypto bear market, a retail slowdown, and cuts in innovation funding, this is more essential than ever.
With all this in mind, earlier this summer I made the commitment to double down on my writing. Waking up even earlier, and being even more boring on weekends, to increase the frequency with which This Outfit Does Not Exist comes out.
The decision to decrease my sleep has also come with the choice to introduce a paid subscription tier to this newsletter. At a minimum this will allow me to continue to finance the matcha I need to keep going, and maybe even buy a piece of digital art with whatever’s left.
As the mission of This Outfit Does Not Exist is to bring digital fashion to life for everyone, the majority of my pieces will still be free. However there will be a subset of posts with a distinctly commercial angle—case studies, strategy pieces and innovation breakdowns—exclusively available to those kind enough to give me $8 month (or $80 per year) to work on my writing. And, those generous enough to purchase a $220 founding membership will be able to ask me to research and write a newsletter on whichever topic they like.
Despite pushing 30 (gross!) the start of the school year is still the time when I make my resolutions— deciding which habits to chuck and which to continue. This piece marks my commitment to my very first labour of love— bringing you the future of fashion like never before. And, I’m so grateful to all of you who support this.
Thanks for sticking along for the ride.
— Dani 👽