When I hear ‘digital’, I think virtual; without a physical existence… like a demat fixed deposit. So when I heard of a digital dress, my immediate reaction was to think about that children's story about The Emperor's New Clothes. Turns out it isn’t quite like that. This digital dress is made using blockchain; it is a dress that needs no actual resources to make. Yes, it sounds rather complicated.
It is a class of fashion known as digital couture and this dress is called Iridescence (the phenomenon where surfaces seem to emit different colours of light). It was created and sold on the blockchain platform; the technology that supports crypto-currency.
The digital dress was sold for about Rs. 6.6 lakhs and many, obviously thought that this is a terrible waste of money. However, this dress is valuable. Just like crypto-currency, this ‘dress’ is an asset having intrinsic value without physical existence. And as crypto-currency can be used to buy goods and services, this digital dress can be converted into an actual outfit if and when required; and (presumably) bought and sold.
Unlike regular clothing, which requires cultivation/manufacturing, weaving, cutting, stitching, packing, transporting, this is clothing that requires no resources. As such, its creation and maintenance is sustainable. According to the Dutch startup responsible for the creation, such ‘sustainable’ clothing reduces the pressure placed on the earth's already strained resources to create more clothes.
The dress is rendered using 2D garment pattern-cutting software and 3D design software along with film rendering tools to create a virtual object. Fabricant is the Dutch startup that created the dress in conjunction with Dapper Labs and artist Johanna Jaskowska. According to the startup, the best option is to go naked; the second best is digital clothing (which is the same thing?). And with so many people investing in creating a virtual online persona for themselves, it makes sense that they want to ‘invest’ in clothing that is truly reflective of that persona. In times to come, we could perhaps see a proliferation of digital clothing; particularly among social media influencers, feel some.
Not only clothes, we now have virtual formula 1 race cars as well. A blockchain bidder bid over one hundred thousand Ether Tokens (amounting to about $113,000) to acquire this car.
There are crypto fantasy creatures, crypto kitties, crypto puppies and other virtual collectibles that can be bought. Why? Well your guess is as good as mine. But when one thinks about it, virtual currency is not really different from cash. Even cash has value only because we believe it has value. Otherwise cash is just pieces of reinforced, water-resistant 'paper'. So perhaps in times to come we may all be buying virtual outfits, owning virtual autos and lavishing affection on virtual pets having used our virtual wealth to acquire all of this stuff?
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