FASHION SHOWS HAVE ARRIVED IN THE METAVERSE. WHAT’S IN STORE FOR THE DIGITAL SPACES?
Image Courtesy of Jonathan Simkhai
23 feb 2022, for frame
Brand
Metaverse Development
Digital Fashion Development
Blueberry Entertainment
Music
Digital Location
Second Life
Dubbed the ‘first-ever Metaverse Fashion Week show’, Jonathan Simkhai’s AW22 runway took place in Second Life a day before the brand’s real-life presentation during New York Fashion Week.
Key features
Second Life is a multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves to roleplay their ‘second life’ in the metaverse. The show was hosted by Everyrealm, a metaverse real estate investor and developer. The guest avatars arrived dressed in Simkhai's designs, recreated into digital wearables by Blueberry Entertainment. Described as VIP guests, the digitalized models, influencers, celebrities and journalists spent eight minutes previewing virtual outfits from Simkhai's AW22 collection. Six of them are still available on Open Sea, an online non-fungible token marketplace.
If you search for Simkhai’s fashion show in Second Life today, you will come up empty-handed: a warning flashes 'Invalid Location'. Recorded as a video, the show's landscape was a flat, grey digital world featuring several ‘stones’ emblazoned with Blueberry’s logo. According to the brand, the space was ‘inspired by natural elements such as rock, water, air, and fire’, with the runway separated from the audience by two pools of static colour. Midway through the fashion show, the pools transformed into artificial fireplaces. Models levitated over the runway – the same walking animation was utilized for female avatars. Jonathan Simkhai’s official Instagram highlights the video from the in-person presentation on its feed, leaving the metaverse presentation and link to sales on Open Sea on its stories.
Frame's take
Was Jonathan Simkhai’s metaverse show an innovation or a publicity stunt? The discussion about virtual fashion shows has been going on for several years. However, with the growth of interest in crypto and NFT’s, many designers have been urged to jump into the metaverse, looking for new customers. On the other hand, digital developers see the commercial potential for fashion presentations in the virtual world. The significance of this show lies in the media attention that the collaboration of Simkhai, Everyrealm and Blueberry Entertainment managed to catch within the framework of New York Fashion Week.
The event raises several other questions. One: why Second Life as the location? Second Life is a virtual environment with poor graphic representation and detailing, even for a devoted gamer. A guess is that the fashion show creators were looking to target its loyal users base, reported as around 64.7 million active users in 2021. In theory a metaverse/virtual space offers unlimited possibilities to develop a new spatial vocabulary. In praxis, Second Life has existed for nearly twenty years, yet still doesn’t look more sophisticated then when it was released in 2003. Yet, in the real world, the creation of a fashion show often starts with the location scouting. To create a fashion space of value one must choose the right platform for the chosen target group. There are good examples of virtual location scouting such as Gucci x Roblox or Travis Scott’s Icon Series Outfit in Fortnite.
The second question: why Simkhai as the debut designer? Luxury ready-to-wear brands such as Jonathan Simkhai build their legacy on the quality and tactility of their fashion objects. The use of Second Life to communicate the craftsmanship fails due to the lack of graphical detail – it’s too akin to an early-noughties digital space.