DIGITAL FASHION WEEK NEW YORK 2022
RUNWAY SHOW AND NETWORKING and SPEAKER EVENT
Digital Fashion Week NYC's networking event occurred at The Lectra Innovation Center in Midtown Manhattan. It was day two of DFW NYC, and the room was full of fashion enthusiasts. There was a buzz in the air and anticipation from guests to hear from the speakers. Eleven digital fashion experts described digital fashion, frequently contradicting each other.
Each speaker had fifteen minutes to discuss their digital fashion career and the industry's future. Some speakers discussed digital fashion as a conduit for NFT investing; some used digital fashion to discuss new sustainability practices; others used digital fashion to discuss the opportunities for metaverse entertainment. The topics broadened into philosophical questions: How may human connection change in the metaverse? How may aesthetic experience motivate digital fashion?
This event made clear that digital fashion is a catch-all term. The digital allows users to create, design, invest, practice sustainability, and entertain. The speakers all agreed on one message; digital fashion is the future. But how can digital fashion be accessible to the masses when experts can't agree on digital fashion's primary purpose? What do these conflicting perceptions tell us about digital fashion - who is it for, and where is it going?
Full list of speakers:
Democratic Design — Lars Richter
BRANDS THAT INSPIRE— Juan de Lascurain
Digital Fashion and Financial Lending — Ravi Singh
The building blocks of an Open Metaverse — Ioana Surpateanu
The nature and aesthetics of digital fashion — Michael Spicher
Digital Fashion Trends — Coy Griffin
Metaverse Performances and Entertainment — Serena Elis
High-end wearables for the Metaverse platforms — Diana Perfilieva
The Future of Fashion in Web 3 — Rohan Chhabra
The Future of Luxury: Bridging the Digital-Physical Gap — Angel Pui
Wall Street funding the metaverse — Priyanka Jain
The Metaverse and Fashion's Evolution — Nova Lorraine
PANEL DISCUSSIONS
1. Fashion in the Metaverse Applied to our Real Lives (How can we create greater value between IRL x URL)
Moderator - Michael Ferraro - Executive Director at Fashion Institute of Technology’s DTech Lab
Olska Green - CEO of Ecoolska (Sustainable Fashion Brand)
Leetee Wang - CEO of LODE (Innovative Immersive Digital Fashion Marketplace)
Markus Peuler - CEO of NeXR Technology (Extended Reality Production Studio)
Jorden Woods - Founder of Star Chain Ventures (Venture Capital Studio in Web3 Tech)
Zuxana Bastian - Founder at JEVELS (Sustainable Digital Jewelry Brand)
If virtual gratification reduces the desire for physical product consumption, does that create a sustainability sector? This question kickstarted a discussion among the panelists.
Leetee answered that digital fashion could satiate consumers’ desire for newness, but it may not reduce the rate of physical product production and consumption. The panelists discussed “digital twins,” which are digital fashion products purchased as identical pieces to physical fashion products. Zuxana presented digital earrings that she mentioned are the digital counterpart to the physical earrings she wears in real life. Digital twins match up consumers’ physical wardrobes for emerging digital settings in the metaverse. This allows consumers “to make use of the same products,” says Leetee. Will digital fashion increase consumption, especially with innovations like the digital twin?
*This panel discussion was held online via a video conferencing platform.
2. Avatars and inclusivity (Virtual personas x body positivity x self expression)
Moderator - Zofia Zwieglinska, Author at Glossy Co magazine (Covering sustainability and metaverse)
Morgan Linton- Co-Founder and VPEngineering of Bold Metrics (AI technololgy used to create body models for virtual marketplaces)
Nicole Reader - CEO & Founder of Modern Mirrors (avant-garde virtual fitting system for luxury fashion industry)
Kenneth Ryu - COO & Co-Founder of BinaryVR (virtual fashion renderings for meta verse fashion apparel)
Matthew Bennett - Body Scanning Division Manager at Human Solutions (producing human body measurement data to improve sizing in the apparel industry)
How may self-expression be limited in the metaverse when the creators of avatar platforms are not diverse? “Women fund less than two percent of metaverse companies. We need to see more female founders. I love seeing women help lead this world”, Nicole says. The limits of the digital fashion industry were discussed in this panel, highlighting the problem of representation in the design of avatars and virtual likenesses in the metaverse. Questions surrounding body sizing, avatar design, and beauty norms were mentioned. For digital fashion to be inclusive and accessible, design teams behind metaverse platforms and digital fashion products must reflect this call for diversity. What would be the future of digital fashion spaces if people of colour, women, trans folks and people with different abilities were the ones creating them?
3. Investing in the future (What are the values that investors and brand leaders are looking for in new fashion technologies?)
Moderator - Maghan McDowell, Innovation Editor at VOGUE Business magazine
Megan Kaspar - Magnetic Co-Founder & Managing Director at Red Dao (world’s first digital fashion-focused dao)
Ariel Cohen - Partner and Co-Founder of AnD Ventures
Dennis Zhang - Entrepreneur in software for global apparel market. Currently at Tapestry to lead software for Web3
Jordan Edelson- CEO & Founder at Appetizer Mobile, Chic Sketch, and TradeZing
Tracy Mancenido - Director of Digital Product Creation at Tommy Hilfiger
The democratization of access was a point of conversation. Specifically, how younger fashion designers can use digital fashion to create, monetize designs on blockchain, and get full authorship. Of course, questions continue to circulate about democratization, like who even has access to digital fashion? Who has the tech education to use digital fashion for their business? The panelists agree that for seamless integration of digital fashion into mainstream use, education is imperative for consumers and designers alike. The question of who should be making this education accessible remains open.
4. Web 3.0 from a brand perspective (Are we really poised for change in the fashion industry?)
Moderator - Eva Vacic, Artist Representative & Metaverse Community Manager for Portion.io
Pavan Bahl - Managing Partner BellWether Culture (private community based agency, digital events, content creation in the meta verse)
Sasha Tityanko - Deputy CEO & Art Director for Sensorium Galaxy (creating meta verse entertainment)
Olga Dogadkina - CoFounder & CEo of Emperia (virtual store platform)
The panelists discuss what structures are needed for digital fashion brands to create change in the fashion industry. The fashion industry is a leader in global pollution, resource extraction, and human rights violations. Digital fashion designers must acknowledge the problems in traditional fashion production to avoid remaking these problems in the digital space.
