Brands Like Dolce and Gabbana Participate in Metaverse Fashion Week

Luxury brands like Dolce and Gaba are participating in Metaverse Fashion Week. Right now, the event kicked off for the first time last year and was launched in decent land. Joining us now with more is Chief Metaverse Officer at Journey Cathy Hackel, Cathy. Good morning. So all this is interesting. We're we're seeing a a meter fashion week and I wonder how successful events like this are at onboarding users into web three. What's the participation rate like? Yeah, so last year they had over I think 100,000 participants and over 100 65,000 wearables uh that were, you know, given or collected at that time. So, you know, smaller numbers, but I think the numbers are increasing and yeah, it's really exciting. I think the big news for this year um is that it's multi platform. So you mentioned last year was only the central land this year. It is uh includes platforms like spatial over. Um And yeah, it's, it's just really exciting to watch a lot more brands enter the space. Um And you know, me Fashion Week is starting to kind of be seen as some, you know, as part of the fashion calendar in some ways you say it's expanding in platforms is one succeeding over another. And I don't suppose meta is part of that, you know, is there some, what kind of decision making goes into going into some platforms versus others? Yeah. So I think right now the collaboration me for me, Fashion Week was just the central land spatial the platform and then over uh as the platform as well. Um I know that there are some also, for example, Tommy Hilfiger has a portal that allows you to go into the Roblox World as well. So it doesn't mean that Roblox is involved in mere Fashion Week. It just means that the brand is portal into other platforms. Um So yeah, so I think it was a, you know, a kind of an organized uh coordination between all these platforms that being said, I do think that as metaverse Fashion Week progresses, I hope to see, you know, platforms like Roblox or even, you know, Islands and Fortnite Creative now that you have the Unreal Engine uh come into play and Metas Fashion Week expanding to more and more platforms that might not be web three. So the Fashion Week, of course, yes, you do have these uh you, you, you do have these incredible uh pieces that are done that nobody will actually buy or, or one person buys them and it's like uh several $1000 you know, tens of thousands of dollars but really not meant for the uh racks, but generally the whole idea is that it gives you a sense of what the direction, at least of passion. Uh And, and that's one of the reasons why you want to be at these shows, you kind of want to get an insight into where things are going has that translated into the metaphors. I am I gonna see any of these on racks at, at uh uh at a local store, right? Is Dol Gaba gonna put any of these dresses out? Uh a anybody going to do this or is this, is this still very virtual? I I think for most brands, it's still very virtual. What they do in the virtual space is very siloed from what they do in their physical retail touch points. Some of the brands, for example, Tommy Hilfiger has been changing that a bit. Uh So, you know, I was actually invited to uh New York Fashion Weeks, um a Tommy Hilfiger show that September and they had the physical catwalk and they had a virtual catwalk and Roblox uh where you could see some of the same designs, right? So there's, I think they're starting to look at how to merge the physical in the virtual. That being said there is culture and fashion trends being created in some of these virtual spaces, right? Um So there are there, there are some changes, there's also opportunity for couture. So I personally um for me, fashion week, I'm wearing a, one of one NFT uh which is Vivian Tam's first NFT. She's AAA well known fashion designer and I'm the only one wearing that dress, right. So I think that there are opportunities to change, to create virtual couture. So it's interesting because this is happening right now as some are speculating that the metaverse is not exactly over but is at least in sort of like a doldrums, you know, you have like Disney kind of stepping back and a lot of, you know, the w referring to is the meta meh to. So, um yeah, I, I I'm just curious like how you see that. Do you see that as just sort of like, I mean, clearly you don't see that, right? I mean, clearly you're a metaverse supporter but um but just, you know, do you take this seriously? I mean, there, there's definitely been a loss of interest in the metaverse compared to say, I don't know, a year ago. Um and we were seeing like metaverse land prices going down. So I'm just curious what you think about this and, and, and how seriously you take it? Yeah, I definitely take it very seriously in the sense that there is this cool down moment right now. Um But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think that, you know, we were on this train destination Metaverse, a lot of people got in the hype part of the train now they're off. Um, so a lot of us are continuing to build. Um, I do think it's farther than we think. Right. Um, it's not here yet. We're, we're building towards it. So it's a longer term vision of what's gonna be the future of the internet. Right. Um, so I definitely take it seriously and I think, you know, companies like Disney, you know, that have to lay off a certain amount of people. Um you know, the metaverse unit to me in some ways was a more of an R and D type of um organization. Um So they still have a lot of people within Disney and within ILMX lab, for example, working on Metaverse related technologies. So when I hear someone say like, you know, Disney is kissing, you know, is, is kissing uh the way the meta are like leaving the Metaverse, it's not 100% true because they have a lot of people still working uh on a lot of different metaverse related technologies. Mhm. On that note, what, what are some of the barriers to entry that are making something like entering metaverse fashion? Tough. Uh I think, you know, there is that friction of people having to have a wallet, I mean, they can enter as guests. Um but having to have a wallet to have to have the full experience. Um I think is, you know, a bit of an issue and yeah, I think if we if, if we see this next year going into broader, you know, into Roblox, for example, or into Fortnite or some of these um you know, more mass market platforms, it'll be more accessible. Um But there is still friction, right? There's still friction. Um You know, II I attended Metaverse Fashion Week. Uh this, you know, yesterday, I'm going there today and sometimes things, you know, servers crash and you have to kind of re re revisit the space. So there's still, I think technical issues and there's still kind of friction when it comes to joining some of these spaces. They also have a we meta data showing that the median sale price for land and decent land has dropped nearly 90% from a year ago. How, how does that affect things? Yeah, I mean, for me, virtual real estate is kind of a speculative asset. Uh Right. So it's, it's, you know, I think it's part of the trend of people not being, you know, it's part of the metaverse and the web through winter that we're going through, right? So I think that it definitely has an impact. Uh that being said, I mean, you still have a lot of brands going into these spaces at least in pop-up versions, right? Uh Doing things in, you know, spatial and decent land. So everyone from like you mentioned to a yoga, you know, who's all in on, on, on, on the virtual side of things. Um So, yeah, definitely, I definitely understand what the price is down. But, you know, I don't necessarily think that that is necessarily a reflection of the future of the universe. OK. We, we, we got to talk about this is really important fashion week and, and all these fashion shows the real important thing here at the after parties, the swag the DJ sw the drinks, any of that happening. Because if it's not happening, what's the incentive for me to attend? There's definitely parties happening. They're just more virtual in nature. So, you know, maybe a virtual cocktail here and there. Um not as fun as being physically and you know, New York fashion week out for party. Um But kind of fun. I think people are, if you look at Twitter, Twitter and look at, you know what people are posting, they're having a blast, they're having fun, they're seeing their virtual friends in there. Um So not quite the same but still some people are really excited. Yeah, Lawrence missed his invitation to the Tommy Hilfiger fashion show, but Cathy thanks so much. That was Journey Chief Metaverse Officer Kathy Hackle and folks don't miss her speaking at consensus next month in Austin, Texas for tickets and more information head over to consensus dot coin des dot com.