MFW 2023: Can digital fashion save the metaverse?

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1/ MFW 2023 in full swing: Virtual couture? Vivienne Tam’s first NFT dress struts around Metaverse Fashion Week

At the event of the year for everything metaverse fashion, Chinese-American designer Vivienne Tam’s dress inspired by Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs and her signature East-meets-West aesthetic debuted in Decentraland.

What it is: A virtual qipao dress digitally embroidered with the likenesses of 3 avatars from the BAYC NFT collection in a mandala pattern. The one-of-one NFT was designed by Tam while technically assisted by digital fashion platform Brand New Vision (BNV).

Why the buzz: The dress marks Tam’s web3 debut after a 3-decade career marked by a distinctive East-meets-West style. From being featured in permanent collections at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, Tam has so far also displayed physical Bored Ape-imprinted apparel on real-world runways.

Experts note that while interest in the metaverse may be fizzling out, metaverse fashion’s future remains bright and much needed. Big brands like Adidas, Gucci, Balenciaga, and Nike are already in the space, while digital-native brands like DRESSX are making waves in virtual catwalks and closet try-ons.

Metaverse fashion also makes it bid toward sustainability, in light of traditional fashion’s much-criticized waste and environmental problems.

2/ Polygon to fight NFT scams, Art Blocks launches secondary marketplace

Polygon is the latest to respond to the need for increased NFT authentication by partnering with web3 infrastructure protocol Wakweli, whose certificates of authenticity certify the originality of a specific token.

Digital assets on Polygon will now be compatible with Wakweli’s certification system, enabling every NFT project holder on the chain to request authenticity certificates for every asset. With enhanced security in the digital ecosystem, there’s a way to detect counterfeit NFTs.

Still on NFT news, generative art NFT platform Art Blocks now has a secondary marketplace and is mulling over how to incentivize royalties-paying collectors.

It used to be that $1.4B+ worth of secondary market NFT sales registered to date across Art Blocks collections took place on external platforms. Now, that may no longer be the case with its own specialized secondary marketplace, which integrates within the existing Art Blocks website.

Art Blocks takes no platform fee for secondary trades, and artists’ creator royalty settings are fully honored. In contrast, Ethereum NFT marketplaces like Blur and OpenSea make creator royalties optional for traders above a nominal 0.5% minimum. A royalty - a percentage of the secondary sale price paid out to the original creator - is typically set at 5%-10%.

3/ Metaverse visions are vanishing as consumers gravitate to the digital connected economy

Is the metaverse headed for failure, or are we simply enjoying Mark Zuckerberg's downfall before the rise of virtual worlds? Recent indicators of failure or waning interest:

• Disney takes a break from its metaverse development, putting its next-gen storytelling and consumer-experiences unit in time-out.

• Microsoft takes a step back from its commercial metaverse plans and currently opts for an "industrial metaverse" with chipmaker Nvidia.

• Chinese tech giants Tencent and Bytedance have toned down their meta-aspirations, with plans for hundreds of layoffs in their metaverse development squads.

On the side of optimism:

• Metaverse native brands like Decentraland and The Sandbox are still doing great, despite a dip in land sales.

So, is the metaverse doomed? Cathy Hackl, Chief Metaverse Officer at Journey, thinks the metaverse is just having a bit of a cooldown moment. “A lot of us are continuing to build,” she said, citing the metaverse as a longer-term vision and one that’s “going to be the future of the internet.”

4/ Candy Digital pushes forward with new MLB NFTs after Fanatics divestment

In January, it can be remembered that Fanatics sold about a 60% majority stake in Candy to a group led by Galaxy Digital. Now, Candy enters its 3rd season as an official Major League Baseball (MLB) partner as they jointly release new 2023 season digital collectibles.

Announced in June 2021, Candy Digital had founding board members in entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin, and Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz. It quickly garnered a $1.5B valuation upon raising $100M in October that year.

The firm laid off more than a third of its 100-person team in November, and shortly after Rubin circulated an email to Fanatics staff saying NFTs are “unlikely to be sustainable or profitable as a standalone business.”

How sports NFTs fare amid the crypto bear market and diminished NFT sales buzz remains an interesting development.

🏃‍♂️ Quick Hits

🎮 Gaming

• Epic Games’ MetaHuman Animator tool brings extremely realistic animations to the iPhone. (Link)

• Thanks to the new Discover tool, Fortnite now shows how many people are playing Battle Royale - and every other island. (Link)

• Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney: “The metaverse will be a lot more complex and sophisticated than the world wide web … Partly because it has to compete with every other entertainment medium today, including triple-A games and social networks.” (Link)

• Teens can now play a Roblox game inspired by hearing tests. (Link)

• Metaverse gaming could be your business’ game changer - when done right. (Link)

• 93.7M people played metaverse games in 2022, and it’s expected to jump by 20% to 112.1 this year. (Link)

🕶 Fashion

• Tommy Hilfiger gets outfitted with a cross-metaverse virtual hub, letting it unveil experiences across Decentraland, Roblox, Spatial, DressX, and Ready Player Me. (Link)

• Adidas virtual gear, DRESSX and DUNDAS, Coach and ZERO10: What to expect at MFW as it happens now. (Link)

• Platinum recording artist Lil Durk co-founds web3 brand NXTG3NZ, complete with phygital sneakers. (Link)

• Dutch denim label Atlantic G-Star Raw releases AI-generated denim couture. (Link)

• BOSS brings shoppers into Spatial for its virtual showroom, immersive experiences included. (Link)

• ALTAVA takes fashion brands to web3, creating virtual pop-up stores for them. (Link)

• LA brand Ilona Song’s Futuristic Fauna and Primavera collections bloom IRL and virtually at MFW. (Link)

🏀 Sports

• EXGOLAND, powered by VR and AI, touts itself as the future of metaverse sports. (Link)

• Explore the Valero Texas Open on PGA TOUR Reignmakers. (Link)

• Reddit may be writing the ultimate brand playbook for web3 - How can the NBA and NFL follow suit? (Link)

• Was FIFA the biggest scam yet in sports NFTs? (Link)

• Come pick up your sport utility vehicle at Nissan’s metaverse outlet. (Link)

🎥 Media & Entertainment

• Google refutes claims that Bard was trained using ChatGPT data. (Link)

• Amid layoffs, Warner Music sticks to its web3 and AI ambitions. (Link)

• After shelving metaverse plans with unit cuts, Disney bids adieu to the former Marvel CEO it hired. (Link)

• NXTG3NZ is a crew of sneaker designers, creatives, music and sports execs syncing digital products to gaming realms like Durk's OTF Gaming. (Link)

• Sony's web3 gaming framework for NFTs could spark further digital art adoption. (Link)

• Magnum's sci-fi “anti-metaverse” film shows there are some things you can’t enjoy in the virtual realm, like eating ice cream. (Link)

🖼 Art

• If everyone is a millionaire, does it still feel special? Mason Rothschild’s latest OE drop comes in the recent collapse of SVB. (Link)

• Andy Warhol's iconic artworks are up for grabs as tokenized investments on Ethereum. (Link)

• The devil’s in the details: An Amazon receipt exposes retail giant’s NFT plans. (Link)

• In a bizarre turn of events, a Pussy Riot protest art NFT leads to criminal charges being pressed in Russia. (Link)

• UK’s NFT project falls apart due to a lack of demand. (Link)

• Miami NFT Week shines light on Latin America’s burgeoning crypto communities. (Link)

• Could AI potentially dominate the world of poetry, leaving human poets in the dust? (Link)

🤖 AI

• In a major shakeup, Google revamps its VA unit to prioritize Bard. (Link)

• The next iteration of ChatGPT won't be found in web3, unless some things change. (Link)

• Could there truly be any boundaries for AI in the shipping industry? (Link)

• AI sparks job loss fears among Germans. (Link)

• Alexa can now make and receive calls through T-Mobile. (Link)

• AI in the cockpit monitoring pilot health and fatigue - a cutting-edge solution on the horizon? (Link)

• New GPT chatbot learns slight tonal differences between “Hey” and “Heyyyy,” plus other quips from The New Yorker. (Link)

💸 Funding & Partnerships

• Meta and Colorintech introduce the “100 Worlds in 100 Days” Metaverse program, backing more than 200 immersive companies in the UK. (Link)

• DWF Labs invests $40M in Fetch.ai, an AI-focused crypto protocol. (Link)

• The Ocean Race, Virtual Regatta, and Accenture create a metaverse for e-sailing game fans to access exclusive events, interact with others, and view team stats. (Link)

• Hydra Ventures raises $10M to invest in other DAOs. (Link)

• Metaverse builder LandVault raises an additional $3M to expand the Matera protocol, enabling on-chain creation of metaverses. (Link)

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All content on this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not aim to serve as or replace expert investment advice.

📈 If you are a startup building in the metaverse / web3 ecosystem and are raising capital, please reach out to Sfermion. Sfermion is an investment firm focused on accelerating the emergence of the metaverse 📈

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