Decentraland's Metaverse Fashion Week: A Virtual Runway for A-List Designers and Brands

Decentraland, the blockchain-based metaverse game, recently hosted its long-awaited Metaverse Fashion Week. From the name itself, you can derive tell the event is an amalgamation of all the brands that have collaborated with Decentraland.

What did players experience during the event? And how does this event fare despite the crypto bear market?

Metaverse Fashion Week Event

The Metaverse Fashion Week featured 63 different fashion houses comprising well-established brands including Adidas, Coach, DKNY, House of Barth, Tommy Hilfiger, Julia Blanc, Xiaoling Ji, and Dolce & Gabbana.

The event incorporated corporate branding and A-list designers from the fashion industry into the virtual world, offering the opportunity for users who otherwise couldn't afford the brand in real life to interact with it through the metaverse.

The event was held in Decentraland’s 39 districts, with users teleporting and walking throughout the event area by clicking on the map. The event included runway shows, after-parties, immersive experiences, and shopping. 

Decentraland introduced several new features just before fashion week such as credit card payments, garment creation tools, and virtual land enhancements. For web3 payments, Decentraland utilizes the Ethereum blockchain to record the ownership and transactions of items.

Mixed Success?

Despite the impressive turnaround of numerous high-profile luxury brands, it has been noted that several issues were encountered during the event such as technical issues that caused lag, skipping frames, and hard-to-see low-resolution graphics for certain brand logos.

Additionally, attendance has seen a decrease compared to last year’s event. According to sources, this year’s Metaverse Fashion week has seen less than 50,000 visitors - roughly half of last year’s 108,000 visitors. 

Also noteworthy is that despite the steep decline in attendance, investor and brand numbers have no significant change, signifying confidence in the metaverse despise crypto winter’s harsh treatments.

Digital Fashion in the Metaverse

Decentraland has continually positioned itself as the metaverse’s fashion hub. Having previously partnered Tommy Hilfiger, Adidas, Dolce & Gabbana, and more even before the start of this year’s fashion event.

Long before video games, the market for digital fashion has always been ripe for potential, amounting to an estimated $498 million in 2021. But in video games, the industry is predicted to grow as the industry grows. An example of this is that just this year, virtual lands sales have experienced a surge despite bear market conditions.

Adidas currently possesses a collection of 30,000 digital wearables that were created using Ethereum. Since its launch in December 2021, the collection has had a trading volume of $138.6 million in primary and secondary sales. 

During Decentraland's Fashion Week, Adidas unveiled a 16-piece collection of virtual hoodies, which included a pink hoodie that was launched in collaboration with Bored Ape Yacht Club. The pink hoodie featured several columns of green eyes lining it, mimicking the Adidas stripes, and was priced between $35 and over $8,000.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Decentraland's Metaverse Fashion Week showcased the potential of virtual fashion and the metaverse but also highlighted the challenges of attracting users and brands to the nascent space.

You can learn more about Decentraland by visiting our page.