The Metaverse is paying off for the fashion industry, which is using it to expand its customer base and advertise its products.
The first-ever Metaverse Fashion Week, held in the 3D virtual world Decentraland in March of this year, featured four days of runway shows and panel discussions. Participating brands included Roberto Cavalli, Etro, and Tommy Hilfiger. Anyone online can sign up, browse, and shop.
In Decentraland, users’ avatars can move around the network, interact with other users, play games, and use cryptocurrency to buy and sell goods like digital clothing and real estate. A Dubai-based business called Scopernia assists organizations in comprehending these new platforms and taking advantage of their opportunities.
The metaverses are the ones that let you own things, according to Managing Partner MENA Jérémy Density. You can resell a shirt that you purchased. Fashion brands have the chance to offer that if you have a digital avatar that wears the clothing.
There has already been a significant shift in the market due to the growing popularity of NFTs and blockchain. Morgan Stanley estimates that by 2030, metaverse gaming and NFTs could represent 10% of the market for luxury goods alone, with a potential market size of €50 billion and a 25% increase in profit margin.
Large fashion companies are already selling digital fashion as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which serve as ownership certificates, in the same way, that digital art is traded in the Metaverse. According to some experts, purchasing the ideal outfit for your avatar may become as aspirational for the typical consumer as purchasing new-season clothing from the Paris, London, and Milan fashion weeks.
According to a recent McKinsey management consultancy study, consumers in Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X are predicted to spend up to five hours per day in the Metaverse over the next five years, so this hypothesis is most likely to be accurate for them. They might have little time to get ready and go out.
Metaverse and Fashion will Define the Future
According to Frank Fitzgerald, founder of Pax, the fusion of these two worlds. World, a platform that lets users build web3 platforms or metaverse, could significantly impact the fashion industry. To Cointelegraph, he said:
“It will be a cultural revolution not only in fashion but also within the art industry, from new revenue generation streams to shaping what fashion looks like in the real world based on what is happening in the Metaverse.”
According to Fitzgerald, young people are the key demographic for digital fashion, especially those who consider their online personas to be an essential component of their social identities.
While older generations (30+) may find these concepts difficult to understand, he claimed that more people would eventually join the movement. In the coming decade, he predicted, a whole generation of 20 to 30-year-olds will be extremely aware of how they appear online and how that affects their relationships with friends and coworkers.
Brand Owners Need to Get Ready for The Digital Age
According to Forbes, the metaverse could represent a trillion-dollar business opportunity if it becomes a later version of the Internet. Therefore, brand owners in the fashion industry must decide whether, how, and when to participate in the metaverse. Brand owners must ensure their intellectual property portfolio is in order before doing so, especially for entities thinking about NFT-based offerings or other commercial aspects of the metaverse. In order to ensure that there is strong brand protection, this involves looking over current trademark and copyright registrations and taking into account new trademark and copyright filings that specifically address uses in the metaverse.
Brand owners should think about how they might need to enforce their IP rights in the metaverse. These methods should consider how brand owners deal with third parties using their proprietary brands. The collaborative and decentralized nature of the metaverse presents special challenges. A decentralized platform makes it impossible to implement the typical take-down request for online content.
There’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the metaverse. Common queries include “How will it be used?” and “How will intellectual property law apply?” However, brand owners need to consider these problems immediately and develop plans for advancing in the metaverse. Prudent brand owners will start conversations with their IP attorneys to ensure they are ready to enter the metaverse at their chosen time—this opportunity to expand the reach of their brands in exciting new ways.
