I have an immensely passionate love-hate relationship with Instagram. I love the visual storytelling and amateur portraiture. But, I hate the greenwashing of fashion brands.
Every scroll or so, I’m met with an advert posted by a strange account promising me £750 worth of SHEIN clothing items to review. That’s a lot of money. And, considering SHEIN is notoriously known for selling incredibly cheap products, that’s a lot of clothes. Knowing SHEIN and many (not all) of their customers, a good portion of their products are dumped in landfills.
Gadha and Paridhi from OnClickCloset, a digital fashion house, share my concern about this excessive display of consumerism and its consequences on planet earth. They wanted to find a way to practise their fashion craft in such a way that did not pollute the environment but that also did not limit their bursts of bubbling creativity. Cue digital fashion.
Slowing fashion down
To Gadha and Paridhi, digital fashion seemed to be an easy answer to this problem. “This was a time when digital fashion was just a term and implementation started booming beyond gaming skins, especially when the pandemic hit and forced us all to stay indoors,” they said.
“We wanted to be as creative as possible but in a sustainable way and were largely affected by the tons of wastage the fashion industry still produces.”
This was a golden opportunity for fashion to take the sharpest of turns and for brands to explore possibilities outside of the norm. OnClickCloset seized it.
“We started to question what garments we could create outside of the constraints of physics,” Gadha and Paridhi said. “That is how we started exploring the different software and platforms. We then connected with different people and launched our very first digital fashion collection.”
Just one click
Both Gadha and Paridhi hold bachelor's degrees in fashion from the Indian Institute of Art and Design, and are thus well versed in the traditional methodologies of physical fashion.
The pair observed a major gap in the traditional fashion industry when it came to sustainability and practicality, given the current climate crisis. And so, OnClickCloset was born.
“As we started our journey into digital fashion, we thought of the ease one gets when engaging with digital fashion,” Gadha and Paridhi said. “To choose a piece of clothing that best suits you, it’s as easy as just one click. Hence our name.”
Going beyond mere convenience, the digital fashion house also provides services to brands using Virtutal Tailor, fashion NFTs as well as AR fashion. “Our idea was to reach people who want to expand their creative senses when it comes to clothing but who want to do so whilst having a low carbon footprint,” they said.
And this extension doesn’t just include people; it encapsulates pets too.
“We had a section of pets clothing in the Special Items digi outfits. We threw some light on the limitless potential digital clothing has,” Gadha and Paridhi said. “It can be created for anyone: whether it be a human, a pet or an imaginary character.”
OnClickCloset created a collection around the popular mobile game Candy Crush and dubbed it Sugar Rush. This way, they could capitalise on the hype around the game as a way to draw people into the idea of digital fashion.
“The garments are both for people and pets, giving them a sense of relaxation which is associated with the game while playing it. The pets are companions of people and it expands the idea of dressing up together for something you like under the same theme.”
Not every digital fashion collection is crystalised in sweet niceties, however, with some proving to be a little more complicated to digitally stitch together.
“Every collection has its own set of challenges but if we had to mention a specific piece that was particularly complex, then it would be the Lunatic Kummatti piece that was minted on the Artisant and soon to be exhibited in the Utopian Dystopia, an art, tech and design festival that will be held in Kochi from 2-9 July 2022,” Gadha and Paridhi said.
“The clothing is abstract and associated with grass-bunched clothing of Kerala’s folk dance Kummatti Kali with a dystopian approach to the changing climatic conditions. To bridge the future and present in terms of storytelling was a new experience for us.”
“Creating the look and feel of something that was originally in our heads whilst simultaneously keeping the garments accurate with references to the pieces that exist in the real world was tiresome. But, eventually, it was worth all the work.”
Catch The Lunatic Kummatti look on the Artisant here where it is available as a wearable fashion NFT.
Rising tides
Whilst already making massive waves in the digital fashion space, OnClickCloset is looking to higher tides to surf. They have collaborated with fashion designer IANA on a digital fashion collection named SEA FOAM.
“The collection concept shows a metamorphosis of shapes, lights and colours which are represented by digital garments and jewellery,” Gadha and Paridhi said. “The acrylic paintings by British artist and sculptor Peter Bear gave birth to the collection being transformed into digital prints.”
“SEA FOAM includes digital garments and accessories that will be available to mint as wearable fashion NFTs, with the accessories being developed into AR filters to expand the collection’s utility as digital wearables.”
Beyond cooking up epic wearables in the NFT space, OnClickCloset consists of a conscious duo who are all about expanding the web3 community in an eco-friendly manner.
“Web3 is a platform for people to explore with a great sense of freedom and we would like to reflect upon people with similar ideas to come forward and join the action. It is a perfect space to grow together,” they said.
“India is a large supplier of textiles and fashion. Our values and education as fashion designers are sure to leave a mark in this space and add value to the growing movement that is digital fashion. Digital fashion will weave both the fashion industry, as a whole, together with that of the web 3.0 community.”
I couldn’t have said it better.
Connect with OnClickCloset on Twitter here and Instagram here .