During last week's Fashion Tech Tuesday's X space, run by the fabulous Janey Park, I met Tangpoko again. Years ago, we used to frequent some of the same Clubhouse and Twitter spaces all around digital fashion. After I re-oriented myself towards Token Engineering/ Complex System Design and became the Lead Steward of Unlock Protocol DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization), these spaces drifted sadly further away.

Due to Janey's invitation, I found my way back and was very happy about it. Shortly after, Tangpoko invited me to explore Decentraland (DCL) Metaverse Fashion Week with her. Swiftly, we picked a date and time. While roaming around DCL, we had too much fun exploring, claiming and enjoying some soft questing.

For once, it was nice being an observer and not the creator on the spot. As we strutted from booth to booth, it reminded me that part of being a good creator is accepting constructive feedback and developing an eye for what is good and what isn't so good just yet.

Overall Impression

Overall, Tangpoko and I enjoyed this year's event. It was more concise than the former ones, had strong DCL branding (very recognizable), and had more digital-first brands than during former events.

The event was free and had its own exquisite runway area separated from the stage where the talks and presentations took place. The core area was surrounded by the exhibition booths, which were kept in the same layout but had customizable features.

Something I wasn't able to attend was the runway events. But Tangpoko shared with me that she was impressed by the beyond-sized models who didn't just walk down the runway but had their moment of shine, taking on floating poses in the middle of the runway under an automated spotlight:

Best Wearables

Thanks to Tangpoko's little nudge, I went on a shopping spree on the DCL marketplace two days before our meet-up, and I came across the outfit I decided to wear during our exploration. She also found out who the original creator of the design was (cause I didn't know how to look it up 😅): CHENGPENG Studio is the designer, while the person who made the 3D translation is MetaGarden. I highly recommend checking out their wearables here.

What I love most about this outfit is its very detailed textures and perfect weight painting, meaning movements all come through as they should. The baked texture makes it feel like a puffer outfit from head to toe. Check out the full collection here.

Aside from my personal dress-up choice for the occasion, there were a lot more free wearables around than visitors were allowed to claim. Some of them had time restrictions and were only available for a certain period, while others required some soft questing to become claimable.

My personal favorites were:

• Sport Visor #230 by AnneZanne#b738 for Digital Drip MVFW

• SVD Denim `Era #130 by SvitlaVolka#c075 for SVD Denim (Ava 2025)

• Templa Winter Boot - White by wawa#d31a for Another-1 x Templa

Feedback

As outsiders, we find feedback hard to give as we do not have the whole picture. We do not know the constraints under which Decentraland put this event together, and we don't understand budget limitations and time constraints.

Yet, I believe we have a duty to improve, even if it is only for ourselves as creators, and to learn how to better our own work. Here are three ideas on what and how to improve:

• MARKETING
  The world these days is very noisy, and marketing for niche events has a hard time crawling through that noise. If not for Janey's space, and even though I am still in touch with many digital fashion designers (thanks to The ALANA Project), the Decentraland MFW announcement only reached me two days before the start.

• WEARABLES
  Unlike last year, I felt most wearables were too easy to claim. These wearables have cost creators valuable time, making it too easy to get to them, and giving them out for free additionally feels like it might set a bad standard. Ideally, there are some freely claimable wearables among paid ones, and if they are free, visitors will need to put in some work (quest) to get them into their wallets. I believe this sets a more healthy standard for the creators' abilities toward the visitors.

• EXHIBITION BOOTHS
  The unified booths were a great addition to this year. They are easier to manage than setting up highly individual spaces and also give young brands a great environment to shine with their products. But if the booths are entered from the side and the front, the CTA (Call To Action) to follow the brand on their socials is in the back of our avatar's head; instead, I would reposition those to the opposite wall. Also, I felt that Ben Bridge did an incredible job two years ago, bringing people closer to their brand's history. While I believe this might be too much work for the unified exhibition booths, the customized and separate spaces could have done that to wheel visitors into their brand's story.

Conclusion

That said, I personally know how hard it can be to run anything as a mostly decentralized community. Decentraland has done an incredible job at putting this event together!

Thank you! I loved the event and hope it will continue to exist 💘!

Like What You Read?

If you like my content, consider supporting me ...

1️⃣ by subscribing to this publication.

2️⃣ by following me on Farcaster, YouTube and TikTok.

3️⃣ by getting one of my membership tiers, moonstone (free) or pink sapphire (paid).*

* I will continue creating the type of content above, but I will slowly move to a model where you guys hold blockchain-powered memberships to access my content.