The realm of fashion documentation has been transformed by fashion archivists such as Archiving.net (curated by Shahan Assadourian), Archive PDF / Archived.co and Oui Oui studios. Their work in compiling extensive archives and developing visual platforms has become a cornerstone for current and future creators and curators in the fashion industry. These platforms serve as rich resources, offering a wealth of visual documentation and historical context alongside leaders in fashion documentation, such as fashionroadman & blissfoster.

One intriguing aspect of this digital transformation is the application of blockchain encryption. This technology ensures secure access to content without the need to sacrifice crucial personal information, thus preserving the provenance and integrity of the work. Blockchain's role extends beyond mere security; it redefines the way content is accessed and valued in the digital art and fashion sphere.

Token-enabled content brings several advantages to the forefront. Firstly, early adopters can showcase their support and involvement from the inception of a project or creator. Secondly, expert curators have the unique ability to track and directly reward their community, fostering a more intimate and reciprocal relationship. Similarly, followers can directly reward creators, establishing a direct line of appreciation and support. The use of blockchain smart contracts further allows creators to tailor their content visibility exclusively to specific supporters if needed.

This blockchain-powered tool allows for the sharing of work exclusively with specific users, supporters, or patrons. This system operates without the need for traditional personal information like email or names. Access is granted through blockchain-encrypted keys, which also act as personal wallets, thus maintaining privacy and security.

Token-enabled media represents a paradigm shift, turning a product or service from a mere utility to a commodity that can be traded anonymously on the open market, much like any other asset. This evolution is particularly significant for those who wish to sell their digital assets when they are no longer needed, providing a new level of flexibility and anonymity in the digital marketplace. Blockchain can enable fashion and design content to enter the free market.

Collect NFT

Case Study: Visual Maintenance System

Visual Maintenance System exemplifies these concepts in action. Using the Paragraph protocol, this token-enabled e-pub/newsletter is accessible exclusively to "Access Token" holders, minted on the Ethereum blockchains. It serves as a cutting-edge example and research node, showcasing the practicality and potential of these advanced tools for content curators and creators.

"Visual Maintenance System" is a token-enabled e-pub/newsletter accessible only to holders of Access Tokens on the Ethereum Network & Access Tokens V2 which can be minted on the Optimism network through Zora.

Current applications of token gating in the garment world include shopify's tokengating app which allows merchants to offer exclusive access to products and discounts to specific token holders. For instance, customers owning a particular token can get access to a discount or limited items, verified by connecting their wallet. The process involves setting up tokengates with specific token requirements and reactions via a tokengating app. This app guides merchants through configuring these requirements and presenting them on the storefront.

The integration of blockchain technology and token-enabled content into the art and garment industry marks a significant shift in how digital content is accessed, valued, and traded. It not only enhances privacy and security but also fosters a more intimate and rewarding relationship between creators, curators, and their audiences. As these technologies continue to evolve, they promise to further revolutionize the digital landscape of art and fashion.

Creators and producers are in control. Ecosystem participants have unprecedented access to profit redistribution and new revenue streams – enabled by verifiable ownership of their work. Greenwashing is impossible and labor violations can’t be obscured. The garment supply chain is transparent with production process data openly available and auditable. Finally, modern garment production can actualize its fullest potential – with the means of production owned by its participants.

We’ve created a mutable split contract as a mechanism to build a clothing collection co-owned by its producers. The profits were redistributed using the Ethereum blockchain to record creators’ contributions to the garments – and subsequently route profits to their encrypted wallets. Access to profit distribution was encoded into NFTs that represent the creators’ designs, artworks and production files.

By creating an environment where creators can express their ideas freely, without fear of appropriation, we set the stage for permissionless cultural experimentation and development. One of the largest cultural mediums, fashion, exists in how humans across the globe dress themselves each day. And this culture does not exist in a vacuum. It is living and breathing – constantly in flux and building upon itself. Creating the rails to open-source fashion – a “lego set” of garment building blocks by creatives and producers, for creatives and producers – enables a Cambrian explosion of development in this $2 trillion industry. But perhaps even more importantly, these rails also lay the foundation to eliminate the labor exploitation and environmental impacts that currently exist within fashion.

With new modes of revenue generation, and transparency in the supply chain we are actualizing the tools with which to reshape the garment production industry in favor of the people. This is the only first step in a journey to build a regenarative garment production ecosystem.

Every pattern, shape, and form can already be built upon and remixed. This is how creative innovation works – and happens every day in industry. Permet is building tools that allow these designs and artworks to become combinatorial in an accessible, provable manner. These atomic units of culture can now act like building blocks, enabling the creation of new designs while allowing each unit to remain independent so other creators can build on them too.

Design NFTs

Design NFTs are owned by the contributors to a project – but are available for anyone to build upon permissionlessly and/or freely trade on a decentralized market. Garment production processes and other contributions are documented by project participants – who mint these works as Design NFTs that record ownership and are programmable. This enables creative provenance and profit redistribution. Fashion photographers, stylists, art directors, writers, etc. can partake in redistribution. The eventual Permet platform can serve as a basis for open-source and collaborative creation – a “Github for creative production”.

Creative provenance is secured by verifiable attribution that Design NFTs enable. Even though each Design NFT might be right-click saved by malicious actors, the eventual plagiarized garment produced will not have the chain of provenance that can guarantee authenticity. We encourage new, regenerative modes of collaboration – secured by creative provenance. Designers, collectives, and communities can now collaborate openly – unlocking infinite ways to grow new headless brands. In this way – Permet embodies the spirit of early streetwear, a movement that encourages creators to use whatever means available to them to create impactful designs. Opening up this store of raw materials for creatives to build upon is our vision for the future of multiplayer product creation.

This means that designers, pattern makers, product developers, sewers, machinists, 3D artists, photographers, or anyone else who took part in a project’s creation and success can be acknowledged for their work. This is important because, previously, work couldn’t be made freely available as it would simply be copied and not attributed to its creator. And even if proper attribution was the intention – the ability to assign and acknowledge provenance in an accessible way didn’t really exist. The introduction of Design NFTs flips the entire dynamic regarding reuse of ideas in the fashion industry – from discouraged and covert to beneficial and encouraged.

Now, creators will actively want their work to be adopted as they can take part in projects permissionlessly and still get a fair share of the value created. Each Design NFT acts as the key to access profit created from the use of the work – enabling uncapped royalties based on each participant’s participation in a project.

Joining the Permet Fabricant Network opens you up to opportunities to work on Permet’s upcoming garment collections (and digital products and protocols) alongside Permet team. Permet is a public goods experiment building a regenerative garment production ecosystem — driven by ownership and aligned incentives for participants, across the entire garment production value chain. Register below.

IN THIS NEW ECOSYSTEM

CREATORS AND PRODUCERS ARE IN CONTROL

Ecosystem participants have unprecedented access to profit redistribution and new perpetual revenue streams — enabled by verifiable ownership of their work. The never-ending “create to sell” cycle of traditional garment production that victimizes fabricants and the Earth is finally broken. Production processes are programmatically improved on by a global network of fabricants to be more effective and regenerative — with rewards for those who contribute: creating new ways to participate and thrive in the industry. Culture is composable and collaboration is supercharged. Fashion enters the world of open-source collaboration — enabled by immutable creative provenance. Atomic units of creative work now act as “legos” that be remixed and built upon — ushering in a new golden era of cooperation.

Greenwashing is impossible and human-rights violations can’t be obscured.

The garment supply chain is transparent with production process data openly accessible and auditable. On-chain production data helps to verify the environmental and human-rights impacts of garment production — preventing greenwashing and human rights violations. The integration of blockchain technology into garment production is inevitable — and large luxury retailers are already testing out cryptocurrency payments. But blockchain technology can enable so much more than just perpetuating the status quo by allowing consumers to support the existing monolithic systems in new ways.

Permet is working and will continue to work to realize the potential of programmable assets to empower creators and producers — and enable a new paradigm of innovation in an industry that requires disruption, for the sake of humans and the environment alike. As a part of these efforts — we’re also working to expand literacy and access to blockchain technology to enable this fairer future. This is all with the hope that, finally, modern garment production can actualize its fullest potential — with the means of production owned by its participants.

JOIN THE NETWORK

REQUEST FOR PHYSICAL + DIGITAL FABRICANTS

So far, Permet has made strides regarding composable culture and profit redistribution – but this is just the beginning. We’ve received an outpouring of interest and support from potential contributors and backers over the past year — which is why we’re opening up the Permet Atelier for the first time ever to fabricants from our greater community. To us a “fabricant” is anyone who can contribute to the production of garments — or the production of digital products and protocols. As we gear up to launch our in-house collections and accompanying software products and protocols in the coming months — we’d love to have the fabricants in our community join in that process. Permet is actively seeking makers of various types, whether you are running an independent screen printing operation from your garage or are employed as a worker in a garment factory. A non-exhaustive list of skillsets we’re seeking includes: sewing, pattern making, sample crafting, embroidering, product design, 3D design/rendering, graphic design, grading & marking, textile dyeing/weaving, DTG printing, fabric cutting, 3D printing, screen printing, shoe making, print design, jewelry making, product / e-commerce photography, and editorial photography (+ more).