The digital fashion community has a lot on its plate: avoiding gatekeeping and platform lock-in, providing affordable, scalable and user-friendly access, enabling new forms of ownership and IP management, establishing digital supply chains, ensuring inclusivity and diversity, addressing environmental concerns, etc. But the ongoing shift to proof-of-stake and Layer 2 scaling, combined with constant improvements to user experience and a steady inflow of creative talent and constructive critics give reason to be optimistic about the industry’s future.

To answer questions about the MVFW - “What does it look like?”, “How does it work?”, “What does that even mean?”- I recommend checking out some creative builders ;)

Mutani builds digital fashion on-boarding tools and creates metaverse garments that allow you to be whoever you want, from a humanoid plant to a self-illuminating non-binary creature from the Mariana trench.

The Fabricant is THE digital fashion pioneer that teaches people about blockchain and 3D design, and allows them to freely participate in both the garment making process and the financial upside of their creations.

Phoebe Heess is a hi-tech fashion innovator who designed the BLACKEST ever garment in history. Their modular Akira jacket was stylized by AI and can be made into a physical version or kept as an NFT that includes the 3D file with full commercial rights to copy, remix, etc.

DIGITALAX is a technology stack for the open metaverse, incl. interoperable virtual skins/outfits for gamers (40% of the world population according to Statista), permissive licensing (CC0), and fractional garment ownership. The DIGITALAX community is led by the incredibly passionate Emma-Jane.

ROMEO, ROMEO is a digital fashion house whose eye candy exoskeletons defy the laws of physics - an experience that is impossible to create in traditional fashion.

LUKSO & THE DEMATERIALISED marketplace – What does digital (and phygital) ownership mean in a world where our data is firmly rooted in platforms owned and controlled by a few corporations? Lukso’s proof-of-stake blockchain is designed specifically to address this issue in the context of art and fashion.

Global Designer Network is the first ever fashion DAO (decentralized autonomous organization), bringing together designers from around the world. Creating, owning and governing their community and marketplace, cutting out traditional intermediaries.

Kuki is a friendly conversational AI that loves digital fashion. Sometimes she wears Bad Binch Tongtong, sometimes she is holographic! Ai-Da robot is into arts, and she really digs Auroboros.

Stephy Fung is a designer who shares step-by-step tutorials for free. Instead of protecting the “industry secrets”, she is welcoming the community to join her in creating a body positive multicultural multiverse.

Institute of Digital Fashion appears both on IRL red carpets and the metaverse, pushing inclusivity and diversity, because people "seek to represent themselves in numerous, potentially conflicting ways - creatively, accurately, uniquely and imaginatively.”

ines alpha - Digital makeup artists nowadays are creating the freshest looks that don’t destroy your facial skin.

Costas Kazantzis is working on game engine technology, 3D design and XR. He collaborates with teams who use markerless motion capture and AI to seamlessly blend realities.

Alanatheweb3girl is an avatar that doesn't get mental health issues or develop eating disorders when they are body shamed. Instead, Alana uses her energy for tech education.

Hibiscus – What if the creator-worker could own the means of production, put their clothes together like legos, and retain the value from ethically made products? There’s a lot more to digital fashion than just virtual outfits.

Alyona Briukhanova - Digital stylists can put together stunning looks without running around with tons of bags, risk losing or ruining borrowed items, or smudging every other garment with makeup.

ALTERRAGE is a phygital label whose designs are wearable in physical (In Real Life), augmented (On Real Life), and digital (Larger Than Life) worlds. That’s three dimensions!

Digital fashion is changing lives - designers from all over the world should be able to use their creativity to bring wealth and to their communities, not just “high end” fashion houses that run on intern juice.

Web3 and NFTs unlock genuinely novel opportunities for digital fashion. Even if not interacting with blockchain technology and merely creating skeumorphic 3D designs, digital designers are still pushing the fashion industry forward with their prototyping, AR try-ons, and alternatives to the influencers’ one-photo-then-trash-outfits on social media. Cash-grabbers, ill-willers and short-term speculators will claim their share of the headlines, but let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture: we’re still in the primordial soup phase of digital fashion but there’s plenty to be excited about.