WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

Having that special fashion item in the real world can put someone in the spotlight, and now that applies online to.

Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More.

A lot is changing in the fashion world – and in the blogging world too. From the emergence of 3D printed high fashion clothing designed and produced by studios in Miami that mean clothes can be tailored and printed on demand, and 3D printed Nike sneakers, to one size fits all clothing that fits people perfectly thanks to help from a robot, to the rise of virtual bloggers like Instagram’s Lil’Maquella who are now pulling in millions of bucks from real world fashion houses such as Diesel and Prada.

However, nothing stands still, and whether bloggers are real or virtual, now there are design studios emerging that let you buy custom designed, one off, digital clothes that exist only online, that you can use to wow your online followers with.

Dutch startups The Fabricant, a self-proclaimed digital fashion house, Dapper Labs and artist Johanna Jaskowska are an example of this new trend after they recently sold a digital dress, called “Iridescence,” for $9,500 on the blockchain. It’s not like buying a costume in a video game either – the creators will ‘tailor’ it for you based on a photo, and its nature as a blockchain asset both makes it unique and gives it value like cryptocurrency that means that once you’ve had enough of it you could sell it on, in the same way you sell on real second hand clothing. It’s also based on 2D patterns used for conventional clothes, so you could theoretically, if you wanted to, create a real life copy

It sounds ludicrous, and to some degree it is. However realistic the clothing looks, the illusion falls apart the moment someone wonders if they can see it in person. And when it can cost as much as real luxury apparel, you might question the wisdom of spending that much money on something so intangible. But this is the modern world, and the modern world is increasingly sci-fi like and weird.

There is, however, some reasoning behind it. It’s environmentally friendly, for one. Why use up fabrics on clothing you might only wear a few times? And for some people who have multiple online personas, this is a way of spicing up their image without shopping for real clothes. They’re certainly not constrained by the laws of physics like they would with fabric.