The Clumsy Theatrics of Metaverse Fashion Week

Will Gottsegen is CoinDesk's media and civilization reporter. He holds ETH and 2 NFTs supra CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1000.

The metaverse comes for each manufacture eventually, but manner is much acceptable for it than most.

That’s due to the fact that the logic of the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace is already informed by the logic of the manner market. You tin spot it astir intelligibly successful streetwear: Before NFT drops, determination were sneaker drops – constricted variation releases positioned much arsenic collector’s items than mundane apparel. Even much truthful than with a uncommon tally of vinyl LPs, oregon a acceptable of archetypal prints from a ocular artist, you’re expected to flip those grails, those Jordans, those Red Octobers. The secondary markets are the point.

So it should hardly travel arsenic a astonishment that dozens of high-profile manner brands piled into thing called “Metaverse Fashion Week” – fundamentally an online-only normal for covering companies and crypto devotees – arsenic an excuse to peddle integer collectibles.

This nonfiction is excerpted from The Node, CoinDesk's regular roundup of the astir pivotal stories successful blockchain and crypto news. You tin subscribe to get the full newsletter here.

Over a play of 4 days (don’t fto the connection “week” fool you), Metaverse Fashion Week played big to a bid of virtual catwalks, cocktail parties, assemblage openings and DJ sets; Perry Ellis, Dolce & Gabbana, Phillipp Plein and Tommy Hilfiger were among the featured designers, each of which were promoting their ain integer manner lines.

It each happened connected a metaverse level called Decentraland, which is similar a buggier mentation of the online societal abstraction Second Life; connected a tech level, it’s reminiscent of aboriginal 2000s Runescape, the phantasy role-playing crippled – a clunky instrumentality connected an embodied chatroom.

Decentraland besides comes with its ain token, MANA, which players tin usage to acquisition in-game outfits for their avatars successful the signifier of NFTs oregon plots of integer land. If you privation to interact astatine each with the platform’s autochthonal economy, you’ll request to ammunition retired existent dollars for these tokens (or gain them connected the platform).

The marketplace capitalization of MANA is present implicit $4 billion, contempt the information that Decentraland tin lone big 2,500 users astatine a time, per the tech blog New World Notes.

There were conscionable astir 1,000 radical online erstwhile I logged successful this weekend, divided crossed servers (Decentraland calls them “realms”). As with massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) similar World of Warcraft, antithetic servers big identical copies of the game, with antithetic sets of players. It’s a mode of reducing accent connected the network; if you privation to conscionable up with your friends successful the virtual world, you’ll each request to beryllium connected the aforesaid server.

At a “Metaverse Cocktail Hour for Fashionistxs,” hosted by Cash Labs, it was abundantly wide who had MANA and who didn’t. My avatar was dressed plainly, with a default hairstyle and a default achromatic turtleneck. Users with fancier cogwheel – monolithic sets of wings, carnivore costumes, swarms of integer butterflies – stole the spotlight.

Virtual trinkets person ever been a staple of online video games, but Decentraland isn’t precisely a game. It whitethorn instrumentality cues from games, but there’s not a batch you tin really bash successful this satellite beyond gathering up with radical and typing abbreviated messages successful a chat window.

One happening you tin bash is look astatine videos (usually advertisements) connected virtual screens, though the acquisition of watching ads successful the metaverse inactive feels clunky. The different large activities of Metaverse Fashion Week could beryllium loosely described arsenic “taking successful the surroundings” successful antithetic contexts.

In this world, connection is limited. Only a fewer radical seemed to beryllium making usage of the dependable chat mechanism; astir were contented to leap up and down, wordlessly, successful place.

A institution called Auroborous capped disconnected the play with a prepared DJ set from the instrumentalist Grimes. As euphony issued from a elephantine dancing carnal meant to correspond the shaper herself, a big of smaller avatars – the onlookers – kept their eyes pinned to the stage.

The performance, though it wasn’t precisely “live,” built connected an established trend. In the aboriginal days of the coronavirus pandemic, erstwhile each the real-world concerts had been canceled, Travis Scott hosted an online-only performance wrong the video crippled Fortnite; Charli XCX and 100 Gecs were among the performers astatine a similar event successful Minecraft; and Porter Robinson’s Secret Sky Festival attempted a much ambitious mentation of the same, with contributions from Doss and A.G. Cook.

Much of the novelty of these virtual events has to bash with the inherent limitations of the online experience. In the archetypal moments of the pandemic, we replicated carnal experiences online arsenic a benignant of Band-Aid. Metaverse concerts weren’t a replacement for the existent happening truthful overmuch arsenic a corporate acknowledgement of a restricted situation. Part of the amusive was successful experiencing those glitchy, tactile environments together.

Metaverse Fashion Week, crucially, was lacking that benignant of pull. The lineup promised aggregate days’ worthy of events – but what is it astir this satellite that mightiness compel idiosyncratic to walk their full play connected it?

There’s thing to beryllium said for the accessibility facet of Metaverse Fashion Week – you don’t person to beryllium successful Milan oregon New York to be 1 of these events. In their existent state, though, it’s hard to ideate manner enthusiasts would privation to.