The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Last week, Facebook announced its rebranding to Meta and committed billions of dollars to building the metaverse, an immersive future state of the internet that would be a natural environment for digital assets like digital fashion or avatars. In the past two months, leading fashion and gaming companies like Balenciaga and Fortnite and Vans and Roblox have announced collaborations that span digital fashion collections and physical activations. And throughout 2021, sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) dramatically rose to $10.7 billion in the third quarter from $1.3 billion in the second quarter.
Companies around the world are grappling with the existential implications of this evolution. Digital assets have existed for years, but engagement now seems to be at an inflection point, especially as NFTs — which prove authenticity and ownership and drive scarcity — could increase the utility and value of digital assets.
Are we at the precipice of a new digital frontier? Or are we facing a frenzy of hype, amplified by time spent at home during the pandemic?
BoF Insights believes companies in fashion and retail would be well-advised to understand the shifts taking place, in particular in consumer behaviour and purchase motivations. For an industry slow to adapt to platform shifts like e-commerce, some fashion companies are already taking note, with brands from mass to luxury experimenting with collaborations and activations and digital-first entrants rapidly emerging.
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The Opportunity in Digital Fashion and Avatars is the second in-depth report published by BoF Insights, a recently launched data and analysis think tank from The Business of Fashion arming business leaders with proprietary and data-driven research to navigate the fast-changing global fashion industry.
The new report from BoF Insights reveals that:
Interest in purchasing a digital asset in the next 12 months is even higher among US high-net-worth individuals, according to BoF Insights research involving both a LuxuryOpinions® panel assembled by Altiant and a Global Virtual Fashion Panel drawn from the communities of DressX and The Fabricant:
In the report, BoF Insights offers its perspective on the staying power of digital assets, what consumers believe about digital identity and ownership, what motivates consumers to purchase different digital assets, and how companies should engage over the short, medium and long term.
30 interviews with founders, chief executives, other senior executives and investors across the following domains:
Four proprietary surveys:
Companies and collaborations covered in the report include Altava, The Aura Blockchain Consortium, Auroboros, Balenciaga, Betaworks Ventures, Boson Protocol, Burberry, Digitalax, The Dematerialised, DressX, Epic Games (Fortnite), The Fabricant, Genies, Gucci, The Hundreds, Improbable, Louis Vuitton, Mythical Games (Blankos Block Party), OpenSea, Palm NFT Studio, Poplar Studio, Ralph Lauren, Retail Prophet, Riot Games (League of Legends), RTFKT, Roblox, Straiqr.ai, Substance, Truesy, Vans and Wanna.
BoF Insights is The Business of Fashion’s data and advisory team, partnering with leading fashion and beauty clients to help them grow their brands and businesses. Get in touch at insights@businessoffashion.com to understand how BoF Insights support your company’s growth for the long term.
The coming of a collective, persistent, virtual reality will fundamentally transform how we live and shop, writes retail guru Doug Stephens.
What’s selling and who’s buying as fashion brands from Dolce & Gabbana to Rebecca Minkoff jump into the surging NFT market.
Digital investments, cryptocurrency volatility and interoperability are all barriers to growth within the market.
The nature of livestream transactions makes it hard to identify and weed out counterfeits and fakes despite growth of new technologies aimed at detecting infringement.
The extraordinary expectations placed on the technology have set it up for the inevitable comedown. But that’s when the real work of seeing whether it can be truly transformative begins.
Successful social media acquisitions require keeping both talent and technology in place. Neither is likely to happen in a deal for the Chinese app, writes Dave Lee.
TikTok’s first time sponsoring the glitzy event comes just as the US effectively deemed the company a national security threat under its current ownership, raising complications for Condé Nast and the gala’s other organisers.