The buzz around the metaverse might have faded — but the idea of virtual fashion hasn’t and is now ready to take the next step by going deeper into offerings that are both digital and physical.

A new nonprofit, the Digital Fashion Designer’s Council, isn’t just looking to keep “phygital” alive, but wants to make it thrive. To prove the point, the plugged-in group is hosting an event series featuring Diesel and other well-known brands.

The DFDC launches Tuesday with a mission to weave “digital fashion into the traditional fashion ecosystem,” according to the association.

This is easier said than done.

Despite numerous virtual world developers pushing for interoperability between platforms, there are still no universal standards for virtual fashion, much less phygital fashion experiences. Projects vary, as do technical requirements from one environment to another.

This means that, for a brand to offer a virtual look that works across contexts and platforms, they have to create multiple formats. Or at least they did. Now DFDC is introducing a tool to streamline the effort.

DFDC’s new Reality Spectrum Matrix was designed to do the heavy technical lifting, so brands can focus on the product and experience.

It’s part of an expansive and ambitious approach that goes beyond gaming or virtual worlds. Think social media, augmented reality and more, and on devices from phones to mixed reality headsets, whether through an app or a web browser.

“We see a ton of power in bridging the digital context that consumers are spending their time in, with the physical world of brands and the physical fashion system,” David Cash, founder and chief executive officer of DFDC, told WWD. “[It’s about] just doing a bit of a better job at connecting those points [to] actually provide connectivity, instead of just insinuating this connectivity.”

To prove its concept, the group, which had already assembled some of the biggest names in virtual fashion and blockchain, created an event series featuring the work of some of the real world’s best-known maisons.

Connecting Over All Kinds of Fashion

For its premiere Fashion Week Connect series, DFDC lined up programming across a range of phygital experiences that stretches around the world, both real and digital, kicking off in September.

The global Digital Fashion Film Festival, a collaboration with ShowStudio directed by Nick Knight and his team, will showcase digital fashion globally both online and IRL, with films featuring celebrities such as Charlie XCX and Naomi Campbell, and fashions from Balenciaga, Mugler, Loewe, Bottega Veneta and others.

The agenda will also spotlight Diesel’s Metamorph project, with its virtual reality-crafted Vert watches and an interactive metaverse experience created by Artificial Rome.

A real-world VIP reception in Los Angeles cohosted by Red DAO and the DFDC will bring Dolce & Gabbana’s Collezione Genesi into a physical location. Hailed as the world’s first luxury phygital offerings, the 2021 collection took the form of NFTs with physical counterparts and sold for some $6 million, including Red DAO’s purchase of jackets and the “Doge Crown,” which will be on view at the event, among others.

DFDC will also be on the ground in Paris, where it will help present Fabrix Digital Fashion Takeover as part of Paris Fashion Week at the Palais de Tokyo. With the support of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the activation will feature Hong Kong-based designers Wilsonkaki, Ponder.er and others.

In London, the group will support Digital Fashion Week at the Epic Games Studios and other exclusive VIP events globally, before venturing out to Singapore. As a title sponsor and lead innovation partner for Next in Vogue, it will offer AR, game worlds, holograms and other experiences.

Fashion Week Connect and the DFDC will also play a role in pop-up events for fashion weeks in New York, London and Paris.

And, under the interoperability theme, the supported platforms for the event series includes social media apps like Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat; games Fortnite and Roblox; metaverses Spatial and Decentraland, and devices from phones and desktops to Meta Quest headsets.

The effort looks enormous. To pull it off, Cash formed an all-star roster from the virtual fashion ranks for its board and operating team.

The list includes fashion photographer, filmmaker and self-described “image-maker” Knight; Megan Kaspar, managing director at FirstLight and founding member of Red DAO; Antoni Tudisco, a 3D and digital fashion artist who has worked with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Maison Margiela, Moncler, Balenciaga and others; Bettina Von Schlippe, Vogue Singapore publisher; Marjorie Hernandez, cofounder of Web 3.0 fashion marketplace Demat and creative blockchain platform Lukso; Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova of DressX; Dani Loftus, founder of code-based couture platform Draup and digital fashion influencer @thisoutfitdoesnotexist; Leanne Elliott Young from Institute of Digital Fashion, and Gmoney of 9DCC.

Other groups involved include Threedium, Karta, Beyond Studio, MAD Global and FFFaceme.

Notably, DCDF is also in talks with high-profile creative and executive leaders from the established fashion industry. For now, Cash declined to comment on the record about their identities, but an official announcement is expected at some point.

A New Vision of Phygital Tech

When the dust settles, the DFDC hopes that fashion brands will walk away with a sense of what’s possible in the interplay between the digital and physical.

The events embody its mission. But what facilitates its vision is the technology, and that will stick around long after the last activation in this series.

That brings the focus back to the group’s Reality Spectrum Matrix.

As a framework, it’s a clever workaround for solving the interoperability problem. With RSM, brands wouldn’t have to make multiple versions in different formats for a given item. The tech does the work or, as Cash explained, “polygon remapping.” In essence, the tool takes care of the coding demands, so brands can focus on the product, experience and physical aspects.

In addition, the DFDC is working on an “API that we’ll be able to plug into anything,” he added. “So we could plug this directly into a mobile app, into a website — if we’re going to speak technically, any React-enabled context, from a game world to a website or even a web page.” React is an open-source tool developed by Meta for building interfaces.

In addition, there’s a structure for awarding and recording points, which would let consumers earn their way into rewards and boost loyalty in a gamified scenario.

These tools can support virtual fashion NFTs as well. While non-fungible tokens may not nab as many headlines as when Dolce & Gabbana’s multimillion-dollar Collezione Genesi took the industry’s breath away three years ago, fashion hasn’t declared it over yet.

Despite the twists and turns in investments and value, or the influence of legislation and politics, these and other “on-chain” blockchain efforts still hold sway for brands, Kaspar said.

“Look at brands like Louis Vuitton,” she said, referring to the maison’s continuous launch of on-chain products — including its latest phygital NFT release of a leather varsity jacket in April.

Kaspar, who serves as DFDC’s chief adviser and executive board member, also worked with the luxury fashion house on its Via NFT program. “They know the value, long term, for their products being on-chain,” she explained. “I think too, with the regulation that the E.U. is setting with smart tags, the brands are looking at taking these smart tag, NFT chips that they’re embedding into their products and tying them on-chain, so that you have access to that metadata — and then that can seamlessly be plugged into more of an extensive digital counterpart of that asset, whether it’s a 3D item, a wearable or filter.”

There’s a push to regulate, but it’s a bit scattershot across governing bodies. But with the DFDC, brands can join the conversation and have a hand in what the future of this ecosystem will look like, Kaspar added.

“Just to share from my personal experience with the Via initiative, the [consumer] members of Via are allowed to vote…on what we would like the brand to produce, which is kind of unheard of,” she continued. “Outside of this, I really haven’t seen a high-end luxury brand allow their consumers to do that.

“So I think that what David is doing with DFDC and the RSM tool really will usher in a much easier way for these brands to integrate these tools and aspects that allow them to strengthen their relationship with the consumer long term.”