Is it going to be metaverse for fashion in 2022?

When Italian luxury house Dolce & Gabbana sold a nine-piece digital collection of NFTs in October, it confirmed that the metaverse was about to become fashion’s new runway. You may remember that high fashion was not very welcoming to going digital, with many luxury brands being averse to selling online till a few years ago. It was believed that the digital world took the exclusiveness and experience of luxury shopping away. The pandemic, however, prompted Louis Vuitton to finally open an online platform in this region. Today, a brand has to have a digital presence to survive — and last year, every brand was talking about how being phygital (blending digital with physical retail experiences) was the way forward.

Luxury brands in this region have been seeing high footfall since lockdown was lifted, but digital sales have remained strong. Go to Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Dior at the Dubai Mall, and you may have to wait in line. Even in the United Kingdom, where retail was badly hit, The Office for National Statistics reported that sales of clothing had risen by 2.9 per cent in November and were, in fact, higher than in February 2020 just before the country saw its first lockdown. However, that did affect digital sales, people have not adapted to shopping online — even those who buy luxury. Everyone expected it to be bumper December — but then came Omicron. Now the fashion industry is back under a spell of uncertainty.

While we cannot predict or forecast what will happen in the real world, the online world seems to be one that is just becoming stronger. Digital has been taken to a whole new world, with the metaverse that is not affected by the ebbs and flows of Covid-19. What the advent of this new variant has done is that it has made it clear that digital is one platform we can bank on. Even during uncertain times, we can still lead a virtual life. It has never been more important for a brand to have a “digital-first” approach to their business, and suddenly NFTs do not seem like a silly idea. If we cannot dress up in the real world, let us at least do it in the virtual world.