Introducing the forerunners of the new digital fashion industry. In this 16-part special, we list the most exciting designers, brands, and platforms that are helping our digital selves get dressed to progress. This is part 4.
Guringo is a design and innovation studio based in Stockholm, which works with both physical and digital apparel. All clothes are originally designed as 3D renderings, and most stay that way, but some also get physically made. All pieces are available as NFTs, and once something is purchased, the buyer gets exclusive print rights to 3D print the pieces into a physical state. Founder Erik Lindvall also states how the virtual nft copy means that the pieces can be worn on many metaverse platforms.
— Since they are ready to wear for metahumans or any other rigged avatars, there are actually no limits on where our digital pieces can be worn. Although the garments are not yet available for public use, they are optimised for platforms in the metaverse such as Decentraland, Digital Village and Metacity. The pieces can also be implemented as assets in games via Unreal Engine 5 and NVIDIA Omniverse. This is really interesting since we can bring the digital clothes, worn by characters in a game, straight into physical space with just a click, Lindvall explains.
Would you ever consider creating your own store on metaverse platforms like Decentraland?
— Yes, definitely. Those platforms — or worlds — might look a bit like Leisure Suit Larry graphics now but you can clearly see the potential. With a new society that is becoming more and more aware of sustainability and ecological impact, virtual experiences will follow. We will soon have the tech, so why pay a lot of money — and contribute to unsustainable impact — when you can get 80 per cent of the experience virtually and for a fraction of the cost?
— I’m not saying we should live our lives exclusively on digital platforms like in the Matrix, we will just see a wider gap between our physical life and our virtual, Lindvall concludes.