Technology has come a long way, changing the way we look at everyday life and influencing how we perform our daily tasks. Recently, a surprising step forward has been made with the invention of NFTs, which revolutionized the way we value objects in real and digital life. 

An NFT is a non-fungible token that holds a digital value of a physical item on blockchain technology. Every single physical object, from a painting to even videogames, can create a NFT existence and hold a digital value online. Once you adapt it to fashion, that’s when it gets interesting. Fashion pieces can’t last forever, but their digital existence sure can. When NFTs are applied to fashion, they can hold the digital value of pre-existing goods, even though the items in question get destroyed or lost. If an item is extremely valuable and rare, its digital value can go up, depending also on condition and demand. 

As for now, some NFTs exist solely in the digital realm: you can buy a digital outfit for online video games from different brands and enjoy them online, playing dress up with your digital avatar. For example, the sneaker brand RTFKT sells digital shoes with “viral […] designs'' to be used and collected in the “metaverse”, whilst DressX took a step further: you can purchase digital dresses that work like filters to use in pictures and video calls. You wear them online, then you put them back in your digital closet. Another interesting take on fashion has been made by StockX: they allow their customers to purchase or sell fashion items such as sneakers, clothes or even electronics at market price, literally. Their real time marketplace bases their prices on the actual stock market to ensure the best possible deal.

Cyber fashion sounds like sci-fi, and maybe it is, but the real revolution comes when you link a digital NFT to a physical item, such as clothes and fashion pieces. Smaller brands have already done so, showing that the creation of these tokens is going to revolutionise the fashion field and the way people approach and value the idea of shopping, almost creating an alternative fashion reality. Luxury brands are now slowly hopping on the NFT train and finding new and extreme ways to value their brands and offer the best digital advantages. 

As it is something very new and different, it will be interesting to see how customers react to fashion NFTs and what will be the development that will be brought onto today’s society. Will it become a fashionable trend to own a luxury NFT? Is it going to be a niche business? We will probably soon find out the ripple effect in high-end fashion thanks to Gucci. The epic Italian fashion house is one of the first luxury brands to offer an NFT in the form of a short film, inspired by their latest collection “Aria”, where all proceeds will go to UNICEF to support equal access to COVID-19 vaccines all over the world. 

The times sure are a-changing, and the interesting coalition between fashion and technology will surely transform the way fashion trends will develop and how they will be perceived.