Metaverse

1. a virtual-reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users.

Read that definition of the metaverse, and in a year’s time we’ll see how it’s changed…

The metaverse is still a new entity in terms of what it means, what it’ll look like and how we will interact with it, and it’s defined differently by a lot of people, for example, I’ve seen explanations talking about how it’s not just a virtual platform, but a state of mind, that is all about how we value our online persona’s more than our physical ones, so we sacrifice our ‘real’ life for the ones we show on Instagram, Twitter etc. So for some, they might already be in the metaverse. Another description is that we’ve already been in the metaverse for some time, through social media, but we just haven’t realised it. These are all super interesting theories and I think make for good conversation and debate.

But I believe the metaverse has been teased in many ways in the past, one of my favourite films in terms of subtle cultural impact is ‘Ready Player One’, which in short is ‘When the creator of a virtual reality called the OASIS dies, he makes a posthumous challenge to all OASIS users to find his easter egg, which will give the finder his fortune and control of his world.’ (Ready Player One, 2018). I included an image of this in the top left of the moodboard as I think it shows a good depiction of what the world could look like with this metaverse.

There are many brands taking the step in to the Metaverse, but one of the innovators, for me, as the Institute of Digital fashion, creating a lot of metaverse ready content and collaborating with brands to grow their impact on the industry, I’ve seen they’ve done a collaboration with Central Saint Martins, a fashion school in London, an article said this about the project ‘The project consisted of a four part-course where participants were invited to learn how to create clothing digitally, led by IoDF co-founder and creative director Cat Taylor.’ (Byrne, 2021). Meta-teaching will be super important to moving the industry forward, especially with a lot of Gen Alpha’s learning coding and more virtual skills as part of their core curriculum in school nowadays.