New Realities… I’ve been a massive fan of video games since I can remember, playing Star Wars Battlefront II on my XBOX classic in my sisters room when I was 7 to then video game development in college some 10 years later. Many of my favourite games over the years have been so good because they allow you to escape reality, you can fly through space, fight aliens or relive life in the stone age, all through a screen. The excitement still gets to me to this day… Something that I’ve been excited to see evolve and develop through the pandemic was fashions ways of innovating virtual and augmented reality to reach their consumers in ways we’ve never seen and well I think about ¾ years before we were all expecting them to, but their hand was forced to do so and I think its been such a positive action to do so. Firstly, we’ll start with virtual reality, this in its simplest form is an immersive experience in which you are transported to a new reality that has no bearing on the physical world around you, good examples of this would be using an oculus rift headset that have been around for a decade now, this technology isn’t necessarily ‘new’ per say. But this has been greatly enhanced by the power our phones have, so it’s more readily available on more technologies. Brands within fashion have used this to great success, holding VR fashion shows and showing more conceptual and innovative designs through Decentraland… “The first fully decentralized world, Decentraland is controlled via the DAO, which owns the most important smart contracts and assets of Decentraland. Via the DAO, you decide and vote on how the world works.” (Decentraland, 2022) This has many aspects to it, including digital real estate (yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like), digital building and avatar creation. A re-occurring theme to virtual and digital fashion is the openness and the ability for anyone and everyone who is willing, to participate in the building blocks of the future, hence why we’re here today, to hopefully educate and let you know things you didn’t know before, because more the merrier when it comes to this digital malarky, in my opinion. Another aspect to digital reality is augmented reality (AR), this is something that we’ve all been partaking in whether know or not, have you ever used a filter that alters your face on Snapchat or Insta? Something that maybe adds funny animal ears or makes your hair grey? Sadly I’m not going to need a filter for that one soon…
6
