Australian Fashion Week is underway and features a nonfungible token couture outfit. BTCMarkets,
an Aussie crypto exchange is partnering with the Fashion Week for the luxury NFT,
which will also be available to buy in the physical form. What does Yohan Calpu,
VP Chief Marketing Officer at CryptoSlam - a Cross-Chain NFT data tracker and aggregator,
make of the moves being made by NFTs in the fashion world. Thanks for joining in once
again on NFT Insider, Yohann. What do you think of having a crypto partner for Fashion Week?
Thanks for having me Megha. This is an interesting, interesting topic. I think fashion
lends itself quite well to NFTs. It being digital does not hold it back. I feel. I think there's
always going to be some kind of collectible or some kind of digital item that enhance and also
add value to the in real life object. In real life, objects can wear away, they can fray,
but digital objects cannot. And there's just a little part of a digital object if if it goes
along with it in real life object, that can add a lot of value. So I think it's a great idea.
Now this tie up from down under follows on the heels of
Metaverse Fashion Week held on Decentraland in March.
What are your thoughts on the moves in virtual fashion? Are the strategic at this point? Are we
seeing real traction? Is this a new way of holding fashion shows, selling your fashion collections?
Yeah, it started during the lockdown season where I believe, like a lot of events were
held in the metaverse. So I guess those kind of had a great use case for holding events and
getting people to socialize in a digital metaverse. And now we're just seeing more and more
of it. Like people are understanding that bringing people from across the world to one location to
observe an event can be done quite efficiently and logistically better in the metaverse digitally.
Obviously, it's not ideal, but definitely there are good things to have and good experiences to
have when they do things like this. So I do think there's good traction and real traction there now.
Julianne Moore auctioned three couture gowns as NFTs to raise money for a cause some time ago,
and the buyer got not only the NFT but the gown itself. Now,
that's quite interesting as the real and virtual world seem to be converging.
Yes, exactly. And also, they can create like little clubs around their fashion,
maybe have it for Genesis members or certain NFTs give certain benefits. I don't know,
maybe some different shopping experiences, discounts, things like that as well too.
So definitely a lot that they can do with the technology. But yeah,
I do see like a little membership club, a loyalty program associated with these brands as well too.
So I know you're a big gamer. Have you checked out the Louis Vuitton NFT game?
It's been downloaded 2 million times. Another way for luxury brands to follow our engagement.
Right? Yes. And I guess they're trying to get younger as well. The demographic for NFTs
are a bit younger, so not too much younger. But I believe that they do want to gain traction
with a new crowd as well too, and further their brand into that that demographic as well, too.
So now Italian fashion house Gucci has been dipping its toes in Web 3.0 for a
while now. They came out with a Gucci Grail NFT collection, a digital Gucci bag sold for
over US$4,000 on Roblox, and now they're going to start accepting crypto payments in select
stores. So it looks like brands ranging from high fashion to mass market, like Nike, they're trying
the best to connect with existing audiences and possibly even bring new people into the fold.
Yeah, I mean, it's all about loyalty and it's all about engagement of the people,
of the buyers. So they're going directly to the collectors, they're going directly to the fans.
And I guess people who own NFTs have an ownership in the brand in a certain way, and I guess that's
what they're going for. I believe when I own an NFT, I personally feel like a belonging to
that certain brand, and I think this is the feeling that they're trying to get
with some of their customers and the buyers of these NFTs that they're sending out and creating.
So it's about furthering that connect, isn't it? I mean, talking about fashion, is there
any of these fashion brands that have struck your fancy, your hand?
Not really. I'm waiting for the one that does, though. I totally get it. And I and I saw one
the BLVCK Paris one that that has a genesis NFT there's a there's a drop on dropping now that
that has that and it's like I keep eyeing it so it seems like they are doing this genesis like
loyalty program. You know you buy this in NFT and you become part of that club, you become a member
of the Genesis family, I guess you would say, and then you get certain benefits. So I totally get
that. And who knows, maybe after this interview I'll actually go pull the trigger on that one.
Well, that would be fabulous, wouldn't it? And it's all about having that integrated
experience. You're no longer just living in these silos. It's about everything coming together
in all aspects of life. Thank you so much you had for joining in.
Thanks for having me, Megha. Interesting conversation. Thank you.