The way the Metaverse and NFT are imposing their codes requires an enthusiastic yet cautious approach to dealing with them. Because the financial values of this future we are living in have incredible and not-at-all virtual prospects for growth and user engagement. Is $5 trillion enough?
Hugo Boss is launching a new NFT collection for the Hugo brand, after releasing two NFT collections for Boss. Balmain has created a hub called Balmain Thread, to bring together its NFT projects into one platform and offer exclusive experiences to community members. As of 1 November, Gucci will have a new CEO for Gucci Vault and Metaverse Ventures: Robert Triefus. The supply chain follows closely, launching initiatives that are in some ways exploratory, as in the case of Lineapelle, whose project we write about here.
These are just a few of the many examples of how the Metaverse is trying to impose its codes, presenting itself as a new possible and rich reality. Many believe in and invest in it. Just as many remain doubtful and reject it in certain cases (also quite illustrious). However, understanding today where reason lies and how this is the future we are living in is really complex. And, perhaps, not even functional.
The future we are living
“With its potential to generate, in its entirety, up to $5 trillion in value by 2030, the Metaverse is too big for companies to ignore,” reads a recent McKinsey report. The study states that fashion is ‘at the forefront of changing the Metaverse’. According to Charles Hambro, whose company Geeiq (pronounced ‘Geek’) helps Tommy Hilfiger and Farfetch ‘navigate the Metaverse’, this enthusiasm may stem from past mistakes. The reference is to the carelessness with which fashion brands in the mid-2000s embraced new platforms like Facebook. Less than 20 years later, there are 3.2 billion people not only playing online but socialising and shopping, writes Style.
The reality of the Metaverse
The Metaverse offers access to a whole new generation of customers. Considerably younger consumers who may never have interacted with high fashion before. In fact, what was remarkable about Gucci’s Roblox experience was not so much the sale of bags, but the number of users who visited the virtual space: 20 million. In fact, according to a survey published by Business of Fashion, around 70% of US consumers, from Generation X to Z, already consider their digital identity, including looks, to be ‘important’.
Pioneering luxury
Numbers are too big to be overlooked. A study conducted by Bain & Company on behalf of the French Comité Colbert, states that luxury is a pioneer in the adoption of new technologies. NFTs, in particular, although adopted today by only 5% of brands, will become central in the coming years. 51% of the luxury industry is already experimenting with or planning launches by 2025. The study shows that the large groups are already ahead of their independent competitors, especially when it comes to NFT.
Raphaël Bloch, the co-founder of the online media The Big Whale, explains the reason to the Journal du Luxe. “The concept of a rarity in the physical world has found its counterpart in the digital world thanks to the uniqueness of NFTs. The problem today is how these big brands manage to transpose their universes to the Web3 (the new immersive declination of the Net, ed.) while transferring this notion of value to us’. (mv)
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