The Digital Future of Fashion
AUSTRALIA’S LEADING DESIGN SCHOOL SINCE 1987
The Metaverse is changing the way we understand fashion: from trends to never-seen-before creative concepts, there’s been a lot of talk recently about fashion’s immaterial future and how it’ll shape the fashion industry moving forward.
So if you’re confused, you’re not alone and we’re here to unpack what exactly it ALL means.
Thomas Saint-Cyr studied a Bachelor of Branded Fashion Design at Billy Blue College of Design, and now works in design for popular brand Bec + Bridge.
“I think the metaverse and digital collaboration tools will help in the initial stages of designing,” he explained. “It’s so quick to see what a mockup of your design will look like, in your chosen fabrications, without actually putting scissors to fabric, thereby saving initial costs on sampling, as well as time and general labour. This also enables you to edit your design virtually, making this somewhat time-consuming iterative process much more streamlined.”
But what exactly IS Digital Fashion?
As a concept, it’s not exactly new. If you think about the computer games you enjoyed in the 2000s and 2010s, digital fashion existed: whether it was by dressing up the Olsen twins in Mary Kate & Ashley’s Magical Mystery Mall or buying outfits for your Sims, all the way through to the customisable elements in games like Fortnite. Fashion, really, goes hand in hand with the digital world and interactive environments.
There are already a plethora of designers stepping into the digital realm, with their futuristic designs and concepts. “The first designer that comes to mind is Iris Van Herpen, with her incredible use of laser cutting and 3D printing,” Saint-Cyr told us. “She is in constant collaboration with artists, scientists and biologists to create never seen before techniques.”
“Stella McCartney is a personal favourite,” Saint-Cyr added. “Not only for her ethics and design sensibilities but also the use of modern technology to create new textiles and fabrications as alternatives to traditional leather, most notably with the release of her first mushroom leather bag using Mylo, a renewable mycelium (mushroom).”
NFTs, 3D Design, The Metaverse, and beyond
NFTs – aka Non-Fungible Tokens – and the Metaverse are terminologies we’re all wrapping our heads around, but these digital products are proving to be a creative way forward when it comes to marketing, and eventually could lead to some serious sales.
Billy Blue’s Fashion Program Director Russell Ponting says the trends happening now are just a “snapshot” of things to come for digital fashion.
“There is 3D design that can produce realistic representations of apparel for commercial or more artistic use. Whole new branded worlds have appeared (think Gucci Garden) and there are interactions with fashion and gaming (think Vans and Roblox),” Ponting told us.
“And that’s before we fully start into the world of the metaverse where digital representations of self are coming to the fore, where fashion and Crypto collide, where fashion can exist as an NFT, where consumers can create alternate digital selves and clothe themselves in ways they never would physically.”
Digital fashion ultimately is transforming the way we can free people of the constraints of stereotypical gender and beauty ideals. When an item or garment is being created in a digital realm, there’s more room to design and look into options that may have once seemed too hard to navigate when making a garment IRL. Digital fashion doesn’t have to have the same limitations that traditional fashion has had, and that can only be an exciting step forward for the fashion world.
And the Billy Blue College of Design is on the forefront of digital design in Australia, embracing the changes in the fashion industry with open arms.
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“Branded fashion students are teaching themselves 3D Design software such as CLO3D, Marvelous Designer, or collaborating with 3D artists,” Ponting tells us. “They also concentrate on the Adobe Creative Suite as this is the industry standard software widely used.”
Saint-Cyr cites digital technology as the way forward for designers. “Fashion is the second biggest polluter in the world, so anything we can do as designers to save natural resources is a must,” he said. “My favourite use of digital technology currently is the use of iPads. It not only saves paper but it allows you to edit and create more cohesively and ergonomically, as well as sharing your work amongst your team.”
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