CONSIDER the Metaverse fashion opportunity
One of my biggest flaws is that I underestimate the impact of new consumer and digital trends. I dismiss them only to regret my behavior two years later. This leads me to miss out on opportunities such as investing in crypto currencies.
When my friend Jill urged me earlier this month to take the Metaverse trend seriously, I listened. Jill is knowledgeable. And she was serious about this. I immediately tackled the existing Metaverse literature (mostly online articles) and created an excel overview of the ‘movers and shakers’. My findings:
The name was inspired by a 1992 science fiction novel (“Snow crash” by Neal Stephenson)
The Metaverse is a digital world that provides humans with an opportunity to interact (via their avatars)
The Metaverse and Web 3.0 are not the same thing — Web 3.0 refers to the next generation of the internet
Revenue growth attributed to the Metaverse could amount to USD 400 billion by 2025 (USD 180 billion in 2020 — as predicted by Investment firm grayscale)
While it has its origins in gaming, more and more adjacent industries are cognizant of the Metaverse trend and want their piece of the cake.
Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash
Based on my interest in digital fashion trends, I devoured articles outlining how fashion companies leverage the Metaverse. Forbes writer Lauren Debter’s article titled “Fashion And The Metaverse: Why Ralph Lauren Wants To Sell You Digital Clothing” helped me imagining how (the) fashion (industry) and digital worlds can create mutually beneficial relationships. According to Ms. Debter:
fashion companies have already started targeting particular segments, like Gen Z (“digital natives”) via Metaverse offerings
fashion and beauty companies realize that for certain consumers, how their avatars are dressed matters — and that’s why they are willing to invest in digital clothes
fashion companies leverage existing online gaming platforms (namely, Roblox, The Sims and Fortnite)
prices for clothes in the Metaverse vary — one of the more expensive items, a Dionysus purse (by Gucci) sold for the equivalent of over USD 4000 in August 2021.
An increasing number of fashion and beauty companies have woken up to the prospect of generating revenue via the Metaverse. They discuss this trend — at online industry events, on LinkedIn… I recently saw a post by Estée Lauder on LinkedIn. The headline: “How Gaming and the Metaverse are changing the beauty industry”.
Don’t miss out on this trend. I certainly will not.
Sources:
Lauren Debter (Forbes): “Fashion And The Metaverse: Why Ralph Lauren Wants To Sell You Digital Clothing”. Published on December 25, 2021. Link.
Grayscale Investments: “The Metaverse. Web 3.0 Virtual Cloud Economies”. Published in November 2021. Link.
Business of Fashion and McKinsey: “The State of Fashion 2022”. Link.
TRT World: “A meta market opportunity: The metaverse could soon be worth $1 trillion”. Published on 26 November 2021. Link.