Jul 6, 2022

July 6, 2022 Last week, a brand new 24-hour metaverse festival kicked off. The festival brought together fashion industry leaders to discuss the future of the digital world. The aim of the Meta Festival, organized and co-founded by the international digital agencies Dept and Journee, was to initiate a conversation about the metaverse. Tech developers and digital designers each contributed to discussions about activity and engagement in the virtual world. A total of 6,500 players attended the virtual space where the festival took place, Dept told FashionUnited, while hundreds of others watched via live streams on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and Twitch. Upon opening the platform, visitors were taken to a main menu reminiscent of an old-fashioned desktop screen. Pop-ups then allowed users to view live-streamed panel discussions and enter the festival’s virtual space, Metapolis. Once in this online world, users could customize the color of their avatar’s disco ball head. That avatar was then transported to an imaginative environment for them to move freely through. The avatars were free to explore the relatively large world, which contained all kinds of bizarre sights, metallic-like undergrowth and interactive activities. The metaverse offers a wealth of possibilities In the world, special spaces were reserved for each topic of the festival, where upon entry, users were given access to various pre-recorded presentations and speeches from various influential figures of the tech industry. Digital fashion designer Schirin Negahbani, for example, was featured in the “Immersive Experiences” section, and approaching a virtual screen appeared her pre-recorded presentation detailing her personal experiences as a designer. Image: Meta Festival, Dept x Journee In the ‘Art/Pop Culture’ space, Tommy Hilfiger’s director of digital product design, Tracey Mancenido, spoke about using digital elements as a form of storytelling, noting that the development of these elements paves the way for ‘ new possibilities for ways of expressing ourselves’. Ren Stern, the founder of Senspace, a Japanese Web3 platform for emerging creators, also spoke about the potential of digitization during his presentation. “Brands can increase the value of their brand through digitization,” he said. “The future of the market is to create entertainment that puts consumer value first.” The festival also featured a panel program, in which representatives of major brands participated in discussions about creating an inclusive and safe environment for users of the metaverse. In a conversation between Oliver Lange and Timo Wolf, responsible for innovation at H&Mbeyond, and Bradford Bird, head of partnerships and collaborations at The Fabricant, the importance of creating such an inviting space and the importance of education to engage more people in the industry and help develop these new environments. During a trend presentation, Burberry’s vice president of digital products, Sylvain Langrand, and Thibault Launay, CEO of Exclusible, expressed a desire to develop the metaverse in a gradual and thoughtful manner. Each panelist emphasized that this space should be considered a “third space” parallel to the physical world. In a press release, Journee co-founder and director Thomas Johann Lorenz said of the festival: “Fashion industry leaders have already shown their intention to make the metaverse a new center of fashion. to the degree to which one is strongly focused on how one looks and what one wears in the metaverse.” Lorenz added: “In an industry like fashion, which is all about experience and brands, the metaverse is where the future lies when it comes to digital communication.” For those who were unable to attend, Dept has uploaded all panel discussions and presentations on its YouTube channel, so that the content remains accessible to visitors. Image: Meta Festival, Dept x Journee This article originally appeared on FashionUnited.uk. Translation and editing from English: Nora Veerman