The web3 revolution continues next year with the annual exploration of what fashion will look like in virtual worlds, featuring participation from the first CFDA-Recognized Fashion Week to join MVFW

NEW YORK, Dec. 06, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Decentraland, the world’s largest user-owned and operated virtual social world, announced today the return of Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW) which will be held from March 28-31, 2023, concluding the Spring/Summer Fashion season on virtual catwalks. Pioneered by Decentraland and UNXD, a leading immersive art & culture platform, in collaboration with the Spatial and OVER metaverses, MVFW23 invites the global community to experience the latest advancements in metaversal interoperability and digital fashion.

At the inaugural Metaverse Fashion Week 2022 earlier this year, Decentraland hosted over 108,000 people who explored the burgeoning world of Wearables and digital fashion in the most important digital fashion event of the year. Iconic luxury brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Tommy Hilfiger, Selfridges, Guo Pei, Paco Rabanne, and dozens of others graced the metaverse with their historic flair and technological visions of what digital fashion looks like, and a peek at how this new sector of the economy will evolve. Both legacy fashion houses and new digital fashion brands combined minted over 165,000 free Wearables during this year’s MVFW.

“I am incredibly honored to be leading the second annual Metaverse Fashion Week and cannot wait to show the world what has developed since the last time we showcased the fashion revolution in the metaverse on a grand stage. Within one year, we have shown the world one of the strongest and most obvious use cases for the metaverse yet—digital fashion. After all, we don’t all want to look like dull copies of the same avatar in our digital lives. Just like in the real world, we all want to individualize and curate the personal aesthetics that we are recognized for,” said Dr. Giovanna Graziosi Casimiro, Head of Metaverse Fashion Week.

The curatorial theme of MVFW23 is ‘Future Heritage,’ a challenge to connect the next generation of creators and traditional fashion designers, showing the potential of fashion to bridge realities and worlds. The event shines a light on the fashion industry of today, proposing a diversity of aesthetics across metaverses, connecting innovation to tradition, and looking back to the great moments of fashion to build the future.

“Metaverse Fashion Week is a tentpole moment for digital fashion where both brands and consumers can experience the future of fashion. MVFW is a direct extension of UNXD’s mission to bridge luxury between the real world and the metaverse. After our successful first season with Decentraland, we’re thrilled to be expanding the MVFW platform together to encompass additional metaverses,” said Shashi Menon, Co-Founder and CEO of UNXD.

Interoperability: The Builders & Pioneers Making it Possible

Decentraland will be partnering with Spatial and OVER to bring to life the next generation of interoperability across an open and free metaverse. In the same way that New York Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week are not limited to one type of aesthetic or one type of fabric, MVFW is expanding to invite those building digital fashion to consider the endless potential of interoperable metaverses in which one can bring a Wearable to the other with ease.

What to Expect:

• Miami Fashion Week will be the first CFDA globally recognized fashion week to participate during Metaverse Fashion Week with a special activation and runway shows on the rooftop of MIAFW’s L’Atelier in the The Luxury Fashion District. On December 2nd, Megan Kasper hosted the inauguration of the MIAFW’s L’Atelier in Decentraland and livestreamed the private event, curated by Dr. Graziosi Casimiro.
• Working with high end fashion names, Phygicode comes as a consortium specialized in luxury and hybrid solutions for fashion bringing partners and brands to the event.
• Threedium will return with their pioneering 3D/AR Commerce Engine that will power their own luxury mall, enabling a connected commerce infrastructure for brands to build and share customized wearables and Augmented Reality experiences.
• Boson – the decentralized commerce protocol will expand their participation by enabling brands to sell physical and phygital items in the metaverse as redeemable NFTs. Once tokenized, Boson-redeemable NFTs can be traded, held, gifted or redeemed for the physical item.
• DRESSX, the largest metacloset for digital clothes, AR looks and fashion NFTs is an official event partner and will onboard brands who are keen to explore their unique AR components.
• Curator David Cash and their team at Cash Labs will return to present and produce experiences for an array of established fashion brands and exciting new digital native designers in Decentraland and beyond.
• In addition, to Cash, in order to support the growing creator ecosystem, Decentraland is building an advisory board of curators to select designers to participate in the next event edition, among them, the Institute of Digital Fashion (IODF), Fashion3 by MAD Global, House of Web3, and The Fabricant. With the help of those curators a new plaza will be built, showcasing the new horizons of digital fashion and disruptive activations.

Luxury Returns to the Metaverse: Catwalks, Super Models and IRL Fashion Week

Inside Decentraland, MVFW will return to the Luxury Fashion District where several brands will debut new digital collections inside the Fashion Arena on the catwalk. Returning to this district will be internationally recognizable fashion houses and brands that will be announced in early January.

New Features & Activations:

• Decentraland is now making it easier than ever for brands to participate and build in the metaverse with the addition of self-service tools to create Wearables and Emotes, and the new feature that allows brands to “rent” land for specific periods of time. This facilitates easy and reliable access to land through Decentraland’s smart contract marketplace.
• Curated by the Decentraland Foundation and luxury NFT marketplace UNXD, MVFW Lux will showcase luxury fashion houses in a beautiful environment hosted across the Luxury Fashion District (Metaverse Group) and adjacent Plaza. Experiences will include runway shows, exclusive Wearable collections, immersive 3D/AR web experiences, pop-up stores, the introduction of the first physical fashion week to the metaverse, and a closing performance.
• New to the 2023 schedule is MVFW Neo, designed to support and celebrate the next generation of digital designers. Working with pioneering digital-first companies, Decentraland has selected a number of new digital fashion designers and up-and-coming physical designers to develop their work and designs within the Web3 space.
• Not only new fashion designers will be shown, but the first official MVFW supermodel will be introduced: Tangpoko, a DCL community member deeply involved in the fashion and pop culture within the Web3 space will be the main supermodel this season.
• In addition, MVFW will present a runway show featuring Barth, the season two winner of “The Hype” on HBO Max. As part of the Next Generation initiative, the event will present an exclusive DCL wearable collection created by the second season’s winner in his debut inside the Metaverse.

Join Decentraland at the next installment of Metaverse Fashion Week by pre-registering here. Follow Decentraland on Twitter and the event hashtag, #MVFW23, and join our Discord to learn more. For fashion brands, designers and retailers interested in participating in MVFW23, feel free to apply via this form.

About Decentraland
Launched in 2020, Decentraland is a virtual social world powered by the Ethereum blockchain and the first decentralized metaverse. Within the Decentraland platform, users can create, experience, and monetize content and applications as well as socialize and attend a wide range of daily community-driven events. Decentraland is unique in that it is owned, created, and governed by the people who use it every day. Through the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) users can submit proposals and even apply for grants for the community to vote on.

About UNXD
UNXD is bringing iconic luxury and culture to the metaverse. Created by the team behind prominent international editions of both Vogue and WIRED, UNXD partners with the world’s leading luxury brands to create crypto-native way products and experiences. Each brand forms a part of an expanding ecosystem for luxury digital assets. UNXD’s pioneering collections with Dolce&Gabbana, 2021’s Collezione Genesi, and 2022’s DGFamily, have generated nearly 10,000 ETH and are widely regarded as a catalyst of the fashion NFT movement.

About Spatial
Spatial powers your world in Web3. Offering visually stunning spaces that are accessible and easy to use whether on web, mobile, or VR. In Spatial users can customize a virtual space and gather for NFT exhibitions, music performances, runway shows, lectures, live events, watch parties and more. And all it takes is a few clicks to set up your space or join. Spatial was founded in 2016 with the goal of designing high-quality 3D spaces for collaboration and community.

About OVER
OVER is a cutting-edge AR platform powered by the Ethereum Blockchain. OVER makes it possible for users provided with a mobile device or a smart glass to live interactive augmented reality experiences customized in the real world. Committed to cross-platform interoperability, OVER supports real-time augmented reality capabilities, AI avatar motion-captured interactions and hyperrealistic NFT assets which, in time, will be transmissible between Metaverses.

For Media Inquiry: press@decentraland.org

GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 8708877