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In the future, instead of going to your closet to choose something to throw on for your next video call, you may turn to your virtual wardrobe to pick out a digital outfit that will “wear” for your call.

As more businesses look to the promise of digital fashion, some are betting that virtual outfits won’t just be for your Zoom calls, but could eventually be worn all over the metaverse—the concept of an interlinked extended reality world—in games, across social media, and eventually on your body in the real world through augmented reality (AR) glasses.

In McKinsey & Company’s and The Business of Fashion’s annual “State of Fashion” report, industry leaders looked forward to the future of immersive technology.

Gucci’s chief marketing officer, Robert Triefus, told Reuters “There are more and more ‘second worlds’ where you can express yourself. But there is probably an underestimation of the value being attached to individuals who want to express themselves in a virtual world with a virtual product, (through) a virtual persona.”

A digital persona is a computer-based representation of a user or player. This representation can take the form of an avatar, character, or other type of graphical symbol within a virtual world or game. The video game industry has more recently laid the groundwork for digital fashion, with outfits or “skins,” in games like Overwatch and Fortnite generating billions in revenue.

Some fashion companies have begun using blockchain technology to track and monetize their products through the gaming market. In 2019, Louis Vuitton designed skins for the video game League of Legends, and Nike and Ralph Lauren offered avatar accessories through the virtual world-building platform Roblox. Outside of gaming environments, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have allowed digital fashion to be monetized more broadly as well.  (This fall, Dolce & Gabbana’s NFT collection sold out for 1,885.719 ETH, at the time equivalent to $6 million).

At the same time, virtual worlds have become more popular because of the pandemic and remote working. Facebook’s rebranding as “Meta” has only spurred more interest. (In a recent keynote for Meta’s Connect 2021 conference, Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that we’ll have “a wardrobe of virtual clothes for different occasions” in the metaverse.)

Fashion designers were forced to get creative in how they presented their clothes last year, as many runway shows took place in virtual spaces. American luxury label Hanifa put on a digital runway show that eschewed human models in favor of headless, floating figures wearing 3D-renders of new garments. And Chinese designers Xu Zhi, Andrea Jiapei Li and Roderic Wong presented collections during Shanghai Fashion week through an AR virtual showcase.

Karinna Grant, who co-founded the NFT fashion marketplace The Dematerialised with Marjorie Hernandez, said in a phone call that brands realized they had to create digital showrooms and fashion shows to sell their collections in 2020. As a result of this new way of selling clothes, consumers were exposed to new ways of seeing clothes presented digitally.

After years of development and testing, the first wave of digital fashion marketplaces has arrived. These sites allow users to preview clothes through augmented reality (AR) technology, which overlays the clothes onto your submitted photo within 24 hours. Snapchat allows users to “try on” digital garments through AR, and Instagram recently tested AR clothing filters as well.

Brands like Gucci, Prada, and Rebecca Minkoff are coming into the virtual space, with Minkoff selling digital versions from her most recent collection on The Dematerialised — which was priced between $56 and $562–and sold out almost immediately. Just this week Nike announced it had acquired RTFKT, a collective that designs virtual kicks among other digital collectibles.

Replacing the physical

Grant sees three ways of using digital garments: wearing them yourself through AR, outfitting your avatars, and minting them as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to be collected and traded. In the last case, he notes that the NFT space has seen a boom in recent years.

But why should we replace our physical clothes with digital ones? Proponents say there’s unlimited creative expression available through virtual outfits, which now look increasingly more refined thanks to developments in 3D rendering and AR technology.

In a video call with mental health website InMinds, Simon Whitehouse—the former head of label JW Anderson who now helms the sustainability agency Eco Age—said “Clothing represents an expression of a personality. It always has in the physical world, and it will in the virtual world.” To that end, his artist collective EBIT recently launched a mental health-focused game called “Yellow Trip Road,” which includes the ability to purchase digital outfits, called “Bumper Jumpers,” as non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

On DressX, shoppers can purchase gravity-defying sci-fi looks from “tech-couture” brand Auroboros that might take a fashion house weeks to engineer physically. In addition, virtual outfits offer a more affordable price point into luxury brands. Gucci launched new digital-only sneakers for $12 this past spring.

“It’s incredibly lucrative” to sell clothes without producing physical garments, she explained. This is because virtual fashion is far more sustainable than traditional clothing production.

Monahan says the technology is like “reinventing an entire supply chain.” “There’s no water usage, there’s very limited CO2 emissions,” he said. “There’s no samples being sent out or returns, and there’s no show rooms or physical prototyping.”

As of now, there is limited data about the reduced impact of digital fashion. However, DressX’s 2020 sustainability report reveals that the production of a digital garment emits 97% less carbon than a physical garment, and saves 3,300 liters of water per item. The marketplace’s founders—Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova—first targeted the influencer industry since influencers often receive clothes from brands for a single image; however, the duo has recently partnered with Google Pixel and Vogue Singapore to introduce the company’s capabilities to a bigger audience.

In a phone call, Shapovalova said the company is working on popularizing digital fashion and getting consumers to use it.

NFTs are also being developed for the clothing industry. One is DressX, a company that will soon offer an NFT marketplace for fashion items. The goal of this marketplace is to give some designs more exclusivity and the ability to collect and sell them on the secondary market. Although NFTs will be less sustainable than non-minted digital garments due to the carbon emissions of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, Whitehouse, Grant and Monahan all pointed to more eco-friendly ways of building NFT platforms—such as using blockchains that operate on an allegedly greener “proof of stake” system—or offering the ability to pay in fiat money instead of crypto.

As more and more software companies enter the market, Monahan predicts that even more alternatives will arise.

Adoption of virtual fashion could negatively impact an industry that is a major contributor to the world’s carbon emissions and microplastic pollution in the ocean — as long as it does not replace real clothes in your closet.

According to Whitehouse, “We don’t need any more physical goods on the planet. Look at what’s happening in landfills all over the world. Fashion is one of the top five most polluting industries in the world.”

An interconnected future

Irene-Marie Seelig, CEO and co-founder of AnamXR, which designs virtual experiences for brands, explained that as more of the fashion industry dips into the virtual world, the interest in staking a claim in it may outpace the technology itself. Having a single wardrobe that can be used across multiple gaming environments as well as social media and other platforms will require them to be compatible, she said. Otherwise the digital fur coat you’ve just purchased won’t be able to be worn between applications.

“The metaverse is very disconnected at the moment,” Seelig told me over the phone. “In the future, I foresee it being a lot more interconnected…where you’re able to connect into different metaverses with your avatar, your digital wardrobe.”

Seelig created the Bumper Jumpers from EBIT’s Yellow Trip Road using Unreal Engine, a popular game engine that supports console, mobile and desktop gaming and virtual reality. The outfits could conceivably be ported into games such as Fortnite; however, it is up to developers to decide whether or not they wish to open that door.

Some critics are skeptical that there will be a metaverse at all, but Grant explained to me that if there is, achieving the utopic “open metaverse” with a single wardrobe will be challenging for a number of reasons, ranging from the technical — if some virtual worlds require a particular graphics card or crypto wallet to function — to broader IP issues. Will tech companies be willing to share the metaverse space?

It is unclear how things will shake out, but Monahan appears optimistic so far. “In my conversations with digital fashion players, everything seems incredibly collaborative,” she explained. “Instead of traditional fashion houses being quite private with their product and the research and development.”

It is up to consumers to decide whether they see the benefit in ditching their material goods in favor of their digital counterparts.

“Right now, one of the challenges is the attitude shift toward paying for something that isn’t tangible,” Monahan said, recalling internet reactions to Gucci’s cheaper digital-only sneakers. “There were so many comments— ‘This is a scam’; ‘This is scary’; ‘This is the beginning of human extinction.’—there was such a resistance to it.”

But Monahan believes that the enthusiasm of enough people could fuel an interest in virtual fashion, which would change the tide. She likens the future of virtual fashion to that of streetwear; the hype around sneakers has sent their secondary market soaring, and enthusiasts collect them as status symbols to display, not necessarily to wear.

“It’s almost like an art piece,” Monahan said, referring to digital fashion. “And I think that digital fashion works in the same way as something that you have a kind of emotional connection to.” He went on to say that proving the value of intangible products will be key to mainstream adoption.

Welcome to the world of Gisele Bündchen, as the supermodel tells Chioma Nnadi what makes it spin in the June 2022 issue of Britis

In The Kitchen Of Her Tribeca Apartment In New York City, One Rainy Afternoon In Spring, Gisele B ndchen Is Completely Domestic Goddess Mode With Mandolin Slicer In One Hand, Freshly Peeled Carrot In The Other. Her Stranded Waves Splash Over A Grey Cashmere Sweater. Spending its nights at home in pristine marble countertops, minimalist oak-floored floor-to-ceiling cabinets, and her broad view of the Wall Street area, she’ll only spend several nights per year in her Manhattan home, but it is instantly evident I’ve drifted into supermodel territory.

What kind of tea can I have you? she exclaims, flinging open her pantry. Boxes of herbal tea are systematically grouped by plant type, fennel, chamomile, peppermint. Since she hasn’t had a cup of coffee in years, her energy level wouldn’t seem to be affected. Bndchen is full of beans, speaking non-stop in delighted exclamation points and positive affirmations, bouncing around the room like she feeds on a few double espressos.

It’s always reassuring to hear individuals in natural landscapes talk about their health, so I constantly say it again—our pharmacy is the nature. If the kids are unwell, I’ll make a fresh ginger tea with lemon and a clay pot full of manuka honey. There’s nothing like drinking it! Because I’m only human, she suggests I try lemon raspberry tea to help with my hormone issues and soothe my emotions. Preterm births are kind of a good thing, so I believe, after which she has another opinion about need for dates Well, we all know we need them, don’t we? Thanks to a friend, I received them from Qatar they’re all iron.

Established fashion icon Gisele Bündchen is now in her late 40s, certified fashion designer, a world-renowned superstar who persuaded the masses to stop using heroin in the late nineties and later went on to become the highest-paid model in the world for 15 straight years. She is now venturing into a new realm: cookbook author. She’s been working on a collection of her personal recipe books, with hopes of providing a fascinating glimpse into what fuels her famously fit family.

Accordingly, she invited me to come over to sample her tasty special vegetable spring rolls in a gingery cashew-nut sauce. Before leaving for the main course, I ask her if I’d like to have a peek in the refrigerator (id. if you must know, she frequently eats these things). The foodstuffs within it are naturally virtuous, no surprises: no bottles of bubbly, no leftover pizza. Containers of hummus and cartons of coconut milk are chilled side by side on a top shelf, along with various packets of organic seeds (flax, hemp, chia) that are lined up in neat rows. The one item that’s not as in keeping with the theme? A vat of muscle-building protein powder. Oh, that Bndchen, referring, of course, to her husband, Tom Brady, 44, the legendary American football player, exclaims as she slams the fridge door shut, by Tom.

The kitchen scene is not a midlife crisis. Before the idea of self care and wellbeing became popular, the management of B ndchen knew the value of a holistic mind-body connection. She has never ceased to be attentive to the value of an inward-focused life. It was a lesson she earned years into her career path, when it seemed as if the whole world was openly displaying its adoration for her style. Inwardly, her world was in chaos.

After she moved to London in 1998, it was the beginning of the new millennium (even if 42 prior failed attempts preceded it). From Horizontina, in Brazil, it proceeded straight on to London. From there, she rocketed. By the early decades of the Nuits Dansées she was a mononym, hamming it up on catwalks, dating Leonardo DiCaprio, and a fixture on the set of each billboard and invitation list. From the outside, things appeared to flourish and I was only 22 years old. I had three cigarettes accompanying my mocha Frappuccino and a cup of whipped cream, then raising a bottle of wine to my lips every night. Imagine what it would be like for my mind if I had been doing that all the time!

On the basis of a tip from a particular individual, she sought out assistance from a naturopath, who immediately prescribed a full-body detoxification that was specifically designed to exclude all items and sweets. She was able to eat such things as vegetables, nuts, and small quantities of lean meat. Needless to say, the withdrawal side effects were significant. I think those were the hardest headaches I’ve ever taken. The physician, he was French, called me Adrenalina, says Lindsay B@nchen, a reference to his nervous system that had gone haywire. Fighting with that regimen was going to be tough, but nonetheless, the choice was even worse. I remember him saying, Well, do you want to live? At 3 months after her initial symptoms had disappeared, it was only that simple for her to get out of bed in the morning. Crossing the important habits onto an ordinary basis has had a great influence on her.

Her return to her country of origin would broaden her understanding of the food culture she had acquired as a child in an area of rural Brazil. Before she was whisked away to a modelling career in Tokyo at the age of 14, B ndchen enjoyed a comparatively uncomplicated rural life. After her mother had prepared breakfast smoothies with avocados she had picked up from the tree in her backyard, and her five sisters had eaten rice and beans five times throughout the week, her mother’s bank clerk went to work each morning.

Gisele Bündchen traces her innate interest in natural remedies and holistic approaches to wellness back to her grandmother, who was a “medicine woman”. She would say that we only had to look at the sky to find our own shining star,” says Bündchen; the tiny star that’s tattooed on her wrist is a tribute to her cosmically inclined, natural remedy-loving grandma, who “had a tea for everything”. It’s why the supermodel takes a holistic approach to wellbeing where conventional medicine often falls short. “The idea that taking one pill can solve my problems has always felt wrong to me, because that was never my experience,” she explains. “If you put a Band-Aid on a cut, it doesn’t mean that it will go away.”

While it might seem like Band-Aids are only useful for scrapes and cuts, they can be lifesavers in other situations as well. Such as when we are cooking and accidentally cut ourselves. Comedian Jeanette Winterson once joked about cooking mishaps: “Cooking and talking at the same time—it’s an occupational hazard.” Thankfully, the most hazardous parts of the food prep are now behind us. Finely chopped carrots, apples, cucumbers and cabbage are stacked in tidy piles; these vegetables will soon be wrapped in brown rice paper to create delicious spring rolls. The food processor is locked and loaded with cashew nuts, ginger, garlic, and a dash of yuzu juice. “So this is our sauce. Smell it,” says our chef. I take a whiff of the nutty, spicy paste and quickly understand why these spring rolls have been such a crowd-pleaser—so far! I love to share recipes that make me happy, as well as tips for other mothers who want to make healthy meals for their children.