If you aren’t familiar with The Fabricant, it’s time to become acquainted. The Amsterdam-based, digital-only fashion house is revolutionizing how we understand and navigate the fashion industry.
First off, they’re out to overhaul fashion exclusivity. They envision a world where everyone can participate and profit from the fashion industry.
As mentioned on their website, they’re determined to “build a new fashion industry that belongs to creators, one where we remove history’s gatekeepers and create a new economy where our financial rewards are finally equal to our talent.”
With that said, it’s not terribly surprising that they aim to become the digital fashion thought leader by 2025.
The Fabricant, launched in 2016, has been at the forefront of pushing fashion boundaries. As with everything else, this has been met with input from those who are intrigued and pushback from those who think the idea to be too lofty and reject the idea outright. Back in 2016, however, we weren’t equipped with the technology we have today. In 2017, NFTs were gaining notice, and the metaverse, although steadily gaining traction, was still considered an elaborate concept.
Now? Well, The Fabricant has already collaborated with heavy hitters like Highsnobiety, World of Women, and other brands who are willing to take a digitally creative risk. In 2022, they secured $14 million in funding, demonstrating strong trust, support, and partnership in their vision.
Property of World of Women and The Fabricant.
They are decentralizing fashion elusivity by providing worldwide opportunities. Upcoming designers who don’t reside in a fashion capital benefit the most, as the platform gives them a voice that the current-day fashion industry doesn’t account for. The Fabricant also embraces the idea that clothes don’t have to be physical to exist.
Essentially, The Fabricant provides a platform for designers to sell garments, ready-to-wear, in the metaverse. The fashion multiverse, if you will. They're building upon the idea that the internet can be considered a location (hello, web3), welcoming consideration that online platforms are a 'place' where people convene. If you spend hours online, you should look good doing it. Well, your avatar, at least.
It’s not as if brands weren’t already experimenting with various aspects of AI, though. COVID-19 pushed most brands into the e-commerce landscape whether they were ready or not. Investing in high-quality marketing was a must to keep brands alive and growing.
Brands like ASOS began using AI to ‘dress’ models in their garments, executing digital photoshoots due to the inability to hold physical photo shoots.
Hanifa designer, Anifa Mvuemba, held her revolutionary digital fashion show via Instagram in 2020. However, she formulated the idea five years prior. Mvuemba’s planning and forward-thinking propelled her in a time of chaos, and she showcased her six-piece collection using 3D models gliding down a virtual runway.
In April, Decentraland held its second annual Metaverse Fashion Week. Drawing in big names like Balenciaga, Vogue, and more, the show received mixed reviews due to lag times, indicating that significant improvements need to be made. The silver lining? The sheer number of attendees shows the growing interest in digital fashion worldwide.
To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Revolve became the first brand to introduce the world’s first-ever AI-generated billboard campaign.
Still not sold on investing digitally? Brands are aware of this and are offering a middle ground. Dolce and Gabbana experimented with this back in 2021 and found a sweet spot: they sold pieces in physical and digital form. Meaning that you can own a garment here in the physical world and the digital marketplace. They also offered NFT-only items, including the “Impossible Crown,” selling for a whopping $300,000.
Thanks to revolutionary technological advances in data collection, fashion brands can more precisely forecast trends and further segment their consumer market. Plus, the better the targeting, the more likely to achieve conversions or sales. When businesses utilize more refined targeting metric practices, the better they can execute production and distribution. This is a huge benefit when fighting the effects of fast fashion and garment waste.
But with the good comes concern. What are the effects of AI and what impact can we expect it to have on the fashion industry? It depends on who you ask. Some believe fashion will reign just as it did before these life-changing technologies surfaced. Because, without creative minds at the helm, is it still fashion? Others worry about job security. The balance between creativity, efficiency, and profit is a delicate dance.
More than just determining the good or the bad, The Fabricant is set on shaking up how we view accessibility in the industry.
In an interview with ATMOS, Anna Liedtke, The Fabricant Digital Design Director, expressed that they "Want to enable everyone to be creative by giving them the necessary tools. With digital fashion, you need the internet to connect to YouTube and train yourself, and then you can continue the journey by being connected with others... It also gives you a platform where you can show your designs.”
“Building an industry where community and sustainability are central to the creative idea, not an afterthought at the production stage. That requires the industry to start listening to more people and their needs.”
In an ideal world, humans and AI would work harmoniously to create a more inclusive fashion industry, explore the depths of digital designs, refine business strategies, and implement a more tailored customer experience.
But as we all know, AI still has a long way to go before it can truly equal the level of creativity and innovation of human designers. Designers and creatives alike are tasked with finding a balance between the benefits of AI and the human touch to create an experience that is efficient, creative, and inclusive.