Digital fashion refers to the virtual representation of apparel and clothing in a virtual environment. The apparel is built using 3D software, pixel materials, and computing technologies. Digital fashion is also termed as the interplay between couture and digital technology. For instance, information communication and technology ICT has profoundly infiltrated traditional fashion and influenced the experiences of fashion consumers and prospects.

Such an interplay has happened at three fundamental levels. First, ICT tools and techniques are utilized to design digital fashion apparel while the industry organization uses ICT technologies. Secondly, ICT directly affects marketing, distribution, and sales. Social media platforms and digital ads present exciting opportunities for digital fashion brands to push their merchandise. Finally, ICTs are extensively used in communications with different stakeholders: customers, investors, client groups -- and contribute to creating the digital fashion world.

Digital Fashion: An Exciting Tech Trend

The fashion sector is going through a painful transition from analog to digital, induced partly by the covid-19 pandemic and rises in global temperatures, forcing the fashion industry to be sustainable. To continue to thrive in the face of these challenges, fashion brands are adopting digital approaches of prototyping, thus reducing waste and streamlining physical production.

While many global brands are adapting, some other industry visionaries are reinventing themselves by viewing the industry challenges in the context of shifting consumer desires and fashion consumption. One of the ways that digital fashion is being revolutionized is by the use of digital fashion NFTs by players like Digitalax.

One in every three women considers clothing "old" after one to three wears. So, imagine a world where clothing and apparel are made of pixels rather than textiles. Sounds strange, right? Not anymore. Fast fashion has already popularized the notion that great taste is similar to new outfits. With this notion in mind, it is evident to see why digital fashion would emerge as a more versatile, customer-focused, and flexible approach to fashion consumption.

Indeed, social media reinforces the idea that great taste is usually synonymous with variety wears. One in six people admits they would not wear clothing if it’s been seen online.

Welcome to digital fashion.

Emerging technologies prove you could have all the varieties of apparel and clothing in your closet. Digital clothes, which are made of pixels rather than textiles, are gaining popularity. While you can possess a minimalist wardrobe in real life, you could express your digital self with thousands of different designer wears on social media.

Digital Fashion and the Gaming Culture

While on the surface, digital fashion may seem like something fetched from the future, in reality, curating our digital presence has become the new reality. In social media, users are using outsourced applications to curate their digital appearance. From putting your best foot forward in LinkedIn to cultivating an aesthetic look on Instagram, users are proving to be quite thoughtful about their online presence.

For serious gamers, digital fashion takes the form of skins: these refer to weapons and outfits that decorate their online avatars. For instance, on Avatar, a typical digital skin would cost a gamer between $5 and $25. While these skins are just for aesthetics and do not affect a player’s abilities, they all together illustrate a market of virtual self-expression. Some of the rarest and most exclusive skins like the Skull Trooper Skin are often resold online for thousands of dollars. Indeed, experts predict that the skin market will hit $50 billion by 2025. Digital fashion integrates a virtual reality embedded perfectly in our gaming experiences, thus bidding farewell to analog, traditional fashion.

Why Digital Fashion Technology?

Digital fashion is enabling consumers to have a much more emotional and intimate connection with brands that they see and love. Not only has digital fashion become more versatile and accessible, but different fashion brands also prefer to display their collections, whether it is through digital storytelling, video lookbooks, or behind-the-scenes sneak peeks. Given these mounting challenges, digital fashion technology enables brands to build strong and intimate connections with audiences.

Building a brand value is tantamount to clothing and fashion brands if they want to survive the ramifications of the covid-19 pandemic. Most consumers strive to understand a brand's communication, values, and what it stands for. Digital fashion technology gives businesses and consumers the power to interact with brands and their corporate culture in building long-term, profitable, and sustainable business relationships.

Digital fashion has shown that there are no limits when it comes to digital. There is room for brands to cast their nets wide without having to exhaust their resources. Digital fashion enables an unlimited number of industries and markets to be reached without being selected on whom to invite to shows and exhibitions. For example, the adventures of Zoom with friends by Vigil garnered 3.0 million views in less than four days on YouTube and 1.2 million views on InstagramTV. This made the video one of the most popular videos by Louis Vuitton and demonstrated the potential reach of digital fashion activities.

Finally, digital fashion has enabled traditional fashion to flap its wings into new frontiers. With digital fashion, we see new possibilities in terms of consumer behavior. For instance, digital fashion retailers are using capabilities in virtual reality to enable potential buyers to try garments before making a purchase. This particular estimation capability embedded in virtual reality is a classic addition in ensuring accuracy in purchases to avoid wastage and consumer disgruntlement after purchase.

Trends in Digital Fashion Technology

● Artificial Intelligence - Fashion brands are using artificial intelligence to forecast trends, boost sales, and improve customer purchase experiences. Touchscreens and chatbots have streamlined business communication and improved relationships between digital fashion retailers and digital consumers.

● Internet of Things – Digital fashion is powered by embedded capabilities in a highly interconnected network of devices: phones, laptops, tablets, and computers. The internet of things denotes an interconnected network of devices that sends and receives data signals, hence permitting communication and interactions among shared users. Consumers are using smartphones, tablets, laptops, and computers to access digital fashion retail platforms and order from digital e-commerce fashion platforms.

● Big Data Analytics – Big data analysis enables enterprises to adapt to their different processes and different business fragments like the supply chain, marketing, project management, and distribution. New software tools available in the market enable brands, markets, and factories to get real-time feedback on the quality, nature, and status of fashion merchandise. Digitally, brands like Digitalax have built the first digital fashion operating system that will enable consumers, brands, and client partner groups to interact with different digital fashion products in real-time.

● Virtual and Augmented Reality – One unique application of virtual reality is enabling consumers to try outfits before making a purchase decision. This capability offers better accuracy due to its customized measurement functionality. The integration of the augmented reality technology implies that customers are likely to buy fashion products they feel they have already tried.

The Future of Digital Fashion

A historic quote by a renowned philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche reads, "and those seen dancing were considered insane by those who didn't hear the tune." Nietzsche's idea seems related to the avant-garde ideas of a Dutch fashion designer, Amber Slotten, the Co-Founder of Fabricant. Slooten is the creative genius behind the Digital Fashion House that sold an exclusively digital designer dress using blockchain. Based on Slooten’s success and philosophy, the globalization of markets implies that brands that do not leap into the new frontier will collapse, signaling a shift to digital fashion.