Valentino-clad Meta avatars

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This week we are covering…

👗 Valentino dresses up Meta avatars

🛍 Roundup: Retail’s biggest names in their recent web3 moments

🤝 Urban Outfitters’ parent brand cops AI-powered merchandise planning tech

🔥 Hot links

Valentino dresses up Meta avatars [Link]

Luxury fashion house Maison Valentino is creating digital fashion looks for the avatars of Meta, to be made available on Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, and Meta VR experiences.

The chic details:

• The collaboration pulls 6 fully branded looks inspired by Valentino’s most recent collections, with the designer pieces typically ranging from $2.99 to $8.99 in price.

• Available Valentino looks comprise its signature bright pink, the logoed Toile Iconographe, a panther print, and Valentino Garavani Rockstud ballerina shoes.

• Meta’s avatar fashion marketplace, announced in June 2022, previously included looks from Thom Browne, Prada, and Balenciaga for purchase, alongside free avatar outfits from Meta.

A tale of two digital fashion plays: While Valentino consistently pursues plenty of metaverse and web3 partnerships such as with Unxd and Farfetch-owned Wanna, Meta’s own web3 fashion commitment appears to waver. It has reversed a pilot project where users can connect their crypto wallet to share NFTs on Instagram, supposedly paving the way for more digital fashion NFTs.

Now Meta is betting on avatars in the digital fashion space, perhaps anchored on this philosophy: “You get invested in your appearance, just like how you are in real life.”

Roundup: Retail’s biggest names in their recent web3 moments

• Christie's and Gucci have partnered to present Future Frequencies: Explorations in Generative Art and Fashion, an auction featuring 21 NFTs from renowned artists, exploring the intersection of fashion, art, and technology. The works combine AI, 3D, film, and advanced mathematical functions with antique paintings. The auction runs from July 18-25 on Christie's 3.0 platform and the works are displayed on Gucci Art Space.

• American fashion label Tommy Hilfiger is investing further in its innovation roadmap with the launch of its new virtual project Tommy Parallel, a fully realized metaverse presence featuring digital wearables in a customizable virtual universe. The project is created in collaboration with The Fabricant, Hiber World, and Spatial.

• Puma has partnered with Web3 firm Legitimate, entertainment agency Roc Nation, and Footlocker to launch the Evolution of the Mixtape collection of phygital sneakers, featuring an embedded NFC chip for exclusive NFTs, unreleased music, and bonus content. Available for $130 in the US and its territories, the sneakers reward customer loyalty with additional content and new opportunities in this hip-hop moment.

Urban Outfitters’ parent brand cops AI-powered merchandise planning tech [Link]

URBN - a portfolio of global consumer brands including Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People, FP Movement, Anthropologie Weddings, Terrain, Menus & Venues and Nuuly - taps enterprise AI software firm o9 Solutions for its next-gen merchandise planning solution.

URBN will use the company’s AI-powered merchandise financial planning, assortment planning, demand planning, allocation, and replenishment capabilities to:

• Quickly adapt to trends and seasonality of products

• Plan stock positions and promotions better

• Determine the unique demand drivers across its brands

• Incorporate predictive analytics

• Proactively position its inventory to meet consumer demand

Look: Ubisoft’s Assassin's Creed Mirage haptic feedback shirt [Link]

Gaming and fashion meet once again via gaming leader Ubisoft’s collaboration with haptic gaming specialist OWO to produce the Assassin's Creed Mirage Edition Haptic Feedback Shirt.

Think of haptic points at the chest, stomach, lower back, and arms, offering "exclusive sensations never felt before," along with a special algorithm interacting with the game for 9-wave parameters simulating various interactions.

The shirt, controllable using a mobile app, will be released with a game code for the upcoming installment for launch on Oct 12 and will be compatible with Sony PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.

AI serves looks as fashion design assistant

AI is projected to add substantial value to the fashion sector - particularly as a design aide - with projections of up to $275B in extra profits over the coming years, according to McKinsey.

Fashion brands that leverage AI:

• Tommy Hilfiger hosted an AI design contest during Metaverse Fashion Week, resulting in a digital fashion item available for purchase on virtual fashion platform DressX.

• Revolve supported AI Fashion Week in New York by showcasing AI-assisted designs.

• Stitch Fix uses AI algorithms to personalize clothing choices based on individual preferences.

• Cala provides a platform for fashion brands and retailers to collaborate and design using image generators.

Similarly, robotics offers benefits like enhanced precision, increased productivity, and improved consistency in apparel making, yet challenges like high upfront costs and workforce displacement concerns remain at the fore.

🔥 Hot Links

• L’Oréal cosmetics brand Shu Uemura unveils face stickers embedded with an NFC chip. (Link)

• From demand forecasting to virtual sampling here’s a wealth of ways AI can help cut down fashion waste. (Link)

• Meet Tilly Talbot, the controversial 1st AI fashion designer from Down Under. (Link)

• “In a retail environment where the product-to-experience shift is increasingly significant, genAI can enable the creation of immersive, personalized experiences.” (Link)

• Canadian fashion e-tailer Ssense banks on an gen-AI chatbot tailored for enhanced online styling and shopping. (Link)

• This high-tech body measurement tool from Zalando is intended to drive down returns. (Link)

• NFC tags and gaming partnerships, straight from the sneaker brand marketing playbook today. (Link)

• Stylitics buys Barcelona-based Wide Eyes, a visual AI solution for fashion and retail for digital merchandising enhanced with image recognition and AI. (Link)

• Arzu Kaprol, a self-described “human innovation designer,” focuses on wearable tech since designing for the Turkish Armed Forces in 2005. (Link)

• Sweden-based Nigerian fashion consultant Felix Adu popularizes African textiles while integrating AI, NFTs, and crypto into his brand. (Link)

• Is Louis Vuitton's embrace of "non-traditional" creative director Pharrell and NFTs points the way forward for fashion, despite the naysayers? (Link)

• Years ago, “digital fashion artist” was virtually unheard of - until the likes of Australian designer Jackson Cowden stepped into the scene. (Link)

• Tatler’s 1st AI fashion shoot experiments with text prompts, blends reality with the virtual, and mediates the tie-up between humans and machine. (Link)

• Fashion house La Maison Steel uses NFC to authenticate luxury Apple Watch cuffs. (Link)

• Warehouse by Mudita, based on the outlet-mall concept, finds that the emergence of virtual fitting rooms has added an exhilarating twist to the fashion experience. (Link)

• Collab for fashion: FaceCake utilizes AI and AR in order to let you try clothes on w/o a changing room, before you buy them, while RealmFX makes awesome VFX, as in the things that make Iron Man. (Link)

• At BlockDown Festival, an America’s Got Talent-style competition will harness the AI foundation model Style.AI to take fashion creative to a new level. (Link)

• In light of a fresh new lawsuit, artists say the AI behind Shein enables it to stay on top of trends and entice buyers with a constantly rotating catalog of fast fashion. (Link)

• Gen Z shops “on their own terms,” notes Rajni Jacques of Snapchat. (Link)

• AI-designed fabric has arrived. (Link)

• UK womenswear brand Hush launches a new complimentary personal styling service and wardrobe master classes, with a virtual styling counterpart. (Link)

All content on this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not aim to serve as or replace expert investment advice.

If you are a startup building in the metaverse / web3 ecosystem and are raising capital, please reach out to Sfermion. Sfermion is an investment firm focused on accelerating the emergence of the metaverse.

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