The usual news round up and a look at the obvious. You can have any body you want in the metaverse... Which one do you choose?

Hearst launches blimp in the metaverse in a bid to show advertisers virtual co-branded opportunities

I think this is straight out of ready player one, but I’m having trouble remembering the exact plug. (nb it’s a totally unrelated science fiction series I loved as a teen, which I’ll leave unmentioned to protect my ego)

Anyway. Hearst has made a metaverse blimp with rooms for each of their female/fitness brands, like Cosmo. It’s not a consumer ploy but a persistent world for them to hold meetings and show brands that they are hip. And cool. They claim ⅔ of women who are gamers interact with one of their titles, which I believe because who doesn’t pick up a Cosmo when it’s at the nail salon or dentist? Those 17 best positions aren’t going to read themselves! 

But seriously. Why a fucking blimp. Pause for me to google this. Nope, can’t find any references. Maybe because it was easy; Microsoft’s AltspaceVR platform already built a blimp for Coca-Cola. And magazines aren’t rolling in the dough. But you have the whole metaverse at your disposal, and you build a blimp to showcase Cosmo and Seventeen. Hmm….

Anyway, they’re going to hold business meetings there, where you wear your VR headset and have drinks at the virtual Cosmo bar. Cheaper than a normal entertaining budget? Ok, I will begrudgingly give some kudos. This is new and different, and Hearst can have some points for trying. 

Great essay from Benedict Evans on where this “metaverse thing” is going

I won’t summarize as I won’t do it justice, but this 5 minute read says everything and nothing about the metaverse trend. We don’t know where it’s going, but we’re definitely all along for the ride.

Not-riveting Article About Unreal Engine

Unreal Engine is the software framework behind Fortnite and other metaverse games. It’s also a platform for designing clothes, e.g., the Balenciaga Fortnite tie-up.  For this, it works well, and we’ll see more of it, is basically the gist.  The only interesting part… “Even the models themselves we built in part with our MetaHuman tool, and we actually started from scanning the real models that Balenciaga uses.” This model?

This brings me to my deep thought of the week.

The Fabricant (digital fashion house) has a poetic blog post, “CURATING OUR IDENTITY IN THE METAVERSE: WHO WILL WE BE WHEN WE CAN BE ANYTHING?“ The post talks about fashion in the future, how there won’t be gatekeepers for what is cool, and how we’ll have thousands of garments to reflect our different selves. This seems like, for lack of a better word, hooey to me. (grammarly tells me even a knowledgeable audience may not understand the word hooey. Synonym given- hogwash)

Firstly, while the “real” world is having a body positivity moment, showcasing shapes and sizes never before seen in fashion magazines, the metaverse could not be more faithful to traditional body type preferences. Look at those Balenciaga avatars.  Sure, there’s a gender neutrality vibe, but also very very visible 36-24-36 bodies. Beauty standards are alive and well, my friends, in the metaverse. 

While size doens’t actually matter in the metaverse, and any digital garment can presumably be couture-sized within a nano-second, it seems we’ve regressed to the fashion mean of a size 2. I don’t know what point I’m trying to make. It just seems so incongruous with the demands of gen-z on the media’s representation of beauty.  Time will tell where this, and all the rest, goes.

3D Fashion Tech Festival now streaming

I haven’t had a chance to watch all of these sessions, but this conference has an interesting and pragmatic line-up for digital fashion. Particularly some very practical companies presenting their wares for digital fabrics/fit models/sizing etc. Next week I’ll have gone through this all and give you a digest, but if your role touches on sourcing/production/fabric, there’s probably some good stuff in here.