Summary of Research Findings

A scope of fashion has expanded to the virtual space, gaining worldwide recognition in the last few years. Fashion in the metaverse (online virtual space), known as digital fashion*1, is spreading, especially among young people as a new form of self-expression.

One of the reasons for expansion of the metaverse is the restrictions on in-person contact during COVID-19 crisis, which grew the demand for interpersonal communication in the virtual space. For another, as the increasing popularity of online conferencing system propelled a wider adoption of new workstyle, like working from home and telework, having contact on virtual space become more accessible.

Meanwhile, the term metaverse has been used mostly in the context of online video games. There is no fashion company that is successful in the sales of NFT*2, advertising, or events at present. A majority of fashion companies in Japan is still wondering to join, or barely started business on the metaverse.

*1: Digital fashion refers to virtual clothing and fashion items designed for avatars in the metaverse. It is used as an antonym of ‘physical’ fashion, which indicates clothes tangible and wearable for real humans.
*2: NFT is short for Non-Fungible Token, a unique digital identifier used to certify authenticity and ownership of digital assets that is recorded in a blockchain. It is mostly used in the content business, for instance, digital trading cards for game characters and athletes, and digital art.

Noteworthy Topics

Challenges of Digital Fashion in Japan

Domestic apparel industry is facing challenges in the market development of digital fashion. As in the preceding cases in Europe and the U.S., laws specific to the design of digital and physical fashion must be set in place, such as protection of intellectual property rights. However, the current condition indicates that the market has not even reached that stage yet.

To monetize the digital fashion, designers need to enhance contents (digital fashion) by making full use of 3D digital technology, while marketers create the marketing strategy customized to the needs of target customers.

Meanwhile, the majority of fashion companies is merely opening pop-up stores in the virtual space as a part of sales promotion to attract customers to physical stores. As long as the virtual store remains as an irregular marketing event, digital fashion will not be an actual full-fledged business (trade) for apparel companies.
 

In addition, the challenge lies in the size of the metaverse userbase. While it is assumed that there is a certain number of potential users particularly among online gamers, to allure them to join the metaverse, hardware evolution and/or low-end virtual reality (VR) devices must be made available. To facilitate the advancement of the digital fashion market, fashion companies and other players relevant to the digital space, such as metaverse platformers, hardware suppliers, content engineers and content creators, to work in tandem to build a business foundation for the metaverse.

Research Outline