NFTs x Fashion: Enabling Wearable Tech in the Metaverse

AGENT 33 has just launched their first-ever NFT digital wearable glasses thanks to its partnership with Aria Labs, a subsidiary of Arianee which helps fashion brands create digital passport NFTs for their products.

AGENT 33 on the other hand is a fast-growing footwear brand in the fashion industry boasting over 60,000 highly engaged followers across its social media platforms.

Now venturing into digital wearables, AGENT 33 has named its newly released sunglasses MIGA Limited Edition Sunglasses. Those who buy the physical sunglasses will also get an NFT version of the same to be used on Decetraland (a multiplayer blockchain game with NFTs and virtual reality).

NFTs are not just making a buzz in finance but the fashion industry as well. Fashion, like art, is a form of expression and NFTs are the perfect tool for giving fashion enthusiasts ownership of what they want to express both in the physical and digital world. 

Arianee’s Contribution

One platform that is certainly bringing this vision to reality is Arianee’s Aria Labs. Founded in 2017, Arianee is an NFT marketplace with a focus on luxury and fashion items. Their platform allows users to unlock the full features of the digital world by offering the gateway to a world of new digital ownership experiences. 

Simply put, through Aria Labs, Arianee’s architecture and protocol can be put to the test thus highlighting the protocol’s capacity to change the way the world is consuming luxury and fashion items.

With Arianee, digital life is given to physical products in the fashion industry, and trusted brands in the fashion and luxury industry can access ready-made blockchain technological solutions that translate physical ownership to digital ownership using NFTs. 

What are NFTs?

NFTs are non-fungible tokens that are similar to cryptocurrencies however they feature a unique difference. 

While cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin can be exchanged for any other Bitcoin or cryptocurrency while being divided into smaller parts, and NFT cannot be exchanged or broken down into smaller divisions.

Thanks to the blockchain and smart contracts, each NFT can be programmed with unique features and characteristics which is more than you can get from a regular token or cryptocurrency.

This gives NFTs a sense of ownership in the digital world that is quite similar to owning a collection of art pieces or other unique items in the physical world. 

How can NFTs be used in Fashion?

NFTs are proving to be a significant tool for the fashion business especially in an era of Gen-Z consumers who have digital in their DNA and expect brands to offer digital native products as well as physical ones. 

The Fashion industry can benefit from this emerging technology by giving their fashion and luxury items digital representation that cannot be duplicated, copy-pasted, or stolen. 

What’s more, brands could have an easier time onboarding new users to their brand as digital-savvy consumers could easily interact with the creative vision of entry-level products in a digital world before they try it in the physical. 

As NFTs are built to exist in an online world, they take up much less space thus fashion houses can provide the same experience to consumers without having to first invest in inventory space in stores and warehouses.

How is Arianee doing its work in the space? 

Arianee is using blockchain technology to provide fashion brands with a new paradigm in the luxury and fashion business. Using their platform, various brands can deliver NFT-based fashion items to their customers.

Aria Labs latest partnership with AGENT 33 is proof of the impact NFTs can have in the fashion industry. 

In pursuing its founding ethos of a forward-thinking innovative company, AGENT 33 is venturing into the NFT world with the launch of MIGA Limited Edition Sunglasses, their first digital wearable sunglasses.

Thanks to Arianee’s Aria Labs, those digital wearables will also be available as NFTs on Decentraland (a blockchain-based virtual world pushing the idea of a Metaverse). Users will also be able to access a physical version of the sunglasses, therefore, bridging the gap between a user’s digital avatar in the Decentraland metaverse and the physical world. 

The concept of the metaverse is popular on online video gaming platforms and is used to refer to a virtual world where multiple users can interact with one another as well as with the virtual environment simultaneously.

While announcing the partnership between AGENT 33 and Arianee’s Aria Labs, Nils Escurate, CEO of AGENT 33 said,

“In creating AGENT 33, we focused on meeting the desires of those who embrace the unique underground spirit which we use to create sneakers out of the ordinary. Now, we are going one step further with the use of NFTs, allowing us to bring forth new forms of expression at the intersection of fashion and technology.”

In response to the excitement shared by AGENT 33’s CEO, Luc Jodet, co-founder of Arianee and Executive Director of Aria Labs which was instrumental in the development of the products said,

“This partnership with AGENT 33 is a natural progression in expanding the use of NFTs by Arianee. We spent four years developing a tangible solution using NFTs deployed on a public blockchain to enable brands to strengthen customer relationships and meet their needs.”

Bridging the physical to the digital

The NFT boom especially in the collectible space is evidence that the young generation is the pillar to technological adoption. 

These consumers are eager to establish an identity online and brands are starting to pay attention by creating products that cater to the needs of the user both in the physical and the digital world. 

Already, companies like Facebook are launching sunglasses that allow the user to stay connected and have a shared digital experience as well as a physical one.

AGENT 33’s sunglasses however take that innovation a step further by offering users true ownership both in the physical as well as in the digital realm.