Warner Music Group (WMG) will partner with and invest in digital fashion retailer DressX, gaining a platform for select WMG artists to design their own virtual fashion lines. These artists will collaborate directly with DressX to design and launch 3D and AR virtual clothing that their fans can collect across Instagram, Snapchat and other platform partners.
“The representation of our future digital selves will be as important and, if you’re measuring by sheer volume of interactions, maybe more important than how we represent ourselves physically,” said Oana Ruxandra, CDO and EVP of Business Development at WMG in a statement. “With its leadership in wearables and sustainability, DressX is exactly the type of partner we need sprinting alongside us as we build for the future.”
“Digital fashion is a visual language for communicating and creating bonds online, and at DressX we use technology to provide the utility for digital wearables using augmented reality, machine learning and blockchain,” said DressX Co-founders Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova in a statement. “Digital merch and swag from musicians will definitely be a part of the digital wardrobes of fans, and it’s great to see that more and more stakeholders believe in this new domain that is already changing the fashion industry at scale.”
DressX launched in August 2020, and Meta added the company to its portfolio of virtual clothing designers in July 2022. The DressX library contains more than 3,000 digital items, and other partners include Roblox, Google, Coca-Cola and Farfetch.
The company is committed to sustainable fashion, promoting the digital garment market as a way for consumers to showcase their style digitally. DressX has developed a carbon calculation methodology for digital fashion and proposed a patent validated by The Carbon Accounting Company. Since June 2021, DressX has partnered with Flowcarbon to offset carbon emissions from all its operations, seeking to make itself carbon neutral.
High-profile partnerships with well-known musicians are another way that companies are raising the profile of the metaverse, since most consumers remain unaware of Web3 developments despite the funds and resources companies are pouring into the metaverse and NFTs. A number of retail and CPG brands have already made the leap: Forever 21 recently debuted its F21 Metaverse Collection — IRL fashions inspired by designs seen in the metaverse. Additionally, brands including Ralph Lauren, Visa, Maybelline and Claire’s have deployed metaverse integrations and activations in recent months.
