Why Digital Clothing is 2021’s Most Exciting Tech Trend

Published in

UX Planet

8 min readJan 4, 2021

Imagine a world where your clothes are made of pixels rather than textiles.

One in three women considers a piece of clothing “old” after one or two wears¹.

Fast fashion is popularizing the idea that great style is synonymous with new outfits. Social media reinforces this mentality, with one in six young people claiming they won’t rewear an outfit if it’s been seen online².

Enter digital fashion.

**Left**: Louis Vuitton and League of Legends partner to create an online and real-life clothing collection (Courtesy of Louis Vuitton); **Center**: A metallic tracksuit created by Carlings that was available for exchange at the pop-up store HOT:SECOND (Courtesy of HOT:SECOND); **Right:** The world’s first digital couture dress which sold for $9,500 USD (Courtesy of The Fabricant)

Thanks to emerging technologies, you could have all the latest and greatest fashion trends in your closet.

Your virtual closet, that is.

Digital clothes, made from pixels instead of textiles, are gaining popularity³.

In real life, you could have a minimalist capsule wardrobe. Meanwhile, on social media, your digital self could be expressive with hundreds of new clothing items.

In short, you get the best of both worlds.

It’s not new. Digital fashion has already infiltrated gaming culture.

On its surface, digital fashion may seem like something from the future. Yet, curating our digital appearance is already a big part of everyone’s life. From cultivating an Instagram aesthetic to putting your best foot forward on LinkedIn, we are thoughtful about our online impressions.

(Hopefully!)

For gamers, digital fashion takes the form of “skins”: outfits and weapons that decorate the in-game avatars. On Fortnite, a typical skin costs between $2 and $20 USD⁴. The skins are just for the aesthetic and do not impact the player’s abilities, illustrating a market for virtual self-expression.

Some of the rarest and most exclusive skins, like the Skull Trooper Skin, are resold online for thousands of dollars⁵.

Experts predict the market for “skins” in video games will hit $50 billion USD by 202²⁶.

Experts predict the market for “skins” in video games will hit $50 billion USD by 2022 (Courtesy of Fortnite)

Louis Vuitton and League of Legends: an Unlikely Partnership

In 2019, the luxury brand, Louis Vuitton, designed a series of skins for League of Legends, a popular multiplayer game⁷. Following its digital release, Louis Vuitton created real-life pieces to compliment the skin collection.

To everyone’s surprise, the once-nerdy world of esports has been infiltrated by high fashion.

A Quick History Lesson in Digital Fashion

In 2018, Carlings, a Scandinavian retailer, launched the world’s first digital-only clothing collection. Each of the 19 pieces were sold for £9 to 3⁰⁸. Customers would provide Carlings with a photo, and a team of 3D designers would edit the digital outfit onto the client.

“By selling the digital collection at £15 per item, we’ve sort of democratized the economy of the fashion industry,” said Kicki Perrson, a brand manager at Carlings⁹.

The success of their first digital collection encouraged Carlings to experiment further. In 2019, they created the first augmented reality graphic tee dubbed the “Last Statement T-Shirt¹⁰.”

This top uses Spark AR technology and a smartphone to digitally change the shirt’s graphic design¹¹. When paired with custom Instagram and Facebook filters, the shirt’s design seamlessly changes. Their website claims you can display dozens of messages or designs “without ever having to buy another t-shirt”.

Thanks to custom online filters, this simple plain t-shirt can display dozens of different graphics and messages (Courtesy of Carlings)

Digital Couture Sold Via Blockchain Technology

In May 2019, the world’s first digital couture dress was sold on the Ethereum blockchain¹². Unlike Carlings’ affordable digital pieces, this high-fashion product sold for $9,500 USD. The digital fashion house, The Fabricant, created this one-of-a-kind design.

Trading Physical Products for Digital Experiences

A pop-up store in London, known as HOT:SECOND, encouraged consumers to give digital fashion a chance. At HOT:SECOND, visitors could trade physical products for digital experiences. Visitors could donate an item of unwanted clothing to the charity, Love Not Landfill. In exchange, they could try on a variety of digital garments ranging from Couture to Streetwear.

Why Digital Apparel Can Take the Fashion Industry by Storm

1. Digital Fashion is a Sustainable Solution to Fast Fashion

Eight to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the fashion industry¹³.

Nearly three-fifths of all clothing produced ends up in incinerators or landfills within years of being made¹⁴.

Digital clothing allows consumers to live out their fast fashion fantasies while drastically reducing the environmental impact.

When you buy a piece of digital clothing, you aren’t just reducing the impact of that one t-shirt. You are also reducing waste generated during the design and sampling process. The firm, Dress-X, claims that the total carbon footprint of producing one digital item is 95% less than an average physical garment¹⁵.

Even large retailers with physical products can benefit from digital fashion without changing their product offerings. For example, PUMA partnered with The Fabricant to create a capsule collection, ‘Day Zero’, that had a low environmental impact¹⁶. For this campaign, PUMA created a digital proof of concept that eliminated the need for sampling, handling, traveling, and other logistics. Once the proof of concept was perfected, they produced and sold the physical product.

2. Digital Fashion Reduces Production Costs and the Time to Market

By adapting their product innovation process, PUMA reduced their water usage by up to 17.4% for this collection¹⁷. PUMA also reduced their time to market and costs by 30%.

3. It’s Body and Gender Inclusive

Digital fashion promotes the idea that anyone, regardless of body type, size, or gender, can wear anything. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “one size fits all.”

The majority of, if not all, digital fashion brands provide genderless, and sizeless pieces. Digital clothing can truly be universal.

Creative and perhaps, gravity-defying digital shoes (Courtesy of Happy99)

4. It Provides Endless Possibilities for Creative Self-Expression

Digital designers are not limited by silly things like gravity and physics. Designers can experiment with materials and textures.

“Within the digital world, we can go completely crazy. We can wear a dress made of water or have lights everywhere and change your textile according to your mood,” says Amber Slooten, the co-founder of The Fabricant¹⁸.

Ultimately, this opens the door for more self-expression. You could find pieces that reflect a more abstract version of how you wish to be seen.

Screen capture of Dress-X’s website (Courtesy of Dress-X)

The Current Limitations to Digital Fashion

The Technology Isn’t Quite There… Yet!

At the moment, digital fashion firms rely on employees digitally fitting the outfits to a client’s photo. This process of “digital dressing” typically uses 3D modelling software. Some firms use CGI software to digitally edit or “fit” the clothes onto the customer.

“The technology, in general, is not there yet to recognize a body to implement [digital dressing],” explains Natalia Modenova, the co-founder of Dress-X¹⁹. “The AI is not there to entirely automate this process.”

Digital dressing is by no means instantaneous. For example, it takes the firm Tribute between three and five hours to customize the digital garment to one’s photo.

However, technology will quickly improve.

Think of how bad those first few Snapchat filters were.

I’m excited for the day where you can stream a video while wearing a digital outfit.

It’s Expensive

It’s already hard to justify buying an expensive piece of clothing that you can wear in real life. If it wasn’t, exploitive and unsustainable fast fashion wouldn’t be popular.

(I’m as guilty as anybody for indulging in fast fashion, so no judgment!)

In general, we undervalue digital goods. One study found we’re only willing to pay $1 for a digital photo, yet we’ll pay $3 for a physical image²⁰. Another study found we are willing to pay more for a physical copy of a book ($9.59 on average) than a digital version ($6.94)²¹.

You may think the average person is not going to buy clothing that they can’t actually wear.

Yet, once you consider the potential price of the digital item, this may change.

You may not spend $40 on a digital top, but you might spend $5.

Remember, there is a proven market for digital fashion…

Yes, gamers buy skins for their in-game avatars.

(As I said, it’s expected to be a $50 billion USD industry.)

But, gamers are not alone. Members of Zwift, an indoor cycling app, use the in-game currency to purchase biking gear for their digital avatars²². These brand-loyal cyclists often want their digital selves to use the same brands and products that they use in real life.

Zwift provides its cyclists with the ability to customize their avatar with their favourite brands (Courtesy of Zwift)

It is undoubtedly a bizarre idea.

Having a digital wardrobe is something straight out of a sci-fi movie.

However, the same thing was said when our parents fantasized about calling their friends through their wristwatches. Today, there’s a whole industry of smartwatches that connect people across the globe.

While I don’t plan on switching to an entirely virtual wardrobe anytime soon, the concept of digital fashion has caught my attention.

I see my online persona as an extension of myself.

As a way of curating how I want to be seen.

I am most excited about the possibilities digital fashion provides for self-expression and sustainability.