Q: What to virtually wear?
In the Metaverse, how you look says everything about you, or nothing at all, since your virtual body feels no restrictions, age nor weight gain your choice to dress with the click of a button is easy-peasy. It’s one of the most fun things to do as an expression of moods, feelings, whims, an attitude du jour. But of course I think that….I have over a 100 folders named Outfit Nirvana in my inventory and an NFT collection of my virtual fashion on OpenSea at
https://opensea.io/collection/fashionnirvana
One of the greatest things I think about having an avatar we can dress is the ability to load up on what I call “aspirational” clothing. I’ll give you an example. In my physical closet I have high heels which I will never wear again, however if you think for one second that I would throw them out you would be wrong. I love those shoes, and though I will never wear them on my actual feet again for longer than 15 minutes, they represent something of a time in life I'll always connect with. While I can’t really wear them, I aspire to them and they are part of who I am. In the metaverse, aspirational wear is something to be celebrated as I can wear 5-inch stilettos all day long and feel no pain from clicking my heels, so to speak over thousands of virtual miles. In the metaverse I can wear what I want to see myself in, living a form of “the dream” if you will.
The benefit of this kind of wardrobe is no storage or laundry problems. Plus it is persistent, will last as long as electricity and never get moth holes. It’s your virtual life, the one you have by choice not by chance! You do not have to go with the default avatar you log in with, here "at birth" you can start expressing yourself in many ways pronto, so think of your style. It's more than, "Which Spice Girl RU?" When you find the place to establish a virtual outpost in, you’re probably going to have to buy some of the coin of the realm and/or fill your wallet to suit up a bit, but perhaps not initially as most metaverses allow you to choose from their catalog.
Find a jacket that speaks to you, find a shoe and work your way up from there. Are there any accessories? Do you want to play a role? You can always change it at any time. To start, take a full trip through the free offerings and find something colorful, cool or close to the dream you! For the full dream, you’ll probably have to pay, usually pennies on the dollar. But in some places, with the rise of NFT Avatars like in The Sandbox, you can buy a look for $13K, luckily it has resale value. Spend some time on yourself and get out there to show off your handiwork and see what is going on!
Branded clothing is one of the ways that companies are establishing themselves in the metaverse and they are presenting varied content. Gucci and Forever21 in Roblox, Adidas teaming with Bored Ape, Honor of Kings a fabulous short CGI has a silver deer (which looks like a Patronus from Harry Potter) shape shifting into an anime-like redheaded beauty wearing Burberry’s latest design, Prada uses a CGI avatar named Candy to sell clothes, Nike has a line of NFT avatars it is using to promote its sporty clothes line. Balenciaga will collaborate with Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, to bring their signature clothing and apparel in.
These companies want you to be their virtual spokesperson and carry their name across the metaverse on your back. Is it worth it to wear someone else’s label? We do it all the time; as in reality so in virtuality. We are human whatever the platform, so when you look in the virtual mirror which is your avatar, what does it “say” to you? When you get dressed you are not constructing a narrative, you’re putting your pants on, when you dress your “dolly” (and yes the avatar, the other the cartoon self can be seen as a doll version of your being) how do you want to look?
Do you need to be familiar to yourself, better than yourself or just different somehow? This is the easiest way to take chances which you might not otherwise risk. Purple might be your favorite secret color but wearing it in public calls a bit too much attention to yourself. In a virtual world, you do have more flexibility in that no one you know (most likely) will comment on your choice of outfit. Wear purple from head to toe if the mood strikes. Yes you can always change it later.
Calvin Klein used a virtual avatar named Daisy, Prada has a virtual model named Candy, Louis Vuitton created Vivienne for the brands 200th birthday so as an avatar you can experience LV through her. Daisy’s features were designed utilizing an Italian clothing line named Yoox’s data and client preferences to hit the target where it counts - right in their identity. And the comment was made that Daisy costs far less than genuine influencers, are 100% controllable, can appear in many locations simultaneously and can promote corporate opinion when needed. Virtual avatars wearing company clothing might be attractive to end users who want to look like Daisy or candy or have access to their wardrobes. And if people wear the clothes they wear the label.
Yes, all of these figures are female, and one thing I have often heard from men in the virtual world is that they often choose female avatars because the clothing choices are just so much better. Something to think about if you are Eddie Bauer or Hugo Boss.
If we can wear a virtual Chanel or Prada for a fraction of its cost in the physical world, aren’t we tempted as those brands do have high luxury value. I do hesitate to say "in the real world", because what we believe or imbue ourselves in, is real. Our presence and transference of self and ego onto our avatars makes those characters real to us. We care what we look like, we care how others look at us, and if the way we look, our outfit tells others about ourselves in an instant within a metaverse, don’t we want to represent ourselves in the most beautiful and / or awesome way?
We have choices in the Metaverse about how we want to look, and that speaks to an idealization of ourselves which we can put forth much more easily. It takes a different effort to improve or enhance the way we look in the physical world. And to this end I own bestdressedavatar.com which is under construction, because we will all soon want to upload a great selfie of ourselves taken in whichever virtual world we come to love. All dressed up and no one to appreciate it? That won’t be the case when you can put your image here and have people vote you as the Best Dressed Avatar of 2023!
If you have a question, send an email to info@pookymedia.com with Metaquette in the subject and it will be addressed!
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