Each piece has a story from 2020. Tell us about the hidden meanings?
Each look in the collection is created with its own story behind it and has been given names as if they were game characters, although created as an overall coherent collection. The looks are called Octopus Man, Firewalker, The Lost Prince, and Astro Alyssa and they have all been inspired by a range of various ”happenings” that have been on the top news, globally, during the pandemic. The pieces are a mark in time for various happenings during covid19 when we have all been sitting behind our screens watching the same series, movies, news, etc while being in lockdown and following restrictions. I was living in London last year when Harry and Meghan Markle announced that they will quit Royal duties for good and the news created extremely strong reactions. Harry made the way into the collection as The Lost Prince.
Tell us what you wanted with the collection?
Digital fashion is connected to sustainability and with new emerging technology there’s just so much potential to change our field as a global polluter. AR technology will make the experience of fashion more accessible and it’s a very interesting way to explore one’s digital persona with as well as rendered clothes will never need to go into the washing machine and never lose their fit as the wearer gains or loses weight. This collection is free for everyone to use and you will be able to change your whole outfit only with a click/swipe.
What is the next step with fashion?
Technology is still in earlier stages of development and is only going to improve and become more integrated into our lives. This gives the fashion industry the opportunity to experiment and explore through a whole new platform. Just as we buy apparel in video games for our avatars, we will be able to buy rendered fashion, it would give way to combining our physical representations with our digital and our real identities with our avatars. Covid19 has forced the industry to accelerate into transforming their business models into digital solutions and it will be interesting to see what this forced change will lead to post-corona.
Has covid tranformed us all to avatars? And why is this a good thing?
Yes kind of, we have for a long time now mainly portrayed ourselves through digital and virtual platforms - from online meetings, virtual social events (of all kinds), and within game worlds. We have changed filters and customized our avatars in order to display ourselves for social interaction online, not least to portray individuality on those platforms. Furthermore, avatars give you such freedom of being whatever and whoever you want to be, one day you could be a potato in an online meeting and another day a spaghetti monster in a virtual game world, the possibility of various identities is endless!
