leveraging decentralised tech to achieve a vision of a free fashion industry

fast fashion is detrimental to society.

the manufacturing and distribution methods are rotten: unsold stock equates to million of tons of waste each year, and their sweatshops abuse workers in 3rd world countries.

also, the industry is badly structured: it’s dominated by a handful of all-powerful giants, making it impossible for individual creators to compete, leading to a poorer fashion landscape. moreover, this means the average user has no other choice than to support their draconian manufacturing methods and to “consume” their low quality, creatively dull, clothing.

we need a new approach. a new way of thinking about fashion. and that’s yiume.

yiume is a decentralised fashion marketplace, where you buy clothing designs as nfts.

you can then redeem these designs nfts for the actual physical garment: it contains all the metadata needed for the production of the clothing, so any manufacturer in the world can handle it.

tradFashion vs yiume fashion

to understand this new way approach to fashion, let’s compare it with the old ways:

traditional fashion

• you buy and own a single physical copy of clothing
• no option of choosing the manufacturer
• no control over materials used
• fashion company has all the decisive power
• clothing is a liability, cannot be financially leveraged (in most cases)
• lack of transparency

yiume fashion

• you buy and own the design of a clothing
• you choose your manufacturer and the manufacturing method
• you choose the material of your physical garment
• you have all the decisive power
• you can redeem (have it manufactured) your design multiple times
• your design is an asset that you can financially leverage (lend or sell, more on that in an upcoming article)
• all records are transparent and permanent as they are stored on the blockchain

you can visualise these differences with the illustrations below (notice especially how the position of the user changes)

more design freedom

another benefit previously unavailable: what if you saw a t-shirt with a crazy good looking logo, but you think it would look better on a pair of pants? with yiume, this becomes possible, as there are two types of design nfts:

2D designs

the nft is an image, logo, character, photo, drawing… you name it. the creator can recommend how they imagine it would look on a clothing, but the user can have it manufactured onto any type of clothing (pants, shirt, hoodies…), from any material (linen, cotton, blends…), positioned anywhere, alter the size and rotation, and can choose the manufacturing method (sewing, heat pressing…)

3D blueprints

the nft contains information on all materials, cuts, stitches, imprinting/sewing methods, and everything else the manufacturer needs to know to create the exact irl physical version.

user benefits

yiume’s approach to fashion unlocks an unprecedented level of ownership over your clothing. it also gives you full responsibility on the manufacturing methods, so finally you have the option to have your clothes made without exploiting and abusing workers. moreover, regarding the quality of the material, you don’t have to buy low quality clothing that wears down after a couple of months.

regarding the diversity of the fashion landscape, yiume’s end goal is to have a marketplace where anyone can publish their designs: this implies a practically infinite choice of designs and styles.

designers come out winning as well.

before, someone willing to make clothes had to worry about manufacturing, logistics, running a website, upfront investments, if they didn’t sell out, a bunch of clothes just laid around. this made competing with the long-established clothing giants virtually impossible: even if you had the most extraordinary designs ever, you had all the before-mentioned factors playing against you.

yiume changes this: designers can purely focus on their art. the only administrative part will be setting up the mint (relatively straightforward process), and they’ll be accompanied by the yiume team all along the way. so the only ingredient that matters for success: good designs.

finally, let’s talk compensation: there is no middle man taking a hefty cut. the end goal is for the smart contract to run on its own with no human intervention, eliminating the need for any kinds of fees. until this vision is achieved, the yiume team will be taking only a couple % of the transactions, and since artists are getting paid directly by users acquiring their designs, they will receive almost a 100% of the price. add to this secondary market royalties and you get an industry where the artists are fairly compensated for their work.

global positive impact

last but not least, society overall benefits from this. global clothing production becomes fully on-demand. people have the options to buy long-lasting, high quality clothes abolishing the entire concept of “consuming fashion”. this all contributes to significantly decreased waste. and the workers in clothing fabrics are better off: manufacturers are incentivised to engage in fair-trade production.

no more fast fashion. responsible fashion powered by decentralised tech instead.

mapping the ecosystem

let me recap the yiume ecosystem a little

• entities: user, designer, manufacturer
• actions: selling/acquiring designs, redeeming designs (getting the physical versions manufactured)
• elements traded: designs (nfts)

there’s only component missing in that summary: collectibles.

collectibles, also nfts, are something like loyalty cards, that give you discounts when purchasing and when redeeming designs. for example, with the (yiume.first) collectible, users will get a discount on all yiume native designs, as well as on all redemptions done through official yiume partnered manufacturers.

moreover, collectibles also enable a designer to check the levels of support they might expect for their designs: if they sell out overnight, it might be a signal for the artist that the demand for their designs will be sky high.

now you have a full overview of the yiume ecosystem. to visualise it better, here is a diagram illustrating it:

clarifying the concept of redemption (the ux timeline)

you just bought your first yiume design - congrats!

now you want to redeem it for the physical clothing. well, you have two options:

1. redeeming through yiume directly

   yiume will have partner manufacturers, whose services you can use directly from the yiume website, you can select any from the list, input all your manufacturing specifications (garment type, technique, material, etc), you will get an email with all tracking information and some time later a package will come directly to your doorstep with the real-life garment of your design nft. furthermore, if you own any eligible (chosen to be accepted by the designer) collectibles, you will get a discount on the manufacturing price.

2. redeeming individually

   as mentioned previously, the nft has all the metadata necessary for production of the irl clothing. therefore, you can contact any manufacturer in the world, send them the nft, and they will produce and send you your clothing. however, there is an opportunity cost between decentralisation and security you should definitely keep in mind.

just to mention, you cannot redeem a clothing an infinite amount of times. we have to ensure the scarcity one way or another. redemptions are capped, with the exact number depending on the design and the number of eligible collectibles you own. the cap is increased in accordance with the number of the eligible collectibles (the growth ratio & the list of eligible collections is solely up to the designer to decide)

(hypothetical scenario) for example, you own a yiume design nft which you can redeem 5 times, aka you can use it to produce 5 identical physical garments. however, if you own certain collectibles, the number of redemptions becomes 7.

wen launch?

achieving the vision of a free fashion industry requires multiple steps = all depicted in our roadmap. currently we’re in phase 1, meaning we’re building up the team and the community, developing the smart contract, and soon we’ll have a free mint of the og (yiume.first) collectibles! if you’re interested in getting on the allowlist, share this article and tag our twitter @yium_e.