Transmedia Fashion: "Notebook on Media and Clothes"

January 19th, 2023

The human experience of fashion and technology is becoming increasingly complex.

Transmedia fashion emerges as a novel concept that embodies fashion’s ability to mix different disciplines. From interdisciplinary art to academia, economics, music, architecture, and the internet, it conveys powerful storytelling, and thus, generates a mindful, diverse, regenerative and interoperable new digital fashion ecosystem.

This research series will explore how these realms intersect and influence one another, how their combination defines individual and collective aesthetic decisions, artistic and creative practices, and therefore, how it shapes the notion of value in our current times.

“Everything is deeply Intertwingled”

Ted Nelson, Xanadú.

Fashion goes beyond traditional media and digital formats, transcending the boundaries of different fields of human development. It has a historical heritage of being capable of unfolding, embedding, and synthesizing our past, present, and future.

Its hyperlinked nature leaves evidence of the richness and complexity of its components and highlights its role as a merging force, bringing together different narrative threads and cultural influences. This is the result of the careful trans-media curation of a wide range of elements that define the identity of the current zeitgeist.

Fashion’s integration with the new layers of the internet has created a liveable online-offline threshold, blurring the lines between the physical and the digital, leading to a hypnotizing enchantment in the creative sector.

Transmedia Fashion

The digital fashion space is already inhabited by human representations constructed of pixels and 3D rigs, adorned in fancy garments made of polygons as if they were representing the threads of luxurious fabrics. These virtual beings inhabit spaces in the metaverse and online interstices, using these as the new streets and catwalks of the digital world.

The proliferation of the phygital realm gave rise to the creation of digital twins mirroring garments in both directions, the integration of physical garments and NFC chips, the emergence of gamified dynamics and the convergence of A.R and V.R. This created new liminal mixed reality dimensions of visualization and play, nurturing the development of both our digital and physical identities.

The realm of fashion is expanding in all directions, paving a revolutionary path hand in hand with new technologies that will guide the processes of re-representation and re-symbolization of the world and its components.

Instead of simply producing more physical products, transmedia fashion harnesses the power of the internet and web3 to create immersive, interactive experiences shared across multiple platforms and channels, crafting cohesive narratives that represent an individual's online persona, a brand's storytelling, or a project's path to self-discovery.

About a new Aspirational Economy

The aspiration economy is a system in which individuals exchange social and cultural capital to achieve recognition or status within a creative or cultural scene. This is achieved through the acquisition of symbols of success, which can take the form of tangible or intangible assets such as artwork, digital garments, intellectual property, gaming scores, or social connections.

In conjunction with decentralized technologies, fashion becomes a key component of the aspiration economy, allowing users to express and display their status and success through the use of smart contracts that ensure ownership, authenticity, and portability of their digital fashion assets. These serve as a means of interaction between individuals, projects, brands, communities, and cultural producers, enabling the creation of a new economic structure in which everyone can participate and add value.

The Regenerative Economy Resistance

A global network mesh of radical digital irreverence is arising, fueled by a desire for sustainability and a belief in the potential of the regenerative economy to drive positive change in today’s Anthropocene.

By carefully considering the philosophical implications of our endeavors, we can ensure that we are not just creating new tools and experiences, but also creating for a more compassionate and harmonious society.

This emerging movement advocate for data ownership, more humane working conditions, equal distribution of profits throughout the fashion production chain, environmental care and protection, and the recognition of online communities as the primary creators of the information, knowledge, and beauty that runs the web.

This is the battle cry proposed by the decentralized autonomous organizations of the new internet-regenerative paradigm that aims to create the right tools for the next generation of creators, curators, and creative minds.

A New Foundation

Web3 technology represents a new paradigm for building the Internet, one that is founded on the principles of Creative Value Coordination and allows for the convergence of digital assets, metaverse exploration, and circular augmented fashion production.

The transmedia fashion practice represents a shift towards a more expansive and diverse fashion ecosystem, one that is free from the constraints of web2 services and their harmful limitations, media monopolization, and appropriation of intellectual property. This paves the way for exponential growth and a more pluralistic approach to the creative value discovery.

Endless Possibilities: The Future of Transmedia Fashion

The potential of transmedia fashion is boundless, and we have only just begun to tap into its possibilities. This rapidly evolving field provides us with the opportunity to reclaim our curatorial power and equip ourselves with new tools for our self-enhancement.

What do we see coming in the near future?

More immersive and interactive fashion experiences shared across multiple media and channels
Expanding our understanding of fashion to encompass finance, economy, regenerative systems, tokens, and interoperable identity experiences, seamlessly connecting through converging media
Increased use of virtual and augmented reality
Continued growth and evolution of the metaverse
More emphasis on personalized, bespoke transmedia experiences
Greater emphasis on sustainability and ethical production, including equitable production
New social experiences empowering creators’ ownership and asset collaboration
Increased recognition of the value of online communities and the role they play in the fashion and creative industries
Cultural and artistic plurality through increasing agency and ownership, forming new visual and visceral languages

The ever-evolving nature of the world we inhabit is characterized by a constant process of transformation.

We believe we are standing at the cusp of a new era that is being shaped and influenced by transmedia fashion at large and that has the potential to revolutionize the way the economy works, how we communicate, consume information, and express ourselves.

-The title of the article is a tribute to the documentary “Notebook on Cities and Clothes” by Wim Wenders.

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We are committed to building systems and infrastructure that support pluralistic coordination and enable people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives to work together to create a network effect through research and development to achieve positive change in the world.

Dive into the revolution of fashion with NEWFORUM’s Transmedia Fashion episodes featuring industry leaders in the field!