Introduction The fashion industry’s incessant transition into the digital landscape is a perfect example of how lines between the digital and physical worlds are blurring. The advent of Metaverse and Web 3.0 has pushed fashion designers to showcase their IRL collections through digital clothing platforms — providing unique ways for people to interact with fashion trends online. Impressive, isn’t it? Well, in this post we will get acquainted with the world of “Digital Fashion” and share ways you can shop for it in 2023! So let’s cut to the chase and dive right in, shall we? What is digital fashion? Digital fashion allows consumers to try a virtual dress that has been digitally adapted (virtually fitted) to their bodies through “Virtual Try On” technology powered by Augmented Reality. The idea is to build a fashion product or culture in which the digital dress will become as exclusive as the real one. Imagine gifting someone a dress that doesn’t physically exist. That’s digital fashion for you. It successfully represents the link between virtual reality and tailoring, but shouldn’t be boiled down to just a glorified version of an Instagram filter. Is digital fashion an art? Yes, digital fashion is an art. It is essentially an extension of a designer’s digital illustrations. But, digital fashion is more than simply an art gallery. It is an opportunity for fashion designers to showcase their creativity by using digital fashion platforms that allows them to develop more revenue streams. After all, fashion designers can turn their digital outfits into Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and trade them using blockchain. How to shop for digital fashion? Now that you know how digital fashion functions, it’s time to get in the game! One of the best ways to shop for digital fashion is through digitalfashion marketplaces. These online marketplaces foster cyber couture and push design boundaries — redefining the world of fashion as we know it. Here are some of the renowned digital fashion houses and marketplaces worth mentioning in the post. Feel free to check them out as the digital fashion products on them are exciting enough to captivate fashion enthusiasts worldwide ● DRESSX ● Replicant ● Auroboros ● DIGITALAX ● The Dematerialised ● Tribute Brand ● XR Couture ● UNXD ● The Fabricant ● Carlings ● Rtfkt ● Happy99 ● Republiqe These digital fashion marketplaces function by using real-time Augmented Reality. Consumers can use their camera phones to try digital fashion products for free. Not just that, consumers will have the choice of transactions when purchasing digital fashion. They can either use “on-chain” or “off-chain” transactions. The former requires users to own a cryptocurrency wallet or open one inside the digital fashion platform, allowing them to turn clothing into a digital asset. The latter involves payment through regular credit cards. Dont miss out on our digital fashion auction taking place between the 26- 29 Jan 2023. Click here and get ready to bid on exclusive items for your digital collectibles. It’s your opportunity to build a spectacular digital wardrobe and collect digital fashion art to show off online! Final thoughts! “Digital Fashion” is still an emerging trend that has the potential to make digital wearables and fashion NFTs more accessible — especially since it is powered by exciting innovations. However, brands need to make more and more consumers aware of the attractive features of digital fashion, more importantly, its affordability. We believe that the meta-closet or digital closet is the way of the future and people will give attention to building a digital wardrobe parallel to building a physical one. Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments. Also, don’t forget to check out other informative posts in the blog!

RTISTIQ TEAM

23 Nov 2022

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After many months of anticipation, Instagram’s CEO Adam Mosseri revealed a new Instagram update that will integrate sharing of NFTs into its platform. Users, collectors and creators will be able to view, share and engage with the NFTs on their feed, stories, and in messages. This will be a great way to display the digital assets they own on their profiles and view the tokens of their favoured artists, politicians or other friends they follow. Clicking on the tag will display the name of the creator and owner. The company is starting small with selected key athletes, models, and other influencers in order to test waters before building further on it. They want to learn from the community in the process and make Web3 technology accessible to a broader audience. An eventual full rollout will be available as Instagram expands this feature across the rest of their property including Facebook and their popular virtual reality Oculus programs. Adam Mosseri made a video explaining the entire NFT integration saying “I want to acknowledge upfront that NFTs and blockchain technologies and Web3 more broadly are all about distributing trust, distributing power.” Mosseri also emphasised that support for NFTs on Instagram could help introduce the technology to a much broader range of people. In January this year, Twitter introduced NFTs on the platform as hexagon-shaped profile pictures. An icon in the corner of Instagram posts of NFTs also appears as a hexagon. The complete video be viewed here: https://twitter.com/mosseri/status/1523655590672695296 Artists will be able to connect their digital wallets to their profiles and instantly keep their followers involved with any work that has been done as well as sell to their fans. The company is acquiring and aggregating public data from open blockchains such as Ethereum and Polygon, which helps to highlight who owns what. The Solana and Flow blockchains will be integrated next. Creators can link digital wallets such as MetaMask, Rainbow, and Trust Wallet, and will soon be able to connect their Coinbase Wallet, Dapper, and Phantom. Instagram’s integration of non-fungible tokens could lead to mainstream adoption of NFTs and support creators’ ability to make a living.

RtistiQ

24 May 2022

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With the rising popularity of NFTs and blockchain technology, it has become extremely important for NFT owners to protect their digital assets from theft or hackers. Below are a few tips you can follow to protect your NFT collection: Never disclose the private key or seed phrase of your wallets When you buy an NFT it resides in your wallet. Wallets like Metamask have a seed phrase and each account in it has a private key. Both of them should be kept secret and should not be shared with anyone. Sharing these will give the control of your wallet to the other and they can easily transfer your digital assets/NFTs to their wallets. Keep your digital assets/NFTs in multiple wallets In case you hold a large number of NFTs, another way to protect them is to keep them in different wallets. You can use a wallet to purchase the NFTs from different marketplaces and after that you can transfer them to another wallet which you haven't connected with any marketplace. By spreading your NFTs across different wallets, you can minimise the chance of losing all your NFTs as there is less chance of all your wallets getting hacked together. But this comes at a cost, you will have to bear the transaction charges for the wallet to wallet transfers. Use hardware wallets Hardware wallets are another excellent option to protect your Digital Assets. Although it comes at a cost but is one of the safest options to secure your assets. Ledger and Trezor are two most popular options for hardware wallets. These wallets keep the private key offline and thus provide an extra layer of security. Beware of Scammers With NFT marketplaces becoming more popular with the rise in crypto trading, there is also an increase in the number of scammers on these platforms. The most common way of scamming is through Discord DMs saying you have won an NFT from a popular NFT project. Before clicking on any such links you should double check with the NFT Project’s site or with any other community members. It's better not to trust any links which you receive in Twitter, Discord etc from people you don't actually know. Increase your knowledge about NFTs and Marketplaces Whenever you buy an NFT, spend some time to gain knowledge about that NFT project and its future roadmap. You should increase your knowledge about the NFT marketplaces so that you don't fall into the trap of scammers. For example, Opensea shows a blue checkmark next to verified projects. Likewise each platform will have its own way to show authentic NFTs. Self educating is the best way to identify scammers and to be safe from them. Follow the guidelines above to ensure you are able to robustly safeguard your NFTs. Your digital assets are as important and valuable as your physical ones and need an equal level of protection.

RtistiQ

24 May 2022

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The art market has many traditions and ways that people do things that might not easy to grasp if you are just getting into it. Two of the most important are the certificate of authenticity and provenance. These two factors are extremely important to the price of an artwork and the buyer's ability to resell later at the same (or, hopefully, higher) value. These two concepts are essential oar on oneand for anyone going to navigate the art market, yet many people aren’t sure what they are. And even if they know what these concepts are, they still might not understand why they are so important. In the article below, we’ll explain exactly what these two terms mean and why they are important to the art market — and why you should take them seriously when buying art yourself. What is a Certificate of Authenticity? A certificate of authenticity is a document that offers proof of proper attribution to the Artist who created the artwork. It has typically been a piece of paper with the information on the artwork and its unique attributes, the Artists details, and signed by the Artist or a competent authority who has apprised the work before. When you buy a work of art, a certificate of authenticity is almost always provided. If not, be sure to ask for one. This little slip of paper might not seem like much, but it can mean the difference between having a work of art that nobody trusts is originally attributed to the artist, and one that offers you the right value when you resell. Without a valid certificate, it becomes hard for the art market to easily identify the creators details. If a fraudulent painting is convincing enough, most experts won’t be able to tell which painting is an original and which is a replica. That can be dangerous for the art market, because it relies on the unique value of the original for much of its price tags. Similar to artwork the certificate also can be easily copied or recreated, one of the reasons why in recent years sellers have begun to add holograms and other difficult to duplicate features to their certificates and linking back to their original. With a certificate of authenticity, you have a vital piece of evidence that the painting you own is the real deal, not a forgery. That leads us to our next term. What is the Provenance of an Artwork? As with so much nomenclature in the artworld, provenance is a word that comes from French. Provenir means “to come from,” and that’s exactly what it means. Provenance shows the history of people and institutions that have owned a work of art throught its life term. The evidence that makes up the provenance of a work can be varied. Provenance can be made up using: Certificate of authenticity Receipt from the artist Receipt from the original gallery sale Auction records and sale reciepts Restoration details and reciepts Appraisal from an expert in the era When you want to preserve the provenance of an artwork you buy, always give preference to the written word. Someone just telling you that a painting is the real deal is not enough to prove that it is a genuine original created by the Artist of interest. The provenance of some artworks is better established than others, and it’s always a good thing to factor in when you are purchasing a work of art. You don’t want to pay the price of an original only to later find you have a forgery. Why do These Matter? As we can see, certificates of authenticity are closely linked to provenance. Those certificates often make up a good deal of an artwork’s provenance. Together, they speak to one of the most important features of a work on the art market: originality. But why is originality so important? The art market has a difficult job. It has to figure out a way to price and move pieces that have a highly subjective value. But one of the main ways that people have agreed to value art is on originality. Sure, part of that originality is in how original the ideas or techniques being employed are. But a more important form of originality is in the object itself: is this the original or is it a copy? But establishing if something is a copy can be hard. As we mentioned earlier, a really good forger can even trick the experts. And if you also have good forgeries of documents to establish provenance, then you have a big problem on your hands. In general, provenance and certificates of authenticity are ways that offer some level of protection from purchasing a forgery. By understanding them, you have a much better chance of getting valuable work for yourself that might turn out to be a good investment one day. Read our quick guide on how to secure your art in today’s digital economy.

RTISTIQ TEAM

20 Sep 2021

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Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are certainly popular, and in the last year they have dominated art news headlines with tales of extravagant price tags. It’s a lot of heat and excitement, but just because NFTs are selling for a lot of money, does that really mean that they are good for the art marketplace? After all, there are plenty of items that sell at traditional auction houses for tens of millions of dollars, but very few artists and art lovers actually see any benefit from that kind of wealth being thrown around. But NFTs are different. They could very well reshape the way we think about buying and selling art, and they are overturning age-old expectations — in many ways for the better. Let’s look at some of the ways that NFTs are benefiting the art market. Greater Control for the Artists In the art market as we’ve known it, gallerists and art dealers have a lot of power. Their expertise and connections give them the ability to find buyers for artwork, and they can be especially helpful for artists just starting to break into higher prices. So what’s the problem with this system? Artists themselves rarely have the time to become experts in the art market or make the connections they need to move their art. That puts them at a power disadvantage. Even worse? There is almost a cultural stigma against artists diving into the pedestrian world of commerce. But NFTs allow certain new conditions for sales, conditions that artists can build into an NFT of their work. For instance, you can make an NFT of a digital work of art and guarantee that every time it is resold, the artist gets 10% of the price. What’s better, artists have access to the bidding information and the entire provenance of their work. That means they can see everyone who bought their artwork and how much they paid. This single change will revolutionize the artworld by leaps and bounds, helping artists to get more of the money their work generates. Greater Access for Art Lovers on Marketplaces On the other side of the coin are the art lovers. Many people want to buy art , but if you aren’t well connected, it can be hard to have access to everything that’s actually available out there. Of course, gallerists and auction houses and art dealers want to meet with and encourage every single art buyer. But the reality is that there is an emphasis on big time art buyers in the current art market. After all, if you are an art dealer with limited resources, are you going to focus on the tycoon you know who spends millions on art each year , or the middle income art lover just now wanting to buy? With NFTs, marketplaces are wide open. Auctions are available to everyone, and little if any information is reserved for a select few. This is letting more people leap into the world of art buying. That combined with the empowerment of artists means a lot more direct buying and selling of art. NFTs Are Changing When we think of NFTs in the artworld today, we predominantly think of auctions for blocks in a blockchain that are linked to digital files — like JPGs, MPEGs, GIFs, and so on. This has caused many to scratch their heads because when you purchase NFT arts for sale, you aren’t the only person with access to the art work. Anyone can still copy and share these files infinitely. But here is the thing: NFTs aren’t done evolving, not by a long shot. Remember when we talked about artists being able to use NFTs to get 10% of all future sales of their art? That’s what is called a smart contract. These are critical elements of NFTs, giving people the ability to have contract clauses automatically fulfilled when certain terms are met. And since NFTs copy the provenance of an artwork in a safe and secure way, they take the burden of provenance off of both the artist and the art buyer. Put these two things together, and you can see how NFTs won’t just become interlinked with the digital art market. They can also become critical features of the physical art market. As NFTs grow and change, we will see the art market shifting along with them. We are standing at the precipice of a major development in the art world. NFTs are going to be a core piece of this change.

RtistiQ

03 Sep 2021

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Technological development in the last few decades has surpassed our expectations. AI (Artificial Intelligence) has always been a common fantasy for a long time, however just 20 years ago, we could not have imagined smartphones! We don’t even notice some technology anymore while smart watches, streaming platforms, driverless cars, online banking etc. have become a reality. Add to this a mix of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR), today’s world is unrecognizable from the pre-2000s era. Ecommerce is an apposite representation of rapidly changing technology over the past 4 decades, although the reason for popularity remains the same. When Michael Aldrich invented ecommerce (called ‘teleshopping’ then) in 1979, his motivation was to find an alternative to the boring weekly task of grocery shopping. Today, when we use AR to try furniture from IKEA in our living rooms, it is the same principle – avoid a tedious trip to the store. Although many people use AR, VR interchangeably, yet these terms are significantly different from each other. Virtual Reality, in simple terms, is interacting with a fabricated environment in a digital mode, through a special electronic device like special goggles, gloves etc. VR is a simulated experience which can be completely different from the real world. For example, when you play a video game through VR, you use a headset and it may seem to you that you are interacting with the gaming world, although you would be moving around in the physical space in the real world. Your digital avatar would mimic your real moves of walking, turning around, jumping, running, punching, kicking etc. Thus, VR gives you an enhanced gaming experience and it seems like the virtual world becomes your reality for a certain time. Augmented Reality, on the other hand, is a digital experience of the real world enhanced by computer-generated media. So, AR is integration of digital media with real world to provide the user an interactive and enhanced experience. For example, when you buy artwork at RtistiQ, you would be able to use our app to virtually place the art in your house and see how it would for into your home. Ikea also provides a similar experience to its users where they can see how a piece of furniture would look in an area in their homes before they make a decision to buy it. The game Pokemon Go is one of the poplar examples of AR, which gave such a different experience to the user that around 550 million people download it within three months of its launch. Mixed Reality, as you can guess, is a combination of VR and AR. In MR, real-world and digital world objects interact in real time to provide you a superior experience. MR basically overlays images or videos onto a screen showing reality, through a headset or smart glasses. MR has great potential in the areas of education, medicine etc. For example, students in a medical college can experience a surgery with the use of MR to get an almost first-hand like experience. In this digital era, where you are not only comfortable shopping online, but also prefer it to going out for a traditional shopping experience especially since covid-19 struck our lives, the retail industry has been quick to adopt modern technologies to attract potential customers. Augmented Reality is one technology that has significantly impacted our online shopping experience and it is only beginning to gain momentum. Retailers are using AR not only to change the way customers shop by creating a more engaged experience, but also to drive sales and maximize their Return on Investment (RoI). As a customer, Augmented Reality is helpful to you by creating a delightful experience when you shop, and helping you make decisions effectively and quickly. There are many examples where the retail industry uses AR. Home Depot and IKEA use AR to show a customer how a piece of furniture would fit in their space not only look wise but also space wise. So you don’t have to worry about taking measurements when you go furniture shopping, simply click a picture of your space and let AR provide you recommendations forfurniture that would fit into that space. Similarly, Sephora provides a customer the option to see themselves with selected beauty products applied to their faces, hence making it so much easier for customers to choose their products. Amazon and L’Oreal teamed up to provide a similar experience, which is currently limited to only lipsticks. However, we can be sure that Amazon has entered the race for providing ‘customer delight’ to its shoppers, hence soon we will be able to try many more things before buying on Amazon. Nike has been providing a superior shopping experience to their customers by allowing them to virtually try shoes that would fit their size. These apps use AR to measure the feet size of customers so they can buy the right products and hence, reduce the need for returns. Show brand Airwalk went a step further using geolocation and AR to create “pop-up” shops where you can try and shop for shoes. When they adopted this technology, it led to $5 million in earned media in 2018! Apparel brands like Gap and Burberry have also embraced AR for providing virtual “fitting rooms” so the customers can try an outfit before buying it. In the Covid-19 era when people are either unable to or unwilling to go out, art galleries and museums also started using AR to provide virtual tours for their patrons. You can not only visit these art galleries using AR and see their artwork on display, you can also see the art from up close, from different angles, and do multiple visits, from the comfort of your own home. RtistiQ provides you a similar experience where you can interact with the artwork that you intend to buy. Then, you can see how these would look in your home before making a final decision. As a customer, AR is very useful to you and has perhaps completely disrupted the way you are used to shopping, but in quite a brilliant way! Author: Manisha Bhati

RtistiQ

29 Mar 2021

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