Daily news and stories covering everything from the Fashion System, Investment, and AI to WEB3 and Crypto that truly matter in Metaverse Fashion.
CAN BLOCKCHAIN AND NFC CHIPS PUT AN END TO COUNTERFEITING AND IDEA THEFT IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY? [fashion system] Fashion United
⚡ The fashion industry is facing a double threat: a rise in counterfeiting that eats into their profits and a fast-fashion culture that copies designs with impunity. But blockchain offers a glimmer of hope. Or rather, a concrete answer.
💰 Digital transparency company Everledger highlights the urgency of the situation. Citing a recent report, it estimates that counterfeiting costs the industry almost 100 billion US dollars annually. And this is where blockchain can be a game-changer, ensuring brand authenticity based on know-how, origin, and quality.
🎩 Known for its rather low-key approach to NFTs and the metaverse, Balenciaga has nevertheless made a U-turn and embraced emerging technologies in a unique way, by connecting its products to music. In partnership with Eon, Balenciaga Music, a division of the famous fashion house, allows its latest clothing collection to unlock an exclusive playlist by trip-hop group Archive. The NFC-enabled T-shirts and hoodies give fashion enthusiasts access to a dedicated soundtrack, marking a new step for the brand in the digital universe, reports Metavers Tribune.
⛓ Tod’s, the famous Italian luxury shoe brand, also made headlines when it joined the Aura Blockchain Consortium, integrating the consortium’s Digital Product Passport into its collections, starting with the Custom Di Bag. Accessible via an NFC chip embedded in the bag, this digital passport provides owners with proof of ownership, information on the product’s lifecycle, and sustainability certifications. Additionally, owners can claim a blockchain-based digital twin of their bag to prove their ownership.
🐊 Lacoste is also celebrating its 90th anniversary with a reinforced digital presence. The brand has opened a new immersive area in the blockchain-based video game The Sandbox, where fans can explore and celebrate Lacoste’s legendary sporting heritage.
CALIFORNIA ADVANCES BILL TO HOLD FASHION ACCOUNTABLE FOR ITS WASTE [fashion system] Vogue Business
👨⚖️ California legislators have advanced a landmark bill that tries to address fashion’s sprawling waste problem through increased reuse, repair and recycling — and requiring producers to pay for these services to be scaled.
ℹ The Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024 (SB-707), which proposes an extended producer responsibility (EPR) framework for clothing and textiles, passed the California Assembly Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday with a nine-versus-three vote. The next step will be the appropriations committee, which allocates funding and will determine fiscal cost of the bill, and it can then move to the assembly floor.
🗣 ”California’s share of waste from textiles keeps going up. It’s the single fastest-growing component in our landfills, and that’s ironic because 90-something per cent of textiles are recyclable, there just isn’t a system in place to affect that process,” says State Senator Josh Newman, who introduced the bill. “This bill is very deliberate in trying to create a circular economy around textiles — where if you buy a pair of socks, a couple pennies of the cost of that sock are going to be earmarked for this process.”
🔊 The language in the bill is intentionally non-specific. Because it creates a process that has no precedent in the US, there are a lot of unknowns that will only be identified or addressed as they arise. By wording certain requirements in broad terms — and with the ability to continue to amend the bill as it navigates the legislative process before passage — proponents of the bill say CalRecycle and other stakeholders will have the flexibility to explore and refine the process in real time.
💥 While the bill has now passed out of committee, there is still plenty of time to amend it further, which Fibershed and The Or Foundation hope will happen. The governance structure for the PRO board of directors is a top priority for what they want to see amended, along with a provision to establish standards for where materials end up (as opposed to just tracking them there) and more explicit links to environmental and public health impact data.
MINECRAFT HUNTS REVENUE BEYOND GAMERS AS INDUSTRY GROWTH SLOWS [gaming] Bloomberg
🦀 Microsoft Corp.-owned Mojang has built Minecraft from a one-person project into a global service with well over 100 million active users each month. Revenue in the studio’s consumer products business, ranging from clothing to plushy toys in claw machines, has doubled over the last two years, she said.
⚔ Mojang’s push follows repeated forays by Nintendo Co. and Sony Group Corp. to broaden the appeal of their gaming properties at a time that spending in the industry has hit a lull. Nintendo is developing a live-action film based on the Legend of Zelda franchise, following the blockbuster success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, while Sony has turned The Last of Us into an HBO series and created games based on the Spider-Man movies.
📈 The rare Western game that’s gone mainstream in Japan, Minecraft is one of the most popular titles among the country’s elementary school children, with Minecraft YouTubers such as HikakinGames clocking up millions of views.
🤖 Mojang has adopted artificial intelligence to help moderate chats and content in a game that’s played by different age groups, Bredin said. But it remains to be seen what the broader impact of AI will be on the industry, she added.
FRENCH BILLIONAIRE XAVIER NIEL IS BUILDING A CHATGPT COMPETITOR WITH A THICK FRENCH ACCENT [Singularity] Fortune
📢 A French artificial intelligence research lab backed by billionaire Xavier Niel showed off a new voice assistant with a variety of human-like emotions that is similar to a product that OpenAI promised but delayed over safety concerns.
🔔 Kyutai, an AI nonprofit group formed last year, revealed its Moshi service at in event in Paris on Wednesday. Scientists for the lab said their system can speak with 70 different emotions and styles. They demoed the assistant offering advice on climbing Mt. Everest and reciting a poem it had composed with a thick French accent.
🎞 The assistant is the latest challenger to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the best-known chatbot. A growing number of startups and Big Tech companies, including Anthropic, Cohere and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, have rushed to introduce models to compete with OpenAI’s GPT-4, even as some industry experts worry about the dangers presented by the emerging technology.
🔍 Kyutai was launched in November with €300 million ($324 million) in funding, including from Niel, French billionaire Rodolphe Saadé and former Google chairman Eric Schmidt. Pérez, a former director for Valeo SA, hired researchers from Google DeepMind and Meta Platforms Inc. for his lab.
WHAT DAY SHOULD WE DECLARE THE INDEPENDENCE OF METAVERSE FASHION?
🏊♀️ When will the leaders, pioneers, and brave creators of Metaverse Fashion be ready to announce its sovereignty and independence from the old fashion system? The right answer to this question is:
🏍 When the new economy pioneers and metaverse inhabitants cease to be subjects of the Old World defined by need and necessity.
👽 When we, creators, move beyond a zero-sum physical game dominated by:
-gravity,
-violence,
-inflation money,
-hypocritical communication and shallow buzzwords
-excessive centralization
-when creativity triumphs over marketing
-when wealth and investments become accessible to the Youth.
🎩 The "founding fathers" of the old world, including the entire old fashion system, were exclusively men. To establish the basic principles of Metaverse Fashion, I propose that we establish a circle of “founding mothers.” I invite everyone interested in working on a thought experiment named the Declaration of Metaverse Fashion. Two Specific Points to Note.
Decent Respect:
💎 As stated in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another... a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." Respect for the achievements of the old fashion system and various Web3, blockchain, AI, and crypto solutions makes us deeply agnostic regarding specific fashion brands and tech solutions, emphasizing the values of decentralization, community, investment, and sustainability.
Avoiding Past and Men's Mistakes:
🦄 The second important distinction from the "founding fathers' Declaration" is to avoid the inequality and controversy of slavery (some of them were slave owners themselves) and ensure universal rights for all, not just their own kind.
🦎 Today, the role of "slave labor" is taken on by AI, its solutions, entities, models, influencers, and community participants. By combining the philosophy (not just the rapidly developing technology) of fashioning our Selves with the help of blockchain and AI, direct ownership of metaverse assets, self-learning, and sustainable development, we should recognize these Selves (even in the form of Gen AI and blockchain entities) as independently living beings with full rights. They can be active community members, invest, vote, and make decisions. At the MFC, we actively discuss hiring various AI personalities to perform important, routine jobs.
🚀 I hope that we can collaborate creatively and present the Declaration at the Metaverse Fashion Week 2024 opening ceremony on November 20.
Daily news and stories covering everything from the Fashion System, Investment, and AI to WEB3 and Crypto that truly matter in Metaverse Fashion.