Last week's fashion and technology IRL events took place not only in the usual spots in Europe but also in faraway Argentina. In Europe, it is traditional for people to gather at conferences, celebrations, award ceremonies, shows, and presentations, where they share news, ideas, and insights about digital innovations or solutions to social problems, as seen at VivaTech in Paris and the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen.
In Buenos Aires, there was a rarer occurrence: representatives of the strictly digital, anonymous, and pseudonymous world gathered in real life for the first time at the Decentraland Community Summit. It was a unique opportunity to meet and take photos with individuals who usually avoid public attention, comments, and posting anything on social media.
In Buenos Aires, there was a rarer occurrence: representatives of the strictly digital, anonymous, and pseudonymous world gathered in real life for the first time at the Decentraland Community Summit. It was a unique opportunity to meet and take photos with individuals who usually avoid public attention, comments, and posting anything on social media.
Viva Technology, Paris
In Silicon Valley, the scale of IRL events with presentations is not particularly important, and in-person presentations of breakthrough innovative solutions from Google, Apple, Tesla, Facebook, Roblox, and other companies attract far fewer attendees. However, their impact on future developments is hundreds of times more significant. In Europe, a different trend still dominates, and Viva Technology is declaring its new records:
In Silicon Valley, the scale of IRL events with presentations is not particularly important, and in-person presentations of breakthrough innovative solutions from Google, Apple, Tesla, Facebook, Roblox, and other companies attract far fewer attendees. However, their impact on future developments is hundreds of times more significant. In Europe, a different trend still dominates, and Viva Technology is declaring its new records:
- 165K visitors (+10%)
- 2 Billion reached on social media (2x more)
- 13.5K startups (+20%)
- 400+ speakers including Elon Musk” (online)
The important award from LVMH for the development of metaverse fashion this year clearly highlighted a significant trend towards the interaction of fashion and AI, with a distinct focus on the metaverse economy.
Global Fashion Summit, Kopenhhagen
In her opening speech Federica Marchionni, CEO of thee Global Fashion Summit, emphasized:
"In a time of polycrisis, 2023 has been an immensely challenging year for many around the world. It is set to be the hottest year on record, fuelling extreme weather events and we’ve faced economic uncertainties and geopolitical conflict, with environmental and social adversities reaching unprecedented levels. Each and every industry is grappling with these turbulent times, emphasising the need for unity and action as we work towards a more secure future that cultivates prosperity and resilience for our planet and its communities."
"Global Fashion Agenda [GFA; the organisation behind GFS] believes that education is a fundamental tool to move the industry forward," said GFA's head of content Faith Robinson. "The Summit is designed as a knowledge platform so that participants feel inspired and equipped for their sustainability journey. We tailor the content to specific stakeholders, such as policymakers. With them in mind, we launched the Global Textile Policy Forum, a platform for governments and industry associations worldwide to set policy frameworks for the textile transition and disseminate the EU Textiles Strategy outside the EU. For creative directors, we organised Designer Challenges, where they could collaborate with sustainable innovators." Besides panels and presentations, the summit programme includes "action stages" with highlighted case studies, innovation booths with new materials and an investment programme - a big expansion since its inauguration in 2009, when the event was still called Copenhagen Fashion Summit.
In her opening speech Federica Marchionni, CEO of thee Global Fashion Summit, emphasized:
"In a time of polycrisis, 2023 has been an immensely challenging year for many around the world. It is set to be the hottest year on record, fuelling extreme weather events and we’ve faced economic uncertainties and geopolitical conflict, with environmental and social adversities reaching unprecedented levels. Each and every industry is grappling with these turbulent times, emphasising the need for unity and action as we work towards a more secure future that cultivates prosperity and resilience for our planet and its communities."
"Global Fashion Agenda [GFA; the organisation behind GFS] believes that education is a fundamental tool to move the industry forward," said GFA's head of content Faith Robinson. "The Summit is designed as a knowledge platform so that participants feel inspired and equipped for their sustainability journey. We tailor the content to specific stakeholders, such as policymakers. With them in mind, we launched the Global Textile Policy Forum, a platform for governments and industry associations worldwide to set policy frameworks for the textile transition and disseminate the EU Textiles Strategy outside the EU. For creative directors, we organised Designer Challenges, where they could collaborate with sustainable innovators." Besides panels and presentations, the summit programme includes "action stages" with highlighted case studies, innovation booths with new materials and an investment programme - a big expansion since its inauguration in 2009, when the event was still called Copenhagen Fashion Summit.
Decentraland Community Summit, Buenos Aires
Decentraland is a digital platform with a so-called decentralized form of governance in the form of the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) Decentraland Foundation, whatever that may mean. By its nature, it is digital, anonymous, or pseudonymous. The platform even sells pseudonymous NAMES in addition to LAND in the form of tokens, all for the same cryptocurrency, MANA. MANA is the currency of both the Decentraland platform and the Foundation. MANA can be exclusively used to buy or trade LAND and NAMES or to be used at the Decentraland-hosted events. It was the MANA' ICO in 2017 that laid the foundation for what is now known as the DAO Decentraland Foundation.
That's why some experts say that NAMES and LAND are also securities, not just MANA, which is recognized as an illegal security by the Securities Exchange Commission. Other experts argue that, in this case, events organized by the Decentraland Foundation on the platform can be seen as the illegal promotion of unregistered securities.
The Interline put it: "To facilitate the exchange of virtual land and virtual goods, Decentraland has a native token – MANA – which at the time of writing is down 90% from its peak price in late 2021. It was, in fairness, certainly possible to join in MVFW as a guest, without tying a crypto wallet to an account, although the sign-in process for Decentraland makes it clear that this is not the intended experience. Certain events, too, were token-gated and accessible only to people who held NFTs minted and sold well before the show itself. And the event hosts also paid – presumably in MANA directly, or with a more popular cryptocurrency – to lease the plots of land that MVFW installations sat on from their virtual landlords."
Decentraland is a digital platform with a so-called decentralized form of governance in the form of the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) Decentraland Foundation, whatever that may mean. By its nature, it is digital, anonymous, or pseudonymous. The platform even sells pseudonymous NAMES in addition to LAND in the form of tokens, all for the same cryptocurrency, MANA. MANA is the currency of both the Decentraland platform and the Foundation. MANA can be exclusively used to buy or trade LAND and NAMES or to be used at the Decentraland-hosted events. It was the MANA' ICO in 2017 that laid the foundation for what is now known as the DAO Decentraland Foundation.
That's why some experts say that NAMES and LAND are also securities, not just MANA, which is recognized as an illegal security by the Securities Exchange Commission. Other experts argue that, in this case, events organized by the Decentraland Foundation on the platform can be seen as the illegal promotion of unregistered securities.
The Interline put it: "To facilitate the exchange of virtual land and virtual goods, Decentraland has a native token – MANA – which at the time of writing is down 90% from its peak price in late 2021. It was, in fairness, certainly possible to join in MVFW as a guest, without tying a crypto wallet to an account, although the sign-in process for Decentraland makes it clear that this is not the intended experience. Certain events, too, were token-gated and accessible only to people who held NFTs minted and sold well before the show itself. And the event hosts also paid – presumably in MANA directly, or with a more popular cryptocurrency – to lease the plots of land that MVFW installations sat on from their virtual landlords."
Let us recall that the Metaverse Fashion Week 2022-23 in Decentraland was organized by them in collaboration with the NFT-platform UNXD. We can rely solely on their statements, as no official and legal opeen information has been provided. Last week, a major scandal erupted involving Dolce & Gabbana, where among other fraud allegations, the Decentraland platform was cited as in the context of dishonesty and fraud (read more).This will likely result in court summons not only for Dolce & Gabbana and the UNXD but also for the founders of Decentraland or representatives of the Decentraland Foundation and/or the organizers of Metaverse Fashion Week 2022-2023 by Decentraland.
One of the declared organizers of Metaverse Fashion Week 2022, UNXD, and its founders Shashi Menon and Nick Gonzales have been avoiding publicity, scrubbing all appearances from social networks, and dodging journalists' questions for the past two weeks. What prompted Decentraland founders Ariel Meilich, Esteban Ordano, and Yemel Jarrdi to exhibit such carelessness and appear at a public event, even if it was a small one?
The distance between Argentina and the USA? That doesn't seem like a relevant factor
Revitalization of the entire crypto industry? MANA is on a downward trend because of the SEC concerns
A loss of touch with reality? Ask FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried who also tried to escape to Latin America and Dubai.
Revitalization of the entire crypto industry? MANA is on a downward trend because of the SEC concerns
A loss of touch with reality? Ask FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried who also tried to escape to Latin America and Dubai.
In addition to the very interesting appearance of Decentraland founders in real life, the event was filled with Argentine beef, photos of which made up roughly half of the photo reports on Twitter under the hashtag #dclsummit, reminiscent of the ICO era in 2017, and even fashion project presentations. However, the presence of Ariel Meilich, Esteban Ordano, and Yemel Jardi, whom it is more difficult to meet in the civilized world IRL than say Bernard Arnault, and even more difficult than seeing Elon Musk's video online presentation at VivaTech, requires a separate journalistic (and not only) investigation due to their legal role, history, involvement in UNXD and Dolce & Gabbana matters. The Magazine continues to gather contributions from our large, open, honest, and influential community to support ongoing journalistic investigations.
Disclosure:
Metaverse Fashion Week 2024, organized by the Metaverse Fashion Council (whose mission is to represent the entire industry and not just specific business projects), will be hosted on November 19-24, 2024, across various 3D platforms and in various AR, VR, and XR realities, in the San Francisco Bay Area and other cities worldwide. This event has nothing in common with MVFW 2022-23 / "Metaverse Fashion Week by Decentraland," which was organized to promote, among other goals, the cryptocurrency MANA (classified by the Securities and Exchange Commission as unregistered and illegal securities), potential securities LAND, and other interconnected projects, many of which, along with their representatives, are currently scrutinized by various legal institutions and courts in the US.
We couldn't find any reliable information about the legal entity and structure behind the so-called "Decentraland Foundation" on the website decentraland.org, nor did we receive any response to our request for information about potential legal IPs or the contacts of the real and legal founders and decision-makers of the Decentraland.org platform sent to the email address legal@decentraland.org. We are still collecting information about the aforementioned issues with the "Decentraland Foundation." We want to distance our industry's event, Metaverse Fashion Week, from the past events MVFW 22-23 by Decentraland as much as possible in the eyes of the public, governments, media, and all honest businesses.
We emphasize that the metaverse fashion industry shouldn't be a hostage to any specific business project and should have the industry's event "Metaverse Fashion Week" regularly, at least twice a year, independently of anyone's individual situation and intentions—good or bad. We declare our commitment to hosting Metaverse Fashion Week (MFW) at least twice a year and developing standards of transparency, business sustainability, and creative energy.
"Fashion Week" and "Metaverse" are generic terms, and "Metaverse Fashion Week" is just the right description for an event representing the entire industry, making it another generic term. We have no ambition to register this generic term as a trademark.
We affirm that we are more than open to all honest, innovative creators and businesses. Everyone, including the Decentraland platform, is welcome to apply for participation.
Metaverse Fashion Week 2024, organized by the Metaverse Fashion Council (whose mission is to represent the entire industry and not just specific business projects), will be hosted on November 19-24, 2024, across various 3D platforms and in various AR, VR, and XR realities, in the San Francisco Bay Area and other cities worldwide. This event has nothing in common with MVFW 2022-23 / "Metaverse Fashion Week by Decentraland," which was organized to promote, among other goals, the cryptocurrency MANA (classified by the Securities and Exchange Commission as unregistered and illegal securities), potential securities LAND, and other interconnected projects, many of which, along with their representatives, are currently scrutinized by various legal institutions and courts in the US.
We couldn't find any reliable information about the legal entity and structure behind the so-called "Decentraland Foundation" on the website decentraland.org, nor did we receive any response to our request for information about potential legal IPs or the contacts of the real and legal founders and decision-makers of the Decentraland.org platform sent to the email address legal@decentraland.org. We are still collecting information about the aforementioned issues with the "Decentraland Foundation." We want to distance our industry's event, Metaverse Fashion Week, from the past events MVFW 22-23 by Decentraland as much as possible in the eyes of the public, governments, media, and all honest businesses.
We emphasize that the metaverse fashion industry shouldn't be a hostage to any specific business project and should have the industry's event "Metaverse Fashion Week" regularly, at least twice a year, independently of anyone's individual situation and intentions—good or bad. We declare our commitment to hosting Metaverse Fashion Week (MFW) at least twice a year and developing standards of transparency, business sustainability, and creative energy.
"Fashion Week" and "Metaverse" are generic terms, and "Metaverse Fashion Week" is just the right description for an event representing the entire industry, making it another generic term. We have no ambition to register this generic term as a trademark.
We affirm that we are more than open to all honest, innovative creators and businesses. Everyone, including the Decentraland platform, is welcome to apply for participation.