On Decentraland you can buy virtual NFT clothes for real money

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It sounds amazing at first, but there actually seems to be a market for Avatar apparel. NFT clothes are trendy.

Decentraland is a game on the blockchain and it can be described as a modern version of Second Life, which was launched far too early at the time. As in an online version of The Sims, real people move as virtual avatars through a virtual world that has only limited resemblance to reality. Nowadays something like this is called a metaverse.

Since June, players in Decentraland have been able to dress their avatars with their own clothing, such as Reuters reported. The manufacture and sale of pixel fashion is also permitted. Overnight, this spawned the new profession of NFT fashion designer. One of them is Noah from the US state of New Hampshire, who is called Hirito Kai in Decentraland and has since spent his days and nights designing and selling Japanese-inspired clothing.

The pixel cutter costs around $ 140 for a kimono. That way, he says he made between $ 15,000 and $ 20,000 in just three weeks. The sale of virtual clothing in Decentraland is only a small part of a booming ecosystem of various virtual possessions. In February, a solvent buyer in the collectible monster game Axie Infinity bought a virtual property for Ether worth $ 1.5 million.

For Noah aka Hirito Kai, the matter is clear. After earning as much in those three weeks as he would in a full year of his job in a music business, he quit to work full-time as a designer.

In Decentraland Garments for avatars – so-called “wearables” – can be bought and sold on the blockchain in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFT). After a huge hype about NFT in the spring, things have calmed down again about digital ownership certificates. It is only among collectors that NFTs have never lost their popularity. This is understandable, because with trading cards, for example, it is about the certainty that you are the only one who owns a certain card. In the digital world, this can only be achieved with NFT.

It is very similar with fashion. Nobody wants to look like their neighbor. And so it is not surprising that some of the largest fashion companies in the world are increasingly interested in virtual assets as NFT. LVMH-owned Louis Vuitton has launched a Metaverse game where players can collect NFTs. Burberry supplies NFT accessories for Blankos Block Party and Gucci sells digital items – albeit not as NFT – in the Roblox block game.

Vogue should also be mentioned a virtual fashion series produced with top model Gigi Hadid. Apparently more and more fashion brands are recognizing meaningful overlaps between virtuality and reality, which can be used to reach a young, tech-savvy audience. Initially, it will primarily be about marketing, but designers like Hirito Kai show that real money can also be made in the virtual world.

The overall size of the NFT wearables market is difficult to pinpoint. According to NonFungible.com, wearables sales in Decentraland alone were $ 750,000 in the first half of 2021, up from $ 267,000 for the same period last year.

Some already see the future of retail in wearables and shopping in virtual stores. “Instead of scrolling through a feed and shopping online, you can have a more immersive brand experience by exploring a virtual space – whether you’re shopping for your online avatar or buying physical products that can be delivered to your home,” explains Julia Schwartz , Director of Republic Realm, a $ 10 million virtual real estate investment vehicle that built a mall in Decentraland.

Also only has positive experiences RTFKT did. The company sells limited edition sneakers as NFT. These sneakers can then be “worn” in some virtual worlds or on social media via a Snapchat filter. Within one year, RTFKT had sales of $ 7 million. The sneakers are to be sold in limited editions in auctions for $ 10,000 to $ 60,000.

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