NFT and Fashion: An Unexpected But Exciting Venture

NFTs are probably one of the most interesting things around today. They’ve grown from a fringe idea by nerds on obscure parts of the internet to the hottest new topic on the net — and now, they are looking to invade a space that’s ordinarily held by posh names like Gucci, Givenchy, and Louis Vuitton. They are invading the world of fashion.

Or wait, it is probably the other way around. Well, you never know until you find out. And I’ve done the hardwork for you. So sit back, grab your popcorn, and savor the magic NFT is bringing to fashion.

If you don’t know a lot about NFTs, here’s a short paragraph that explains all they are;

NFTs are tokens that act as certificates of ownership for a certain product that is unique. In some cases, the NFTs are the product themselves. The transaction for this product is usually recorded forever on the blockchain, and the purchase is endlessly verifiable.

Well, it’s a lot more complicated than that, but that’s the basic point. So, picture NFTs as a digitalized form of your most priced assets — be it your pictures, art, music, or even virtual real estate.

For some, NFTs might sound a bit too meaningless. After all, who wants to own a mere token that does not ordinarily have intrinsic value? Well, the answer to that is “a lot of people”.

One of the reasons why NFTs are now popular is because they are no longer just hot topics among young regular people. They’ve already broken into the celeb space, with many athletes and celebrities looking to invade the space and own a few NFTs.

Well, they are probably also in it to make money. But that’s not the point. When Satoshi wrote the first codes for Bitcoin, he probably didn’t know that the world of Bitcoin would spawn an entire ecosystem of crypto and NFTs.

But here we are, and we’ve got to make the best of it. And that’s what fashion brands are looking to do by creating a potent and almost unbeatable mixture of NFTs and fashion.

Today, NFTs have sold for millions of dollars, and have made many people overnight millionaires. And that’s where fashion comes in. Everyone wants a slice of a tasty cake, and NFTs, right now, are the tastiest cakes in the market.

In recent months, legacy fashion brands like Adidas, Nike, Macy’s, and Gap have announced plans to start selling NFTs. That’s right, folks, you’ll soon be able to purchase your new Airforce 1s, not as actual Airforce 1s, but as NFTs.

But the NFT space is very different from the real world. People won’t just purchase an Adidas NFT because it’s made by Adidas — while they would purchase real-life sneakers for that same reason. The rationale that makes people invest in NFTs is very different from the ones that make them invest in real-life assets. And it’s just as well since NFTs are a different kind of asset.

For Adidas, the answer to this conundrum is simple; build a community. One of the biggest drivers of growth in the crypto and NFT space is a community, and Adidas wants to build a community that would find intrinsic value in its NFTs.

To do this, the company has indulged in quite a bit of promotion. For one, it has bought a bored Ape — which is one of the most popular types of NFT art. The company named the ape Indigo Hertz, which probably stands for something that we cannot quite decipher right now. To show that it was serious about venturing into the NFT space, the company dressed the bored ape up in a custom Adidas-branded tracksuit — which is probably the most Adidas thing ever.

All of this was done to drum up support for its NFT line, which is called Into The Metaverse. So what’s Into the Metaverse?

Well, If we are going to be very cynical about it, we would call it an exclusive fan club. But to be honest, that would be just as accurate as calling a hundred-dollar bill an attractive piece of paper. Because yes, Into The Metaverse is that, but it’s also a lot more.

The people who buy the NFTs will get admitted to the club and will be able to purchase special merch drops. In addition, owning an NFT would essentially give you voting rights in deciding what sort of products the company creates for its NFTs-owning community.

Adidas NFTs are pretty expensive. Right now, one is about 0.2 ETH, which is nearly a thousand dollars. And as expected, Adidas has declined to say how many of these tokens it will be selling and whether it would receive royalties on resales.

While some may say this business is kind of dodgy, it’s the standard MO for most NFT creators. These creators know that the fastest way to hold value is to build a community. They know that once they have a thriving community, the value won’t be too far behind. Besides, when you purchase an Adidas Into The Metaverse NFT, you get a gift pack that comes with a hoodie and a hat which you can probably resell at around the same value as you bought the NFT — or even for more.

That’s the same thing Adidas is doing — building a community to find value for its NFTs.

Adidas isn’t the only fashion NFT playing in this space. Gap is also looking to launch hoodie NFT art, which sounds just as amazing as you think.

To the cynic, the NFTs are hoodies with tokens attached. But to people in the industry, it’s yet another small step for a fashion brand into NFTs and a big step for fashion into NFTs. Unlike Adidas, Gap isn’t selling a community. Instead, the company is selling what it has always sold — expensive hoodies that look good.

The only difference right now is that the hoodies come with a token. They are priced at around $415 and look pretty great.

You might think, well, this is pretty good. But you see, there’s always a catch. And the catch here is that to get the hoodie, which is called an epic NFT (which is a name I most certainly agree with), you’ll have to buy less expensive NFTs that do not come with hoodies or anything. These NFTs are of the same type as the epic NFT, but the only difference is that they are “lower” in class, and as such are less valuable. Think of it as the difference between two Pokémon power types.

So to purchase an epic NFT, customers will need to purchase four common and two rare NFTs first. Those would cost you about 85$, which would bring your entire hoodie purchase to around $500 — that is, if you go on to purchase the hoodie, and don’t just walk into a store and buy a $100 hoodie from the same brand.

So yeah, we aren’t really that excited about either of these companies.

Fashion brands are paying a lot more attention to NFTs and cryptocurrency these days. And it’s something that we probably should have expected since these industries have become profitable.

However, we shouldn’t expect that these brands will get it right at once. No one knows how Adidas and all the other fashion brands creating NFT valuables will fare yet, and it’s quite important to keep an open mind when it comes to the future. After all, Dogecoin started as a joke, and to be fair, it now has a lot of people laughing at the bank.