The pioneer of digital fashion The Fabricant becomes exclusively available at Dress-X for the first time. Until recently, the Fabricant pieces were executed just for international brands like Puma, Off-White, Tommy Hilfiger, Marques Almeida, and A Bathing Ape, while their ‘Iridescence’ dress was sold for 9500$ at a charity auction. It considered to be the most expensive digital brand in the world.
Before the launch we spoke to The Fabricant founder Kerry Murphy to discover more about the first digital fashion house.
Tell us briefly about the brand.
The Fabricant is a pioneer digital fashion house from Amsterdam operating at the intersection of technology, new business models, and fashion. As leaders in the field, we are taking the fashion industry towards a digital existence that is fundamental to the lives of its consumers. Before Dress-X, our digital clothes were only available for marketing purposes for big brands or for free downloading on our website. We see this as an important step to familiarise designers and consumers with 3D fashion design and hope to inspire people to begin exploring the world of digital-only fashion.
As we talked about producing the pieces to final customers, formerly to get dressed-up people had to use their skills in Clo3D or other programs. Now to try on our looks you just need to choose any garment at Dress-X, upload your original photo, and receive the pic with the attached look.
What brands have you already collaborated with? And for which one would you like to create next?
Since launching in 2018, The Fabricant has worked with brands like Off-White, Under Armour, Puma, Tommy Hilfiger, Napapijri, Dickies, Japanese streetwear icon A Bathing Ape, and several luxury brands (who prefer to be unnamed) to animate and simulate their garments before placing them in virtual 3D worlds. We are already working with the brand that we identified as the one-and-only that we would want to reach out to collaborate. It’s a slow-moving train, but next year we will be releasing this one and many other projects that will take digital-only fashion closer to the next level of existence.
You are the first representative of digital couture in the industry. What does digital couture mean to you?
Digi-couture is virtual high-fashion, where the digital asset can be seen as a piece of craftsmanship, that is beautiful and speaks to people emotionally. The sole purpose for consumers is to be able to curate their virtual identities in a unique and unconventional manner in the non-physical world.
Your dress was sold for 9500$ and considered to be the most expensive digital piece in the world. Which value does that bring besides innovation and creativity?
It proved that there is another way to operate within the fashion industry with a new creative language, set of technologies (3D and blockchain), and a different business model to monetize clothing without textile waste and exploitation of the workforce. The industry woke up to the new reality that at first was seen as a gimmick, and now with the pandemic a solution. In the future every fashion brand will be a digital-first brand and some will become digital-only once they understand the potential of it.
Which difficulties are there for you in tailoring just digital garments?
Same difficulties as tailoring physical garments. It’s a craftsmanship where small details are of the essence. A digital tailor needs to have the same skillset as a traditional one. We speak mainly about drape, fit, and silhouette at The Fabricant, as well as small details like stitches, seams, trims, and materials. All of these need an innovative technological solution to automate these processes. Once our automated pipeline for garment visualisation is finalized we will be able to scale our client service operations as well as our own content creation.
How has Covid-19 pandemic affected the growth of the digital fashion industry? Have we made a big step towards the future?
The pandemic collided with our mission in an abrupt but fortuitous way. The fashion industry woke up to this immediate need to digitize. Fashion is in a real state of flux, and this is a moment to instil practices that push for a digital-centric future that is smarter, more resilient, and less wasteful than before. Even if a complete digital overhaul means the end of physical fashion experiences, it doesn’t seem to be a negative thing as a 3D fashion show has no physical boundaries to creativity. It’s not a passive experience but an interactive sensorial narrative that lasts, and that can be accessed anytime, anywhere. This only touches on the presentation aspect of fashion and barely scratches the surface of what is possible in terms of sustainability and efficiency, if the industry embraces end-to-end tech solutions, such as designing clothes using 3D programs (instead of sketching them on paper).
Shop the collection now.
