Vivienne Tam used iconic NFT characters in her latest #SS23 collection.
Summary
Vivienne Tam: fashion and NFT come together.
Technology and fashion intertwined last month in fashion, and Vivienne Tam continues to unite the digital with the tangible.
Hong Kong-based fashion designer Vivienne Tam looks to NFTs and the metaverse to bring her brand to China’s “crypto generation” of the zeta generation.
After realizing that the many things she could not create in the physical world could be done in the virtual one, the focus of Tam now is to create a bridge between the two universes.
Indeed, the designer mixed NFTs in her New York Fashion Week show:
“It was a challenge, as some images were difficult to match.”
Vivienne Tam’s story is what you would call a Hong Kong success story. Raised from the city’s roots to become an international designer who has dressed US first lady Jill Biden, Tam is now looking to the virtual world and beyond to take her label to new heights.
The Covid-19 pandemic has completely changed the luxury retail landscape in Hong Kong.
Before the pandemic, the main streets were characterized by a mix of luxury goods tenants accompanied by sky-high retail rents. Luxury retail stores in areas such as Queen’s Road Central depended on visitor spending.
However, the pandemic-related travel restrictions led to a massive reduction in tourists and many luxury retailers closed their stores.
Generation zeta shoppers are suffering. This is a big problem for luxury brands.
Tam’s business has been similarly affected, particularly her operations in China.
Hence, the need to do something different, rethink the fashion business. It is not just about fashion, but about lifestyle.
“We need to rethink how we communicate with the zeta generation and the cryptocurrency generation. The pandemic has forced us to be creative in our thinking. We grouped together as a company and developed a strategy to think outside the box,”
says Vivienne.
The time spent socializing with Hong Kong tech entrepreneurs gave Tam the inspiration to figure out where she wants to take her brand. Now the designer is focusing on the metaverse and how to mix that with physical stores. Indeed, while she was stuck in Hong Kong, she had the chance to meet many people from the tech world who opened her eyes.
The future in the hands of the metaverse
The designer states:
“The future is the metaverse and I find it exciting. There are so many new ways of doing things, like combining the physical world with the virtual one: that’s the challenge.”
Tam is interested in the gap between people’s online lives and their spending on physical goods and sees opportunities in NFTs (non-fungible tokens). The fact that there is no physical component with NFTs prompted her to want to bring the two together and be the bridge between the physical and virtual worlds.
That is what happened in her exciting new collection for the show at New York Fashion Week.
Vivienne brought NFTs to her show, incorporating NFT images into her clothes:
“I had a lot of fun developing my line and it was exciting every day. It was challenging and at the same time some images were difficult to match, but I love good challenges.”
