This week, Atelier held its Fashion Innovation Day 2022 in Madrid, inaugurated by Concepción Díaz de Villegas, Director General of Commerce and Hospitality of the Madrid City Council and leader of the Madrid Fashion Capital project. "We are very aware of the importance of the fashion sector for Madrid's economy and visibility," she said.
A hundred people attended the morning session, which began with a conference by Marta Sánchez, Director of Digital Transformation at Vodafone, who spoke about the softwerization of retail. Sanchez provided data on pre- and post-pandemic consumption and surprised the audience with a data, a priori, groundbreaking: In 2024, 78% of purchases will be made in physical stores. However, consumers do not want to go back to the stores as before, but incorporate the advantages of online shopping: No queues, more information about the products...
"This is not about technology, it's about customer focus. It's about being where they are. For that, retail companies have to incorporate continuous innovation processes, like those used by software developers. Think of the business as a platform, where each space is a brand interface: stores are one, e-commerce is another, etc.".
All this in order to adapt to the 4 trends of post-covid consumption:
- Acceleration of e-commerce and e-service.
- Ultra fast service.
- Growth of local and mobile consumption.
- Streaming sales.
This was followed by a round table discussion on "Current and future business opportunities in the metaverse for the fashion industry", moderated by Chus del Río (Head of Digital Channels at N-world), with the participation of Marco Hernáiz (CEO and Founder of Opi Digital Group), Darío Cortés (VP Business Development Optiva Media), Alonso Becerril Oriol (CEO of La Tecnocreativa) and Pedro Henrique (CEO of Urban Rooster).
The metaverse is the new form of communication in the virtual world, the natural evolution of the Internet, which "is going to make Google look like the Yahoo of '97," said one of the speakers. A virtual place that increasingly resembles the real one and that opens the doors to immersive spaces, to a new layer of economy...
At the moment, the user experience is very limited and so is the volume of business, but early adopters are already putting on virtual reality goggles to enter the meta platform (which is still in a very early version) or buying Balenciaga sneakers in NFT format for their Fornite avatars.
Will non-gamers also join the metaverse? Today the technology is not sufficiently developed and wallets are not ready, but everything points to the fact that in the coming months this will change a lot. And the big fight in the metaverse will be over the operating system, "like when Google bought Android".
A few years ago, attending a fashion show in virtual reality was a science fiction story, but now it is a very real reality. The precursor of the great event, Decentraland, will execute this idea hand in hand with UNXD, an NFT platform with the best selection of luxury garments and culture. This collaboration will be called 'Metaverse Fashion Week' and will take place the week of March 24, 2022. Brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Dundas, and Etro will participate in the shows, in addition to the inclusion of virtual-only brands such as The Fabricant. In addition, Tommy Hilfiger, Elie Saab, Jacob & Co, Franck Muller, Garrett Leight, and Cavalli will also be present. And on March 23, 2022, a virtual shopping mall inspired by the architecture of Avenue Montaigne in Paris will open.
A whole world of possibilities for the fashion business that left the Fashion Innovation Day attendees eager to know and gave way to the elevator pitch, in which only the startups and advocates of this edition of Atelier 2022 participated.
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