Fashion House Kaimin’s Hybrid Physical-Digital Collection Seamlessly Threads The Web3 Needle

Think you saw all that web3 has to offer the fashion world during the early fall showcases? Not so fast. Fashion house Kaimin’s launch of its new hybrid physical-digital collection via a cross-reality show in collaboration with experiential platform vSpace and Samsung speaks volumes about what tech-savvy brands are capable of today—and where the industry is heading.

Kaimin—established in 2016 and touted by the likes of Beyonce, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj—is in full-throttle metaverse mode for its new Science of Dreams collection, which debuted November 4 via an in-person spectacle at Samsung’s flagship 837 space in New York that featured an installation by anime artist Mitsume, whose creations are interwoven into some of the new pieces.

The event, versions of which will be exhibited in Miami, London and Seoul, was a feast for the senses. Its virtual extensions, including a swath of digital wearables and an NFT collection in partnership with GameStop that comprises bespoke artwork prints by Mitsume and community NFTs with utility such as early access to upcoming projects, are the first threads of Kaimin’s web3 ecosystem NGEN. NGEN will house artist collaborations, phygital art collectibles, gamified v-commerce and an original rewards-enabled DeFi blockchain protocol.

How best to bring fans along as it bridges IRL and URL experiences? Kaimin is enabling them to immerse in its Meta Couture universe by partnering up. Samsung showcased the collection in its DecentralandMANA
837X virtual space and vSpace created a cross-platform home for the collection that debuted the night of the event and is available until December 1. The vSpace experience features a nine-minute looped video comprising digital drawings by Mitsume, fashion show footage and the chance to connect and socialize with fans from around the globe.

“It’s all about expression and really pushing the envelope on cross-pollination between all the different worlds, including music and entertainment, and cross-platform and media convergence,” says Dmitri Pchelintsev, managing partner at Kaimin. “You find all these things in one place.”

Kaimin, the brand’s founder and namesake, concurs. “The vSpace component is so important in combining everything as a whole so everyone can experience the vibe,” she says.

vSpace enables 2,000 people to visit the space concurrently. In creating the Kaimin experience, the team did a deep dive into the color palette, materials, artistic inspirations and other aspects of the collection to bring it to virtual life with otherworldly elements like a 20-foot-tall model.

“The virtual space is pretty much a place to plant new ideas, play around with architecture and break the rules with things that aren’t possible in our real world,” says Christopher Miles, creator and co-founder of vSpace. “A lot of these metaverses are recreating our physical world in the virtual world, and they’re also recreating the same problems. Problems with bottlenecks with flow of people, problems with capacity. We’re trying to create a blank canvas for people to bring ideas to table and explore.”

The metaverse makes it easier for brands and designers to break the mold, says Dani Slocki, vSpace CEO. “One of the cool things about this evolution is you don’t have to follow the book of New York fashion Week to debut a collection. You can do it on a Friday in November, and you’re able to create your own rules and bring people in because now there’s not this hierarchy. The virtual ceiling is limitless. We have so much more ability to blur the lines—it’s all about accessibility.”

Accessibility on all fronts is a key utility in the Kaimin web3 ecosystem, where digital wearables will cost about $20. “In order to be a bit more accessible to a lot of our younger audiences, web3 and these wearables make a lot of sense with them being able to participate a much lower price point,” Pchelintsev says.

“Fashion’s always been on the bleeding edge of trying to grab onto these new innovations. With regard to web3, the main ethos that connects it all is this democratization and the ability to invite more people in, but also allow them to participate by being creators themselves potentially. A lot of the tools are becoming cheaper and more accessible so more people can create,” he says.

“And it’s only going to get better and better. Photo-realistic graphics are around the corner, rendering and real-time is improving. People for years have been talking about virtual try-on boots in stores and it’s taken some time, but I think we’ll start hitting exponential growth in a lot of those areas.”