On June 18th, sector innovators Tribute Brand released their first ever digital fashion garments as NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), exclusively with THE DEMATERIALISED. This is not just another NFT drop because it exists to challenge the boundaries around the functions of fashion as we know it.
Tribute Brand emerged as the pandemic was breaking in 2020, birthing a new genre of style named “contactless cyber fashion”. They are undoubtedly the world’s first commercially successful digital fashion brand and have been featured in Vogue, Paper Magazine, Hypebeast, and many more.
This drop is called ‘The Real Deal’ and it represents the metamorphosis of fashion through different aspects of physicality and reality. There are six NFTs available to collect, these originate from two iconic clothing items which undergo three metaphysical transformational changes, each is accompanied by different real-life utilities for the buyer.
The first phase is the ‘past’, where the NFT is sold as 1/1 made-to-measure physical garment. Manufactured out of high-tech materials and focusing on protection, its shape is formed by following the function, devoid from the fashion. It is represented through an audio file, revealing its visual form only when physically delivered to the owner. The rest of the audience is left to their imagination. Its online representation is deliberately not rendered through a visual, as this would not be an authentic experience of the item, while audio files remain unchanged once elapsed through an intermediary.
The second is the ‘present’, materialized in a digital form. Its silhouette retains the functional principles of the physical garment, but the fashion segment is added to it – amplifying the shapes and textures that enhance the visual experience. It’s available to be worn on the photos by the TB Premium Fitting Service™.
The third is the ‘future’ state illustrated in a real-time AR form that has been visually abstracted from the previous silhouette that was determined by the functional aspect of clothing. What remains is fashion alone, unconditioned by anything: the fashion is liberated and is transcended onto a new level. Its owner will be able to wear it as real-time AR skin through Tribute Brand’s YCY mobile app.
Gala and Filip, of Tribute Brand, explain the narrative from the collection: “We are entering a new version of the future, one where representation precedes and conditions the real. In digital fashion, the domain of the real connects to the represented images, and a future of simulacra remains.” DMAT Co-CEO, Karinna Nobbs adds: “The conceptualization behind this drop is unrivaled, and its release will provoke debate about the current and future functions of fashion, in all its realities.”
THE DEMATERIALISED is an experiential marketspace for digital fashion NFTS, powered by the LUSKO blockchain.
