What’s a Metaverse, and Why is One Having a Fashion Show?

The blockchain-based metaverse Decentraland is having a fashion show. A real — well, “real” — one, with models, catwalks and even afterparties.

Actually, according to Decentraland partner UNXD, a luxury crypto marketplace that just hosted an NFT drop with real-world fashion house Dolce&Gabbana, it’s a whole Metaverse Fashion Week. Attendees’ avatars will be able to shop for virtual clothing, accessories and all things fabulous at showcases and pop-up shops from March 24-27.

While it may be the first metaverse fashion show, it’s neither the first time couture has ventured into virtual worlds nor the first major public event in one. Balenciaga and Gucci have sold virtual creations, and Nike is even letting avatar owners design their own sneakers.

See also: Brands Prepare to Take Competition Virtual as Metaverse Goes Mainstream

Then there are the live concerts Ariana Grande, Travis Scott and Marshmello have held in Fortnite — which is technically a virtual game world, not a true metaverse.

All of which raises the question the broader world has been asking since Oct. 28, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced he was changing the social media company’s name to Meta, saying “Over time, I hope we’re seen as a metaverse company.”

Which is a pretty big endorsement, as well as an indication that the tech giant is about to pour truckloads of money into the virtual world. (Or, a cynic might say, a good way to dump an increasingly toxic brand.)

What’s a Metaverse?

There are a growing number of metaverses in the crypto world, but the two biggest are Decentraland and The Sandbox.

So, what are they? By one definition, a metaverse is any virtual world in which people can create avatars and have them interact with others. If you’ve ever played a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, or MMORPG, like Fortnite or World of Warcraft — or seen Steven Speilberg’s “Ready Player One” — you’ve got the general idea.

But game universes are not really true metaverses — the word was first used in Neal Stephenson’s seminal cyberpunk novel “Snow Crash” — which are, really, templates like a map, in which you can buy “land” and create anything from virtual buildings and marketplaces to interactive games and movie screens.

Or hold virtual events like an Ariana Grande concert or fashion show.

A metaverse is the blank slate of a world.

NFT’s Next Act — Branding

So where does crypto come into this?

First of all, blockchain is a great foundation for a metaverse. Once data ranging from the deed to your land to the structures built on them are recorded on a blockchain, hackers cannot go back and change things, and everything is publicly viewable.

Even more important, everything can be recorded onto an NFT, a non-fungible token that is both unique and unchangeable, as well as — and this is key — tradable. So that metaverse store you built? It’s an NFT. The goods you are selling? They’re NFTs. The avatars — characters in gaming-speak — that shop there? They’re also NFTs.

NFTs bring a lot of value to virtual commerce — enough so that many published articles opine on how to build brands in the metaverse — notably provenance and rarity. They could even be carried into different metaverses.

When you buy a Gucci purse NFT for your avatar, you know it’s a genuine Gucci purse. (Well, you can track the NFT token back on the blockchain to Gucci — anyone can upload an image of a purse onto an NFT and sell it on the virtual street corner.) That may be why Nike just filed trademark applications that would protect “Just Do It” and the Swoosh on virtual products.

Then there’s rarity. CryptoPunk NFTs can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but some of the rarer ones — zombie or alien punks, for example — have sold for millions.

So, a Gucci bag could sell for $500 worth of crypto whereas a generic but good-looking purse might sell for $5. But a limited run Gucci bag — say only 10 of that model — might sell for $5,000.

Now imagine if Gucci built those 10 bags in the real world and sold them with a corresponding NFT. What would the pair be worth?