A new world of fashion in the metaverse: Vogue Singapore sees its September issue as a testing ground for innovation

If it is said that the reputation of the fashion magazine "September Issue" was established by "Vogue", I think no one would object. Since its inception in 1909, the September issue has always been the "season opening issue" of Fashion Week. It will collect new clothing series launched by brands from all over the world. In the glory days of paper publications, brands were not reluctant to spend their advertising budgets in this month when the seasons change. This has created a "fashion bible" that is much thicker than other months. "This shows that fashion magazines attach great importance to September.

A precedent for global co-creation participation in encryption technology

Even though digitalization has become the main transformation goal of the media publishing industry, the importance of the September issue remains undiminished due to its close connection with fashion week. However, the battlefield has gradually shifted to the digital field, especially in the fashion industry, which has also mobilized support. In today's era of sustainability and diverse values, how to use innovative technological means to highlight the core concepts that the brand wants to communicate while taking into account fashion aesthetics and cultural connotations has become an important issue for the Singapore edition of Vogue, which is based in the cradle of innovation.

With the announcement of Condé Nast Group’s global integration strategy, it has been demonstrated at all levels that the regional markets under the “Vogue” brand have begun to become more closely connected. The most clearly visible representative of this is the theme of global connected co-creation. , in the September 2021 global co-creation theme " Fashion's New Beginnings " with the image of "sunrise", the Singapore edition boldly adopts the initiative of not having a physical version of the magazine cover, catching up with the trend of the "Summer of Crypto Art" and connecting with the world In cooperation with the sex cryptocurrency exchange "Binance", the monthly cover was created by a crypto artist, and two unique NFT covers with version numbers were issued through blockchain technology and auctioned .

The physical magazines purchased by readers on the channel will only print the QR code leading to the website promoting the special issue . This move makes the Singapore and Taiwan editions the first market for the global "Vogue" to issue NFT (both auctions ended The time difference is only 8 hours) In addition, the Singapore version of "Vogue" also issued a total of 15 encrypted art creation NFTs themed in the three fields of fashion, beauty and design, and even creatively collaborated with the French luxury brand Balmain. Director Olivier Rousteing teamed up to create an augmented reality (AR) virtual clothing NFT called "Flame Dress", which can be said to be a veritable crypto art grand slam.

Seeing that one year has passed and the time has come to 2022, what innovations will Norman Tan, editor-in-chief of Vogue Singapore, bring to the theme of global co-creation this year?

Artificial intelligence, virtual clothing and the metaverse

Midjourney AI, which has just made waves in the Colorado State Fair art competition, has also emerged in this global co-creation theme of "Vogue". The Singapore edition collaborated with Australian artist Terry Gates and was led by beauty director Alli Sim Teal. Fashion's New World" is the September issue of Vogue's global special feature, creating what can be called the first fashion editorial content section generated by artificial intelligence.

This topic focuses on the concept of metahumans. Through MidJourney, a series of beauty units (Bio Resonance) are produced that combine biological eggs and crystal elements representing the earth. Different versions of AI models are also displayed in the units. Regarding the differences in images generated under the same set of core vocabulary (prompt), Terry Gates said that creating through AI is like a learning process, trying to understand what vocabulary things can be explained through, and how to modify the key points. word prompts for better results, and during his creative process at least over a thousand images were generated.

In the fashion section named " Pixel Perfect ", we teamed up with Yimeng Yu, a virtual fashion brand of the same name founded by the interdisciplinary fashion designer Yu Yimeng from China, to create three models inspired by the "Vogue Singapore" edition. The exclusive virtual clothing designs inspired by the real virtual world are Curvature, Nirvana and Rebirth. Yu Yimeng graduated from the London College of Art. In the past, she has created virtual costumes with different styles for Chinese actresses Hu Lianxin and Qiu Tian. The sculpture-like design style is full of complex details, which fully demonstrates her innovation in design. It is subversive and consistent with her positioning as haute couture.

Yu Yimeng said that her design style was inspired by the avant-garde photographer Man Ray and the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, and was committed to blending darkness and elegance, softness and hardness, order and chaos. "Perhaps this has something to do with my background growing up in China. , instilled in me the value of balancing yin and yang,” she said in an interview. The digital haute couture clothing she created for Vogue Singapore skillfully combines soft silhouettes with hard materials. This contrast also fully reflects her creative philosophy, and among these three garments, "Nirvana" and " "Rebirth" can also provide users with a free experience as a virtual clone through the "Fashion New World" metaverse space to be introduced next (limited to female character appearance).

Virtual space × virtual clone

The highlight is here. In this global co-creation theme, "Vogue" Singapore and extended reality (XR) design expert Polycount.io work together to create a virtual space, combining the VR/AR remote collaboration carrier Spatial and the cross-metaverse platform With the technical cooperation of the three parties of the virtual clone Ready Player Me , the " Fashion New World " metaverse space exclusive to the September issue has taken shape.

In this space with multiple arch openings and surrounded by a circular wall, the left wall displays the aforementioned Midjourney AI-generated beauty unit and the digital haute couture creations from Yimeng Yu, while the right wall displays the The cover story of the September issue of "Vogue" Singapore edition shot by Chinese supermodel Zhang Lina. These contents are all presented in dynamic images. When you step on the towering stairs with petals falling continuously in the center of the square, you can see the convenience at the top. This is the cover of this issue of Vogue Singapore, which also uses the image of a staircase to represent entering the new world.

According to the description in the cover story of "Vogue" Singapore, the scope of this opening is only the first phase of this virtual world, and the second phase will be released simultaneously when the October issue of the magazine comes out as the anniversary issue. Therefore, you can see that behind the circular square there is an arched doorway with the V symbolizing the initials of the "Vogue" logo, and a sign on the side that reads "Unlocks October 2022". You should be able to enter this virtual world through this arch. of the second stage area.

The "New World of Fashion" Metaverse space built by "Vogue" Singapore Edition on the Spatial platform can be experienced through computers, mobile APPs and Oculus virtual reality (VR) head-mounted devices owned by Meta Company. However, if you want to try Create a unique appearance for your Ready Player Me character in this virtual space and wear a digital haute couture suit from Yimeng Yu. I would suggest that it is more efficient to operate it through a desktop or laptop. In addition, as mentioned before And, the series created by Yimeng Yu only apply to the appearance of female characters, but you can create multiple characters under one Ready Player Me account, so if you choose a male character at the beginning, you don’t have to worry, just create another female character.

Different from the "NFT" special issue of the September 2021 issue of "Vogue" Singapore that focuses on crypto art, the 2022 Singapore market has opened up more imaginations of technology and future blueprints through the global co-creation theme "Fashion's New World" , whether it is the AI ​​beauty unit that focuses on the environment and natural evolution, or the digital high-end clothing with the theme of life cycle, after combining with the metaverse virtual space they worked hard to create, it presents a scene just like "Level 1 Player" In the world in the movie, the boundary between reality and virtuality becomes blurred. The new world predicted by science fiction novelists in their works seems to be gradually unfolding before our eyes. Although it is still not perfect, we can strongly feel that we are moving towards such a world. "Vogue" Singapore Edition, which is always looking for the best balance in the combination of fashion and technology, seems to have won a good battle.

What is your impression of Vogue Singapore? What are your thoughts on this market based in the cradle of new startups? Does the combination of fashion and technology fit your imagination of the future? Feel free to share in the comments. If you think the content has inspired you, please feel free to share and clap. You are also welcome to follow my Instagram . :-)