The Rise of Digital Fashion: Virtual Clothing and Its Market Potentials
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59890/ijeps.v3i6.205Keywords:
Digital Fashion, Sustainability, Metaverse, AI and 3D Modelling, Phygital FashionAbstract
The rise of digital fashion marks a revolutionary shift in the global fashion landscape, redefining how creativity, technology, and commerce intersect. Emerging from the convergence of 3D modelling, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and augmented reality (AR), digital fashion transforms garments into purely virtual artefacts that exist beyond physical materiality. This article explores how digital fashion reconfigures traditional production systems, consumer experiences, and sustainability narratives. By examining virtual clothing’s evolution, market dynamics, and integration into metaverse platforms, it highlights how dematerialized design processes reduce waste, enable circular business models, and democratize access to fashion innovation. The paper also evaluates key technologies such as NFTs for digital ownership and AI-driven personalization, that drive value creation and cultural expression in virtual ecosystems. While emphasizing the ecological and economic advantages of digital fashion, the study equally acknowledges emerging challenges related to intellectual property, digital labour, and market legitimacy. Ultimately, the research argues that digital fashion represents not a fleeting trend but a transformative paradigm shaping the future of identity, creativity, and sustainability in the 21st century, where physical and virtual fashion coexist symbiotically within a connected, data-driven world.
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