About the Open Call
1. What is the reason behind the Open Call for designers?
2. What were the results and how successful was the open call?
3. What feedback did you receive from your community?
4. What were the learning outcomes from this open call taking the fashion industry into account, and the talent at large?
Through the Open Call project, we saw how the digital fashion level has increasingly grown with a demand for high-quality virtual content and the tools to create it. By opening access to our proprietary AR clothing technology even in a limited way, we plan to build the largest library of items available in augmented reality. The designers will be able to continuously build their audience base and new uses for their collections, making them wearable, visually appealing, and hopefully triggering the future development of the industry.
To be able to scale this idea, we are planning to create an AR studio, giving creators a chance to use the tool. That’s why we don’t want to stop here, at the Open Call competition. Our desire is to build an Open Platform and create a space for emerging designers and the digital fashion community to show their work in augmented reality with help of our capabilities.
About the Winning Designs
1. Inspiration
IMPULSE is an electric wave that stimulates renewal. As a young fashion designer, joining an industry that presents itself as modern, but is in fact conservative, makes people, like me, thirsty for innovation. Innovation that is not intertwined with technology, but with core values of the industry, like inclusion, open data, equal opportunities. This impulse inside me, I try to project it into energy, to my surroundings through my designs as it is my language of communication. I am endlessly happy that those who share the same language will be able to wear my items on ZERO10, as a symbol of belonging to the Web3 movement.
More about your design
When I was designing, I was inspired by one of my clients, who’s an Instagram blogger with over 1M followers. She travels, likes to live a bright lifestyle, and is astounding. During the process, I shared my design with her and a few friends, and their support and feedback was incredible, they couldn’t wait to wear it in AR!
In many ways, we share the same kind of community as ZERO10. They got their audience involved in the voting of what their preferred digital garment would look like, and most voted for a futuristic dress which really resonates with IMPULSE. Thanks to Zero10’s tracking technology, everyone that owns a smartphone can now wear IMPULSE and turn themselves into a Web 3.0 Diva.
Career Path
In my county of origin, we have a deep appreciation for cultural heritage, we don’t have many contemporary brands. Due to the lack of luxury fashion houses with aesthetics like mine, I launched my own at age 19, a streetwear brand called IZY Studio. It became the best emerging fashion brand in the country in 2017 and was showcased in the 2018 Milan Fashion Week. A year later, I had to close my studio and say goodbye to my amazing team, as I moved abroad. It was a very painful experience. After that experience, I thought a lot about how I could keep my brand, regardless of my physical location. So, here we are.
What does it mean to win?
I had to re-create this dress from scratch on the last day of submission, on a TV screen. My laptop fell out of my backpack while riding on a motorcycle, and it was run over by a few trucks on the highway, ultimately destroying all my work. Therefore, simply participating in the Open Call competition, launched by ZERO10, meant a lot to me.
Giving your full self to your passion and if it is truly your thing—you will receive an incredible bonus, like this win. All of this would not have been possible without my previous experience and my small, amazing team! This win belongs to us and our community.
What do you think about digital fashion and AR technology in it?
With all the recent innovation that emerged, AR technology excites me the most. There is a lot of buzz around new metaverses, avatars, and skins, but AR just feels unexplored and unexploited. There’s such a huge potential in it, and I can’t wait for future discoveries.
Digital fashion, for me, is freedom. It is a blessing for, that gives me opportunities to live a full desired life, and I am endlessly grateful that it’s also in-demand.
What will you do with the cash prize?
The cash prize will fund my digital projects, my the team, and partially help purchase a new laptop.
2d place Biomorphic dress
Dinara Garaeva 3D and NFT Artist
Inspiration
I am an architect and I pay a lot of attention to details in the play of light and shadows. My architectural vision influences a lot of my inspiration, which I find everywhere around me, in nature, space, and light. The modelling process is my style of drawing, I sketch and experiment directly on a digital canvas. Recently, I have become more interested in organic structures, like observing plants. I’m fascinated at the wide range of symmetry found in objects made by nature.
More about your design
The dress was inspired by organic shapes. I wanted to make something that was sleek, light, and at the same time, something that was a contrast to everyday clothes which you could buy in a store. I believe that the future of digital fashion is complex shapes or special effects.
Career Path
I have been studying architecture for 8 years (study + work), but about a year and a half ago I discovered the world of 3D graphic design and ever since, it became my passion. The first steps were challenging, one of my firsts (a little sculpting and rendering) is my peak profile, it didn’t come out perfect, but I intentionally didn’t change it. What I like about 3D design is that the only limits are in your head, and the rest relies on your technical skills. At the moment, I am finally moving away from architecture and devoting my time to learning 3D design.
What do you think about digital fashion and AR technology in it?
I truly believe that digital clothing is the future. I am fascinated by the fact that graphics cease to exist in a separate world and enter the real world. Digital clothing gives you limitless freedom to express yourself as a person. And in terms of environmental protection and sustainability, the carbon footprint of the production of digital clothing is smaller than the production of physical items. So, I believe that the digitalization of fashion is shaping the future of the industry.
What it means to win
Winning for me means that I’m on the right track. It came exactly at the time when I needed it. It was very difficult for me to decide to change my main job, but I never regretted it. This is really what fills me and makes me glow from the inside. Now I’m going through a difficult period as a newcomer to the industry, but this win has cheered me up a lot! I will definitely keep learning and achieving more.
What will you do with the cash prize?
I would like to spend the cash prize on my education, continue studying, and learn more about 3D design, and modelling.
3d place Yearzero: Cosmic Warrior military jacket
Spacekkabbi Media and NFT Artist
Popopo.archive Design Studio
Inspiration
SpaceKKabbi collection was inspired by the Korean folktale “Dokkabbi and Blue Stone.” The story begins with a devoted son “Macheonmok” going out to the river every day to catch fish for his sick mother’s food. Cheonmok, who was devastated by not catching a single fish, finds a stone that emits a strange “blue light” in the water and brings it home, as if possessed. That night, countless Kkabbi surround the house of Cheonmok and tell Cheonmok to return the stone, and in fact, the stone is their captain, so they will grant any wishes as long as he gives the stone back to them. I thought that if I fed this folktale with rejuvenating spring water, the captain of Kkabbi would fall to the metaverse & universe following the wave of data, and Kkabbi would search for the person who owns the captain. One of the things that I continue to explore is the word ‘푸른’. Translating “blue light” into English only translates to “blue”, but ” 푸른” in Korean includes or refers to various lights such as cyan, purple, as well as green. Therefore, I express the mysterious ‘blue stone’ not only through the color of the object itself but also through the combination of various shapes and lights that harmonize with nature.
Popopo.archive(offerings) explores digital fashion sceneries with wearability in both digital and real realms. Highly inspired by digital arts’ limitlessness and potentiality, work of offerings creates stages of imaginary but realistic fashion campaigns. The aim of the practice of ‘offerings’ is to synchronize physical wearability and digital fashion into a collection of artworks and handcrafted garments.
More about your design
Spacekkabbi
I am the generation who experienced both analog and digital in the days when there were no computers and from MS-DOS to MacBooks. Therefore, the results of SpaceKkabbi move freely between digital and object, and continuously explore new forms that can cross the boundaries of tradition and future, technology and culture, and conflict between humans and nature. Recently, Kkabbi produced a 3D artwork lyric video of SM Entertainment’s group aespa in Korea and continues to be active with various exhibitions.
Popopo.archive
In the design process, I intended on showing how our design can provide people an experience of ‘wearing’ something within the digital imagination. Therefore, we focused on spotting the point where the virtual and real crossed.
Career Path
Spacekkabbi, i work in Media Art (Nft Artist), Installation. My thesis was focused on “How to visualize Gugak, Sinawi.” I have a Master’s Degree in Information Design from Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Popopo.archive object design, fashion design, illustration. I studied in Seoul Sasada Fashion institute and at the Design Academy Eindhoven, with a Man and well-being (BA).
What do you think about digital fashion and AR technology in it?
Spacekkabbi
I think of it as a natural flow of digital waves. People won’t need to pack multiple clothes when they travel in the future. People can try on various clothes and take pictures through AR. Considering the clothes that are thrown away, I think it is a meaningful technology that can be used infinitely in the future.
Popopo.archive
As a fashion designer who was mainly working in production and materials, the digital fashion and AR technology gave me a lot of freedom without limitations. There are no barriers to what you want to say in digital fashion. You don’t need to organize a financial flow, and you don’t need to care about location. Moreover, with AR technology, you can easily wear and express your fashion without any physical limits. Although I still love the physical materiality of garments, this advancement can expand the way we communicate, through fashion.
What it means to win
Spacekkabbi
I’m so glad we won. It is rewarding because it is proof that many people, even as a beginner in the 3D fashion field, can find success.
Popopo.archive
As a beginner in the 3D fashion field, it is a great start.
What will you do with the cash prize?
Spacekkabbi
It will probably be used as nourishment to produce more work.
Popopo.archive
I will invest for the upcoming practice in Popopo.archive.
Edited by GLITCH Team
