The notion of sustainability is what inspired Neo-ex, “the digital clothing collection with zero impact on the environment”.

The capsule line of 19 genderless and sizeless pieces has a tech aesthetic inspiration: neon colors, puffer jackets that seem to come from space, the slogans on clothes reporting “I’m Not A Robot” or “Artificial Intelligence” do not allow any interpretation further. Just to make the concept more clear, they hired different “types” of influencers, real and fake ones (including the CGI model Perl), to promote the collection on Instagram.  

How does it work? Customers who purchase a 3D-garment are asked to upload a picture of themselves to which overlap the virtual clothing. Then, the magic happens: a designer fits the model over the body so that it looks like you’re wearing the clothing for real. The customers get the image in return, ready to be shared on social media.

Neo-ex by Carlings is now sold out, but a new drop in the collection will be soon available in the online shop.  They started with a limited amount of pieces to make it more exclusive, but the underlying idea is to enhance the democratic spread of the phenomenon and to level out the work of influencers by making the same clothes accessible to anyone. In fact, every piece of the collection cost at relatively low price points (between $11 to $33 USD).

In the era where trends change at the speed of light, it can be difficult to keep people updated and digital clothing could be a solution.

The concept behind that might seem weird, but gamers have been spending real-world money on digital items, including CGI dresses (Fortnite Skins, Second Life accessories, The Sims expansion packs), for years and years. It isn’t that new that a bunch of people is displaying more of the life online. And the big brands sniff it out already: digital enhancement has been the latest fashion trend, before this year.

2,2 m followers Lil Miquela, Perl or Shudu are running the CGI revolution of influencing on Social media and high-rated fashion brands like Balmain or Prada have integrated the digital testimonials on their ad campaigns. Is this the future of fashion?

We can’t say certainly, we obviously need to dress ourselves. But the future model could integrate physical and digital choices for the consumers, which are now the drivers for a change.  As the current pandemic has shown, consumer habits have changed as quickly as easily: it took us two months to adapt to an almost total reversal of the reality we were used to.

And the more we are apart from old social and consuming habits, the more it gets possible for our digital dependence to revolutionize the way we “consume” fashion. In 2020, the digital component is a big part of consumers’ buying habits, regardless of coronavirus. The pandemic will end “accelerating massively” the changes already underway for years in the fashion industry, explains Francisco Betti, Production Expert of the World Economic Forum.

Who knows, probably we are facing the same circumstances that culminated to the sparkling rebirth of the 1920s - a period of economic prosperity that saw the birth of fashion houses such as Chanel, Fendi and Gucci - after the Spanish flu pandemic.
 We shall see. 

Instagram	@carlings_official
URL	https://digitalcollection.carlings.com/
Carlings’ Digital Clothing Collection	https://vimeo.com/301705088
adDRESS THE FUTURE	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sothlpxa6V0