In the metaverse anyone can be anything they want and wear whatever they want, so best check your avatar

The large screens inside the Theater of Digital Arts are meant to be immersive. They surround the entire auditorium, floor to ceiling and wall to wall. This week they blasted fantastical designs of anti-gravitational shoes, exoskeletons, illuminating masks and many other creations showcased in Digital Fashion Dubai. 

With the rising interest in the metaverse, digital twins and virtual avatars, fashion brands and independent artists alike are responding by creating new lines of clothes and designs for virtual world avatars. For this show, more than 20 top designers and studios exhibited their creations. 

Among them was Karen Artyan, who previously created virtual clothes and shoe design non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for Louis Vuitton. This show’s designs were less realistic and leaned more toward sci-fi. CJ Hadida showed some of his “Dystopia” creations, a project that offers futuristic robotic designs as NFTs accompanied by 3-D printed figurines. Cooltrede, a French design studio, shared some of their metaverse clothes which clients can try on using a mobile application and a cellphone camera. 

“I’m glad we introduced the project when the national politics of many countries in the [Gulf Cooperation Council] market are betting on the metaverse,” said Max Goshko-Dankov, the founder and creator of the Digital Fashion Project. 

As an artist, Goshko-Dankov collaborated with brands like Samsung, Toyota and United Colors of Benetton. He has years of experience in the fashion industry as the communication director of the Russian branch of the fashion monolith PUIG. 

He’s is bullish on NFTs, saying the technology is already helping creators expand their art and protect their intellectual property. He believes the future of digital arts, including fashion, will rely on extended reality and phygital technologies. 

The project's goal, however, is more than merely to create a digital catwalk. 

“We are inviting people to explore the potential cooperation between AI and humans in the era of technological singularity and post-humanity,” Goshko-Dankov said, referencing the works of computer scientist Ray Kurzweil and Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom. 

Both writers discussed the idea of “singularity,” a hypothesis that artificial intelligence would self-enhance itself, perhaps gain consciousness and create fundamental changes to civilization. 

Many designs were gloomy, even nightmarish, borrowing elements from horror and cyberpunk. 

Audiences are invited to watch the transhuman designs, robotic limbs and physically impossible garments and think they are cool-looking virtual pieces they may one day wear in a Snow Crash-like metaverse. 

Fashion is a mode of communication, Goshko-Dankov believes, and the show invites the audience to reflect on the future of technology.  

While he had no opinion on what the avatars should be like, the mood is linked to the  idea of a technological singularity and the possibility that a self-conscious AI would experiment with their own digital or physical avatar. 

“Maybe it sounds crazy and futuristic,” he said, but “we have to think about it right now.”