Doing everything for Balenciaga’s “dress” or Why Fashion brands are churning NFT: author of the telegram channel “Mother’s Fashionista” about fashion in virtual reality and the most unfair purchase

We live in the era of total digitization. This indisputable fact is confirmed by augmented reality games, mysterious metaverses and mysterious NFTs. In March we prepared material on the latest abbreviation, desperately trying to explain what it is and who needs it. Around the same time, a long read on our website was published about meta-universes and their role in our lives and in the lives of global corporations. Spoiler alert: it was big.

Big brands began to conquer virtual reality, creating their own worlds in it, and releasing products that could be bought but not touched. Of course, the fashion industry is not left out either. Gucci, Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton, Ambush, Burberry, Etro, Tommy Hilfiger, Nike and Dolce & Gabbana were among the first to offer NFTs to their loyal fans.

For example, Gucci launched virtual sneakers that can be purchased at the market and then used in games, Japanese brand Ambush launched an NFT ring collection, and fashion house Louis Vuitton introduced Louis The Game, an adventure puzzle game.

The most surprising thing about this virtual story is that non-existent things sometimes cost more than real ones. For example, Gucci sold a digital version of the Dionysus bag on online gaming platform Roblox for $4,100, which is $715 more than the physical original. So who buys all this, and most importantly – how and why?

With this question, we turned to Inna Kombarova, the author of the telegram channel “Mama’s fashionista”, who recently became the happy owner of an NFT with a drawing of a dress by Cristobal Balenciaga himself.

Inna Kombarova, author of the telegram channel “Mama’s fashionista”

In addition to various interests that are girlishly obvious, I periodically browse krypton news, let’s call it that. Thus, information emerged that one day NFT sales began with the magic word Balenciaga for all fashionistas. Lorenzo Riva, the brand’s former art director who worked there in the ’80s, took Cristobal Balenciaga’s sketches, agreed to collaborate with crypto.com, and created custom NFTs called Balenciaga: Aya. In addition to the custom-designed NFTs, buyers were promised 20 original drawings by Cristobal Balenciaga, a map of the same store, a wallet or purse. How easy to guess – I got it! “Well, what,” I thought, “if you start collecting digital art, then with designer dresses.” And then I was faced with a harsh reality – now you can’t pay for this story with a Russian card, you need a cellar that I don’t have, and I didn’t have a wallet either.

With this question, I turned to the most understanding friend, they say, let’s throw you rubles, and you give me a cellar, especially since the price of the question is only $ 100 – it was not a pity for the sake of experiment . But it wasn’t there! It turns out that in addition to coins, you also need a collector’s account on the same crypto.com. Overall, we formed a chat with a crypto millionaire, the clock ticking as he tried to figure out what we wanted from him.

It turns out that every NFT drop is strictly limited and we only have 24 hours for everything. As a result, I woke up from the message that this NFT “fly” to me as a gift, because everyone was too lazy to figure out how to exchange rubles for a cellar. I’m glad, but again it’s too early. My precious picture was supposed to go to the account of the person who bought it for a day and only then go to my wallet, which of course I didn’t have.

Therefore, I needed to figure out how to create this wallet within 24 hours. I tell you: download the Defi wallet app, act on points and voila – you are in the future! Almost. There is a big “but”. A normal Defi wallet can store your currency and NFTs, but through this wallet you cannot trade, accept bets on your NFTs and are generally not visible to the community. In general, all the romance of collecting digital art loses its meaning.

Of course, I didn’t know that, and my fairy in the green dress “fly” to the wrong place. And then the hardest part started. It was necessary to somehow move it to the collector’s wallet, which automatically starts when registering on the site. So there is no need to create another wallet but this is not written anywhere. And so. To transfer NFT from one wallet to another, you need to pay a small commission (about 200 rubles), but these need to be deposited somehow and you need to start it in the currency of the Cronos platform. Confused? I’m here to. But once I got into it, I had to see it through to the end. Therefore, I wrote to the same crypto millionaire and asked him to throw a small CRO (short for the name of the Cronos cryptocurrency). note. ed.).).

Just popped in a different currency. And it appeared to transfer Ethereum (cryptocurrency). – note. ed.) In Cronos, I have to pay about two dollars commission for the transfer, even if I had to transfer one, naturally it wasn’t enough.

Here I was already embarrassed to write in the same chat and began to look for intermediaries among my friends. A few days later, someone with a crypto wallet sent me $20 in Ethereum because it was impossible to do less. And just a week and a half of misfortunes, four chats, five helpers from four countries, a burst crypto com hotline, and … the fairy in a green dress with the moon in the collector’s wallet. It looks like this. You can even take a screenshot of this image and get nothing for it.

How do I feel now, you ask? Of course, it’s a global disappointment, because it wasn’t really worth it, but it’s an invaluable experience and an opportunity to tell you that this is a huge machine for extorting money from “dumbs” like me. After all, having this picture gives nothing, and even the promised “buns” in the form of the original sketch of Cristobal, I did not buy a wallet or a card in the store, and, most likely, no one took me. I understand.

Later, after going through all the processes, I realized that the goal of a professional NFT buyer is to resell for profit because that’s exactly what the trend was for. Some of the same cryptopunks made hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

The purpose of artists is more noble – they not only suddenly make money, but also become famous in the digital environment even before painting to order. Now, any kid in the village can sell NFT The New York Times if they follow the trends correctly and understand the laws and procedures for promoting digitally. Now there is a huge demand for it, so my advice to you is that it’s better to learn to “draw” and create your own NFTs, but I would not rush to buy – by the time you can buy a picture for a few dollars and then sell it for a few million, it’s long gone.

Your Mother’s Passion for Fashion