Of all ways the fashion industry might clean up its act, digital fashion is perhaps the most radical.
As our virtual selves become central to who we are and who we want to be, digital fashion’s proponents believe that virtual garments ‘worn’ by our avatars online could give our novelty-seeking brains a similar buzz to buying clothes.
Still, the idea that people will buy clothes they can’t actually wear – still seems a bit far out. And yet, in a recent survey of 1,000 14–24-year-old Americans, by Roblox and Parsons School of Design, two out of five respondents said that digital self-expression, via virtual clothing and accessories, is already more important than expressing themselves in the physical world. Along with Instagram filters and NFT virtual sneakers, it’s clear that, for many people –particularly digital natives – with a smartphone in their pockets, this apparently outlandish sci-fi future is already here.
For the rest of us, such ideas feel unsettling. We see lives lived increasingly online as Matrix-like existences; we imagine our future teenage children slumped in their bedrooms, hooked up to VR headsets, losing interest in reality. There are many who argue that digital fashion is just another way to convince people to spend money on things they don’t need. But one London-based design duo, Auroboros, imagines digital fashion as part of a utopian future.
Auroboros comprises of Paula Sello, 26, and Alissa Aulbekova, 24. They met at Corsica, a nightclub in south London, in 2018, when both were still students. Sello has degrees in design from the London College of Fashion and sociology from Goldsmiths; Aulbekova studied fashion communication at Central Saint Martins. Their digital design skills, however, are self-taught. Initially, they bonded over making fashion that blended technological and scientific advances with a sense of hope and beauty, launching Auroboros as aside project. In 2020, they were chosen to be part of the talent incubator set up by the late Lee Alexander McQueen, Sarabande Foundation, through which they were given studio space in Haggerston, east London.
Their ‘biomimicry’ gowns are made from recycled plastic and salt crystals, bringing a new, eco-friendly meaning to disposable fashion. But it is Auroboros’ digital garments that have brought them the most attention. Unconstrained by the rules of physics, they almost appear to live. From twinkling handbags to exploding Venus flytrap gowns, and shoes with heels like splashes of water, to dresses covered in spinning metallic coils or unfurling tentacles, they breathe, pulsate, undulate, and shimmer.
Straddling fashion and tech, last year Auroboros made waves displaying at the V&A as well as at London Fashion Week. During the latter, their work appeared on billboards, featuring a QR code that let smartphone users ‘try on’ a piece of cyber couture. This year, they also collaborated with the musician Grimes at Metaverse Fashion Week, dressing the musician’s avatar for a DJ set event held within Decentraland.
hube: For decades, the digital world has followed the physical one, adapting to it, and being influenced by it. Do you believe the tables have turned?
Paula Sello: Especially with politics now – in the UK, since Brexit, but also on a global scale – I think people are noticing how important, how prolific the digital world has become for making significant social, political, and economic change. And then, with Covid, which has shown people how absolutely vital the digital industry is, more people are becoming conscious of the influence increasingly going the other way around. And now, we’re at a point when Web 3.0 is coming to life. We are moving from the phase of screens, of our phones and laptops, to technology impacting us through our cars, or the AR glasses that are coming. The scales have definitely tipped.
Alissa Aulbekova: People really need escapism. If you look at the news, it’s just horrifying. It’s almost like every bad sci-fi thriller is coming to fruition, which is really sad and horrible, especially for the younger generation, because we don’t have that hope, that incentive of a future with a kind of an autonomy. During Covid, social media and gaming usage skyrocketed. People wanted something different. Something fantastical and magical and potentially hopeful. The digital world is getting more detached from the physical world in terms of look and feel. And now it’s impacting the physical world: people seek dopamine outbursts; they want to dress really avantgarde and outgoing and colourful. I was recently on a panel in Paris. And, that morning, I was dressing up. And it was all going crazy. I thought, “Oh, this is something that I would wear in the metaverse,” but I was wearing it in a physical space. That gave me a lot of comfort. The digital world is influencing the physical one with a little bit of rebellion and liberation.
At Auroboros, we spend so much time looking at identity, ‘avatarisation,’ how people communicate nowadays. It has been very freeing, because the benefits of the digital space are that you don’t need to state who you are, or what size you are, or what gender you are. You can be a bit anonymous, which can be a double-edged sword. But some people, who are hoping to escape and find something better, have found communities that they latch on to, and they feel safe and really uplifted. And we are here for that, we definitely want to build that better world, despite the unfortunate things happening across the globe.
h: It’s a brave new world, but digital designers don’t exist completely independently from ‘real’ fashion. How has traditional fashion design influenced you?
AA: I went to fashion school. So this is really drilled into me!
PS: In the beginning, we felt drawn towards being the first digital brand to showcase at an international fashion week [London Fashion Week]. We really wanted to check all those boxes, be part of the, and part of certain magazines; to make that statement and reach wider audience. For us, it was about sharing a vision and the ideology: getting people in a positive mindset to revert from spending thousands on wasted garments and converting that to a digital form that is cleaner, more beautiful, more exciting.
But now we’re gravitating towards our own kind of calendar, creating our own communities, and really having the fashion industry come to us. Yesterday, one of our investors was saying that the height of culture always comes from the outskirts, the fringes, and then moves in and becomes the new standard.
And that’s what’s happening right now, a new standard is being created. It’s on the fringes but it’s growing, so fundamentally and quickly.
AA: I think what fashion does – whether it wants to or not – is that it creates this feeling that you’re constantly missing out; you’re always kind of outside of the circle. That was propagated back in the 1990s and 2000s; you had to be a VIP; it was luxury/inaccessibility. But what we love in digital spaces –what we aim to do – is to open doors, share knowledge, connect with people, no matter where they are, and fight these boundaries that were set by the fashion industry. We were taught to compete with each other; ‘Don’t share your know-how, anyone can steal your work’. It was cutthroat, it’s not healthy. And some would say, it’s toxic, too.
Within Web 3.0, the spirit is that everybody is your partner. It’s collaboration, it’s co-creation, there’s a collective need and want to progress and evolve. It’s about bringing people together, creating a safe environment, breaking the bad habits in how we communicate and how we set the tone for creation.
h: Are there any designers in the traditional fashion world whose aesthetic or approach you appreciate?
AA: Yeah, there are a few favourites. One is Mugler. Definitely a king of presentation, drama. A true visionary.
PS: And of course Galliano, McQueen, all the shows they did in the ’90s. They were beautiful. They really were living that fantasy, after which the fashion industry kind of lost that a little bit. Especially in the early ’00s, even the mid 2010s, when we were teenagers. And of course it made sense: there’s a global crash and economic crises and war. But we wanted that beauty, that escapism, that fun.
Now, we live in pretty dark times. When I look at my younger siblings who’ve spent essentially three years of their early life going to school on the laptop, it’s not a lot of fun, they’re really missing out on community, they’re missing out on so many things. And so for us it’s kind of capturing the essence of what those designers were able to make people feel emotionally. Though we strive for our own aesthetic, we are leaning that it’s a gradual process, an onboarding process of taking elements people are familiar with and then pushing it in a way that is new and fresh and exciting.
AA: Part of making our own aesthetic is that we can have an interesting conversation about what is considered to be feminine or sexy or desirable, which has in the past always been kind of led and dictated by men. So, as founders and females in tech, and also as creative directors, it’s important to us to speak our own truth and envision our own view of sensuality and of how a female looks in the 21st century. It’s a strong, empowered, knowledgeable, beautiful female, and that’s also how we see men and non-binary people. So, it’s creating our own story. We definitely respect both physical creations and physical fashion. We respect the tradition we learned from and we want to have our own story. We don’t want to repeat the past.
Q: Physical fashion always features hidden meanings and codes. How does Auroboros work with symbols?
PS: We love them. And that’s common within, the games that we played as kids or the movies that we watched, they’re called ‘easter eggs.’ And our upcoming collection, Mesmer, has a lot of easter eggs, also for the future of what we’re creating. So that will be there. Keep an eye out!
Q: It could be some time before digital fashion becomes mainstream. What needs to change in order for that to happen?
AA: Right now, there is no one use case for digital fashion. It’s kind of the Wild West, people are experimenting, building and learning. We’ve been looking at some very interesting statistics, for example, right now, there are 152 million views for #digitalfashion on TikTok. Shopping platform Shopify recently reported that product listings that have 3D or AR content have a 94 percent higher conversion rate than those without. So the range is vast, from its use in the production of a garment to digital fashion avatars for games, to the realm that we work in. Perhaps if people see it from afar, they might think people are not using it, but its use is already growing – we could even say ‘mainstream.’ But we do need to hone in on what is the use case. We need to ask: who is the audience, is it for entertainment? Or is it for purchase? But I think digital fashion is here and will only grow.
Q: How do you perceive the concept of gender in virtual reality? Do you believe that the digital wardrobe can contribute to further development of gender fluid fashion in the physical world?
AA: ‘Fluidity’ is the key word here. If people want to be a panda or a box in the metaverse they can. In physical reality, you have to face the factor of gender, whether you’re going to the bathroom or filling out documents, but gender has no such significance in the digital space, as of yet. So there’s definitely gender fluidity in digital fashion. Our new collection, Mesmer, caters to that: we’re expanding on a range of femininity to masculinity to in-between space. People can choose how they want to identify themselves and dress, and that’s a great freedom. If our mind was not constantly occupied with such binary things, we could do maybe better things with our time.
Q: Do you believe that the metaverse and digital fashion might help us minimise the damage that the fashion industry causes?
PS: Definitely. This is one of the main reasons we started the brand in the first place, to replace a lot of the physical fashion that people were wearing with digital fashion. There’s a huge ecological difference between digital and physical fashion: the production of digital clothing is on average 97 percent cleaner than a physical garment.
On top of that, when it comes to mental health, wearing digital fashion is so much easier because you get to pick your outfits in a completely different way, you can feel less body conscious.
Q: Can digital fashion be used to benefit disadvantaged or minority groups in society?
PS: Anyone with internet access has access to digital fashion. And also, as a person who has, myself, an invisible disability, but nonetheless one which affects me on a day-to-day basis, it’s really comforting to be able to still, look beautiful, and dress in a certain way, either through my avatar or through digital fashion. Wearing certain clothes will physically hurt me, or be uncomfortable whereas wearing digital fashion is comfortable – and it still makes me feel good about myself, right? So I think this is really, really beautiful.
And, and again, even thinking about your identity through your avatars, I created an avatar that uses my disability as a beautiful asset. I have an issue with my lymphatic system, so my avatar has a web of lymph nodes, almost a vein-like structure of the lymphatic system, adorning me. I have turned it from something that’s pretty draining on a physical level into something really beautiful and uplifting, and joyous in the digital world.
Escapism can also mean not having to show people what you actually look like. A recent study showed that women prefer to not have their Zoom cameras on, they feel they can concentrate more. Digital fashion is going to have a similar effect. You know, some people want to appear as a cat. Yeah. Why not? There’s nothing wrong with it. As long as you’re not scamming people, it’s a fun way of exploring and shifting your perspective about yourself. It’s like that old Oscar Wilde quote, “Give him a mask, and he’ll tell you the truth.” It’s almost as though you can kind of be more your essence.
Q: In terms of inclusivity, potential benefits seem immense.. But are there risks in the digital manipulation of bodies?
PS: Anxiety about a digital version of a human, versus the physical reality, has been around since the ’90s, with concerns about Photoshopped skinny models, and the size double/triple zero phenomenon that was happening when Alissa and I were teenagers. Right now, there is anxiety about digital trends affecting our physical bodies, right? It’s very popular for people to try and look like an unobtainable, photoshopped, Instagram-filter version of themselves. Obviously, a complex discussion needs to be had about this, but, if we move into a metaverse experience, I don’t think it will be harmful. If you’re showing yourself as a cat, or an extra-terrestrial being, it’s not like you’re going to go and have plastic surgery to look like a cat, etc. I don’t know how much anxiety that’s gonna cause. I mean, maybe one day people will just completely lose interest in their physical beings, but I think that is an anxiety we don’t really have to worry about quite yet.
Q: Emotional connection is vital in fashion. But senses are limited in digital fashion because we can’t smell or touch. How do you create that ‘pull’?
PS: This is the core of everything we think about. How do we touch people from the screen? In a sense, we look at ourselves a lot, sometimes like film directors. And that’s how we go about curating a lot of the collections. Thinking about characters, storylines. With our upcoming collection, we’re releasing a cinematic trailer that leads you into this new world. And at the same time, you’re not just a spectator of this kind of marvel on screen, you’re able to participate. You’re breaking the fourth wall, in a sense, as well.
Q: How do you draw inspiration digital fashion trends? Do they exist?
PS: Digital fashion has classically existed either through film or through gaming, which has then been converted into cosplay. So, when a new game comes out, everyone will be obsessed about a certain style, or a new movie would come out, and then people would obsess over that. So, I think, it’s more about certain cultural moments. And right now, certain NFT projects will spark up and have a huge influence on digital fashion culture – two or three times a year, there will be something that drops that people will go crazy for. It’s not like fashion weeks, where the industry gathers and announces new trends and everyone follows them.
Q: Does the metaverse provide you with more creative opportunities compared to the real world? And what are the metaverse’s limitations?
PS: Right now there’s only a limited amount of metaverses. They are not very high fidelity, they don’t yet look like AAA [high-budget] games, which are absolutely gorgeous to look at. That’s not possible in the metaverse world yet, but is obviously being worked on. But that is the missing link that we are really looking forward to.
Right now, for example for presentations, the physical world is still so important. Looking someone eye to eye and speaking to them face to face – that kind of connectivity, which you don’t have digitally yet. That is a massive kind of chunk of work that people building metaverses and hardware really need to figure out, which is where I think things like haptic suits will really come into play, so we can have that more organic, physically emotive, sensual experience within a digital environment.
Q: There are a number of prototypes of the potential future ‘metaverses.’ Which forms have the best chance of evolving and becoming the standard?
PS: We’re speaking to Wilder World, who are building an incredible high-fidelity metaverse, all in Unreal Engine 5. We really love and are big believers in what they are building from what we have seen so far.
It’s going to take them a while to build, but what they are doing is phenomenal, built to very high standards, building the metaverse on photogrammetry of the world. I don’t know how much I’m allowed to actually say, so I’m gonna keep it simple, but basically, they’re starting with one place in the world and building on top of that; it’s a scan of our planet. So, I think that’s just incredibly exciting. And the people who are involved, from the architects to the designers – it’s really next level.
So that’s what we’re really looking forward to, moving beyond and pushing beyond the boundaries of gravity there, in a way that’s beautiful and looks real, but without any physical restrictions.
But I also want to mention Decentraland. They’re working incredibly hard and what they are doing is really cool. And they were one of the first in the space, and I’m excited to see what comes next. Growing up, I also loved Second Life. It was really brilliant. And I remember playing that as a kid and it was just absolutely absurd, how they built it, it just looked cool and felt good. You could just do so much stuff there. You could fly around, and there was all the optimisation you could do to yourself, all the customisation. You could build your whole life there. And people did. I remember reading an article, when I was about 10, about this woman who became the first digital fashion millionaire. And I remember just thinking, “Wow, that’s so cool to think, how many to play this game, you know?”
And, who knows, maybe one day we’ll go into that as well and start building our own worlds. We are definitely capable of everything at this point, creatively.
Q: A final question: would you agree to live in a world where aesthetics is more important than ethics?
PS: Oh, no, absolutely not. Aesthetics without ethics is kind of nonsensical. That’s why we got here in the first place. That’s the reason why so much of Web 3.0 culture, especially in digital fashion, is happening, because the fashion industry was so devoid, of any ethics.
I mean, I’ve worked for both very ‘aesthetic’ and very ethical companies. And I’ve also worked for some very aesthetic and very unethical companies. And let me tell you, I will always pick the first option. Even for capitalistic reasons, if you are more ethical in Web 3.0, because you’re going to make more money from it. So that’s the other thing, criticise that as you wish. But in our case, ethics is at the heart of what we do. There’s no world in which we want to live and have one without the other.
Created with XANDER SMITH DESIGN / DIMENSIONS
Words by Hannah Marriott
This is an excerpt from an article published in the first issue of hube magazine. For the full experience, you can buy a copy here.
