The Fabricant: A Completely Digital Fashion House
How 3D modeled pieces are taking over the fashion world in the blink of an eye
Hey guys! Welcome to this week’s newsletter! Last week, we discussed the newer and more innovative materials that will take over fashion in the future. Haven’t read it? Check it out below!
This week, we’re talking about a brand that uses another newer and innovative method of creating clothes- nope, it isn’t materials or fibers again- but an utterly digital brand. The Fabricant1- an Amsterdam-based clothing brand, sells only ready-to-wear digital clothing items created completely from 3D modeling. It produces fashion design and animation in photo-real 3D, which can be used in digital fashion editorials, digital clothing, and occasional collections.2
The fashion house, created by Kerry Murphy and co-founded by Amber Slooten and Adriana Pereira, has an extremely immersive website as well, showing off its employee’s prowess in 3D fashion and UX design. Yes, it is as futuristic as it sounds, but more beautiful than ever imagined. The Fabricant also showcased the co-created NFTs in the first-ever “Metaverse Fashion Week”. But how did this all start?
Murphy quotes,” The Fabricant was born out of the intersection of fashion and technology. My background is in visual effects and I witnessed how technology has increased creative freedom and reduced waste in the film industry.”
He says his co-founder, Amber Slooten was the first fashion graduate to develop a fully digital collection and saw the opportunity to make clothes and experiences that are always digital, never physical.3
Creating a brand like this comes from the belief that a digital-only fashion arena is a place of freedom, fantasy, and self-expression and that brands and individuals can be helped and allowed to explore this place and its unlimited possibilities.
XXories out in the wild- clients wearing digital jewellry
Immediately after creating the brand, they decided to start selling, with Europe as their main market, trying out and experimenting with customer bases. When it comes to the cost of each digital garment, Murphy says it’s all up to the users in the end. Through blockchain, a digital couture piece was sold for $9,500, displaying that there is a customer base for digital items and they do hold value.
The Fabricant not only makes their own creations but also widely helps other brands to enter a “phygital” or digital-only universe. Their collections like ‘Wholeland’ and ‘The World Of Women And The Fabricant' showcase multiple unique pieces. Each garment's or accessory's aspects can be clearly sensed due to the 3D rendering and animation.4
The fabricant is only one such brand to be at the vanguard of the digital fashion movement, out of many present or yet to come. The response to 3D fashion is collecting momentum and will continue to do so in the future. Once more brands wake up and learn how to harness the power of 3D fashion, digital clothing could be the answer to so many of our problems- wastage of resources, fast fashion, ‘I have nothing to wear’ and rather than a threat, the digital-only fashion sector is an opportunity for the industry to return to the heart of what fashion was always meant to be-to allow us to fully express our identities and individuality with no negative consequences.