With over 10+ years' experience in the creative and design industry, Paul van Raak, Creative & Brand Design Director at Mobiquity shares exciting details about the the UNFUR project. A Digital Fashion Collection to fight the fur industry
Digital fashion brings positive change to animal cruelty in the fur industry
Digital technologies always drive change to industries including the fashion industry. It's exciting to see how Web 3.0 and metaverse makes us (makers, strategists, developers, entrepreneurs, etc.) rethink the way we engage and communicate with our audiences.
Like we are doing now with UNFUR, by looking at how we can use a digital fur fashion collection to remind people about the lasting atrocities of the fur industry.
Fashion is becoming one of the biggest industries to leverage these virtual environments. More importantly, it will be able to continuously enrich and expand its borders in metaverse. We will be able to experience the unlimited possibilities given by the designs of our fashion collection.
The execution of such designs and the environment around them don’t take into account any physical limitation of the fabric such as gravity, weight or, in our case, the use of a garment that is scarce and not acceptable to wear in the physical world.
Using different virtual fabrics, redefining, and developing new manufacturing and creative processes gives designers these unlimited possibilities.
Fur fashion to fight the fur industry
We created the UNFUR project to fight the fur industry which is still thriving in various parts of the world. Many different animals are raised in captivity to be exploited by the fur industry such as minks, foxes, chinchillas, raccoon dogs and other animals are trapped in the wild like beavers, seals, or weasels.
The UNFUR project intentionally brings tension between buying a digital fur fashion piece (because it is considered beautiful) while you are aware that this should not be bought in the physical world. We use this duality as a trigger to drive the audience to bid on one of the UNFUR NFTs and by doing so support the fight against the fur industry.
UNFUR collection designed in collaboration with University of Westminster Fashion Institute
Digitizing fur was completely new area for my team. One of the biggest challenges we had to overcome was reproducing the texture, the folds, and the motion while showcasing the designs on virtual models.
There aren’t a lot of high-quality executions using fur. High-end digital fashion agencies such as The Fabricant (the frontrunner in digital fashion design in my opinion) and various contemporary fashion houses do have fur in their digital fashion designs, but our ambition was to develop an almost complete fur collection.
Next to the digital fur fabric challenge we had to deal with our own budget which was non-existent. The tremendous efforts and energy were sourced from the many evening hours we all spent making this project a success. I am not only referring to Mobiquity and Hexaware colleagues, but also to the Fashion design students from the University of Westminster, the International Anti-Fur Coalition (IAFC) and other partners we collaborated with.
The five fashion designs made by the University of Westminster are auctioned as NFTs on Rarible.com and the complete earnings from the UNFUR project will be used to fight the fur industry. The auction is scheduled for a period of 6 weeks starting from June 14 onwards. Once we launch our UNFUR collection at MET AMS, people can make their bids and be part of this fight against the fur industry.
As said, the auction will take place on Rarible.com, because we are aware of the environmental impact of the minting process that must be done to generate the NFT’s. Flow is the most environmentally friendly option for us. According to the latest 2021 data usage report it only requires 0.18 gigawatt (GWh) of energy per hour which is significantly lower when compared to other blockchains
UNFUR collection launch @ MET AMS
Partnering with METAMS gives us the great opportunity to launch the UNFUR project We will kick off the project at the Legendary Dinner on the evening of June 14th where guests will have the exclusive possibility to bid on the first UNFUR NFT.
On the 16th of June I will join the panel discussion; “Blockchain for good, charity & transparency in metaverse where I talk with Charlotte Schroots and Mathys van Abbe about "good" initiatives and possibilities in metaverse and web3.0
During the entire event, our project (including all five NFTs) will be showcased on a fantastic installation, where you can immediately place a bid on one of the UNFUR NFT’s.
We are excited to launch our UNFUR project at MET AMS, so just come and join our cause!
Interested in finding out more about UNFUR collection or metaverse? Contact me!
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