Over releases Metaverse Fashion Week 2023 schedule featuring Pinko, Balmain x Space Runners, Ilona Song x Vogue Singapore, Ecoolska, XR Couture, and other prominent digital couture brands and traditional fashion houses.
Milan, Italy — March 31, 2023 — Over, the pioneering augmented reality (AR) metaverse platform, has announced that fashion brands and metaverse projects, such as Balmain, Marco Ruffa from Italian fashion brand Pinko, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Ecoolska, XR Couture, PricewaterhouseCoopers Italy, Polygon, Ilona Song Fashion House and Vogue Singapore, will be attending its much-awaited Metaverse Fashion Week 2023 (MVFW23).
Over is co-hosting MVFW23 alongside two other major metaverse projects, Decentraland and Spatial. Themed “Future Heritage,” MVFW23 will explore the creative realm where tradition and innovation meet, focusing on digital-physical crossovers and cross-metaverse initiatives. Over’s hybrid event, facilitated by the Municipality of Milan, is thus a key attraction at MVFW23.
Decentraland, Over, Spatial and other organizing members aim to translate the multi-venue experience of fashion month into the virtual realm through this second edition of MVFW. The organizers are also dedicated to providing better brand support this year besides implementing other lessons from MVFW22. The festival is thus expected to have a greater impact than last year’s 108,000 guests and 165,000 wearables.
Meeting physically, connecting virtually
On March 31, 2023, Over will stage a unique hybrid fashion show at a prime location in Italy’s fashion capital — i.e., the Piazza del Duomo, Milan.
The Municipality of Milan is a patron of this virtual AR catwalk, where digital avatars will showcase designs by emerging and established fashion brands. Over’s AR-powered app will provide attendees with an immersive physical-digital crossover experience while unfolding new avenues for brands to communicate their creative ideas.
Besides the hybrid fashion show, the event will include an exclusive AR experience featuring Bored Apes, CryptoPunks and a special panel with speakers from the Municipality of Milan, PwC Italy, founder of LA’s Phygital Fashion House Ilona Song, and Pinko digital transformation director Marco Ruffa. Moreover, the managing director of Istituto Marangoni, Stefania Valenti, will provide a keynote address on this day, and Balmain x Space Runners will present the “Unicorn” nonfungible token (NFT) collection.
Highlighting the hybrid nature of Over’s events, Won Soh, co-founder of Space Runners, said, “We’re thrilled to showcase our Balmain x Space Runners collection at Metaverse Fashion Week in Milan, where we can stretch the identity of the digital Unicorn shoes in physical environments. Over the Reality provides the right mixed reality experience to show just that.”
Fostering creativity, engaging the community
Over is also organizing the world’s first cross-metaverse creator contest where fashion designers will compete to create interoperable digital wearables for avatars across Over and Decentraland. The vision behind this competition is to nurture creativity in fashion design in the context of tech-driven principles like interoperability.
The contest aligns with Decentraland’s initiative to support next-gen digital creators — i.e., MVFW Neo — aiming to provide a platform for budding designers in the physical-digital fashion industry. The top five creators will win the contest and share a prize pool in the form of the OVR token worth $10,000. Their works will also be featured in a special event in the Over ecosystem on March 28, 2023, starring globally acclaimed DJ Regard.
According to Over chief operating officer and co-founder Diego Di Tommaso, “The community is at the heart of the metaverse experience offered at Over. So, giving a new breed of digital creators the chance to showcase their work alongside leading fashion brands is a dream come true. We believe this is a game-changer for fashion and look forward to showcasing it to the industry in Milan.”
Similarly, noting the overall significance of their events at MVFW, Davide Cuttini, CEO and co-founder of Over, said, “Fashion was among the first industries to recognize the incredible potential of the metaverse and Web3. This is because of the many avenues that these domains open up for fashion, from design to retail. Over extends this horizon further by uniquely merging the virtual and physical worlds using augmented reality. Together, these present a massive opportunity for brands, designers and retailers to reach consumers, anytime and anywhere.”
About Over
Over is a pioneering AR metaverse platform merging the physical and virtual worlds into a new dimension accessible to everyone. Leveraging blockchain technology and Web3, Over empowers creators to publish, own and earn rewards for their content besides the opportunity to collaborate with other creators on the platform. Over also unlocks novel, immersive marketing and activation strategies for brands and organizations, offering features like in-store 3D experiences and AI-powered avatars. Moreover, Web3 and e-commerce integrations provide innovative channels for launching and showcasing products with Over.