PFW: IFM students present their accessories in the metaverse

For the first time, The Master of Arts students of the French Fashion Institute, or Institut Français de la Mode (IFM), unveiled a range of entirely digital accessories. The project presented at the opening of Paris Fashion Week is the result of a partnership with French technology startup Stage11, which designs immersive and interactive entertainment formats for the metaverse.

The thirteen students from the Master in Accessory Design at IFM opened Paris Fashion Week today by unveiling a film designed in collaboration with Stage11, a partner of the French fashion school since October 2021.

In the first stage of this partnership, the project aims to allow students to create objects designed to exist exclusively in the digital world. At a time when the metaverse is emerging as the new evolution for the fashion industry, the IFM aimed to bring the work of its students into the future and thus free their creativity without physical or material constraints thanks to cutting-edge virtual augmented reality technology.

Olivier Ozoux, Chief Technical Officer of Stage11 helped the students create an accessory (bag or shoe) for the digital world to complement their "physical" accessories collections.

"Thanks to Stage11, we were able to provide them with the educational tools, resources and platform to explore digital design and experiences in the metaverse that are sure to change the future of the fashion industry," Ozoux wrote in the official statement.

Gaming in fashion

This co-creative work with Stage11 aims to give IFM students new perspectives on the design and production of their collections.

Making clothes and accessories by and for the digital tool is vast, allowing the students to take a fresh look at their different creative processes. The project was carried out on a beta version of the Unreal Engine 5, well known in the gaming world for its high visual quality.

Over the course of six months, the IFM students developed their pieces for the metaverse, freeing themselves from the constraints of weight or function, sometimes inventing their own textures.

Interviewed a few days before the presentation of their work, the students expressed that they benefited from this collaboration, regardless of their level of experience with the digital tool. Gongzhe Jiang, from China, seeks to transform the notion of function by designing bags with ingenious folds and closures.

"I've never been interested in the metaverse before, and the work process is really different from what I'm used to," she said. "The collaboration with Stage11 has opened up new perspectives on what a bag is, and I now have a greater appreciation for the object after being able to explore the possibilities of creating through the digital tool.

Young designer Jiang presents "Formula to Farewell", a bag inspired by architecture and weaving techniques on which characters move as if through the windows of a building.

Joshua Cannone, a student trained in New York, is no stranger to digital tools. "I have a background in industrial design and I learned to work in 3D. I knew less about animation, and Stage11 gave me that extra something. It's important for me to be able to use these resources to create in a new way.

The thirteen students also worked with Stage11's art director Victor Bonafonte in their graduate shows on Monday. He developed four stunning environments within a reproduction of an IFM classroom created with Unreal Engine 5, in which the students were able to express their creativity without limits.

It was a way to unleash the power of the imagination, but also to give them something tangible. Indeed, each of them remains the sole owner of his or her digital accessory and will be able to sell it as an NFT if he or she wishes to. A new way of highlighting the work of young designers.

This article was originally published on FashionUnited.FR, translated and edited into English by Veerle Versteeg.