Global Vogue titles unveil oceanic metaverse world to showcase digital talent

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Throughout the past month, global Vogue titles have explored the theme “Fashion’s New World”, reflecting shifts in culture and talent. Increasingly, that includes digital art and virtual fashion. Now, that theme is extending into a virtual world, opening today globally.

Called the Vogue Meta-Ocean, the experience includes an above-water exploration followed by a mythical underwater world, featuring work by 24 artists including 3D digital sculptures, nominated by editorial teams from global Vogue titles including India, Australia, Mexico and Latin America, Japan and China. Many of the pieces are inspired by the pages of various Vogue September issues and wearing digital fashion, with additional artwork and artists expected to be added over time. (Vogue Business and Vogue share the same parent company, Condé Nast.)

“Fashion has always been about creative freedom and about challenging norms. Whether or not you’re already getting dressed in a metaverse, the new thinking in digital fashion and virtual fashion is fascinating to see,” says Anna Wintour, chief content officer of Condé Nast and global editorial director of Vogue. “Designers who work in this way are only going to become more known and more influential, and I will be eager to see what they do next.”

Contributing artists include India’s Anushka Tendolkar, who created sculptures as part of the underwater city of Atlantis; France’s Samy LaCrapule, who drew from Italian Renaissance canons to make statues depicting Bottega Veneta, Versace and Valentino; and China’s Momo Chen, whose work (originally created for Vogue China’s January issue) captures the five elements as defined by Chinese philosophers.

The Vogue Meta-Ocean was initiated by Vogue China as a way to build on a previous Vogue China metaverse creation: Infni+, an avatar introduced in June on the cover of a companion title called Vogue+, which invites cover stars to curate separate bi-monthly issues. Infni+ (pronounced Infinity) was designed by Chinese digital artist Cattin Tsai using Epic Games’s Unreal Engine. The Meta-Ocean was conceived as the virtual “home” of Infni+, enabling the concept to extend beyond the page, says Vogue China editor-in-chief Margaret Zhang, and a group of Chinese writers, artists, poets and virtual avatar talent helped build Infni+’s backstory.

To fill the underwater world with global art, Vogue China sent an “open call” for nominations from global editorial teams, says Zhang, who has been in the role since February 2021. “The ocean as a concept is so global, so we used it as her origin story to showcase digital art and talent around the world.” Much of the art references fashion, as an effort to explore both how fashion shows up in metaverse spaces and “how digital fashion changes the way we approach shoots”, Zhang adds.

Tsai, who was the guest editor of the title’s June issue (along with the fictional Infni+ character), also contributed works inspired by the marine life of the ocean, imagining a “parallel universe” that offers “a different understanding of the creatures themselves”, Tsai says, as the virtual ocean world also serves to spotlight endangered species of marine life in support of ocean conservation.

Future global plans for the Meta-Ocean include additional creators and works, plus digital collectible sales, including NFTs (where laws permit), in support of campaigns that promote ocean awareness and literacy, in partnership with luxury NFT platform TRLab.

Magazine publishers have long curated artworks and special garments, and this project extends that into the emerging worlds of the metaverse and Web3, which at times face confusion or scepticism from those loyal to the traditional. Some digital artists find success in bridging the fantastical through the familiar. Australian artist Justin Ridler contributed work that merges photography with CGI (computer-generated imagery), nodding to physical-world garments from Louis Vuitton, Windowsen and Mugler. “There’s an aesthetic tendency towards creating that which is physically impossible,” says Ridler, who worked with his fashion designer wife, Sarah, on the project. “It’s becoming increasingly central to our work to hold back on that and ground the work in something that we at least feel is understandable within the human experience.”

Zhang acknowledges that the speed of change has been dramatic. “There hasn’t been much time for restrictive norms or expectations to stifle innovation, and we see much greater diversity in thought. Each piece of digital fashion or art in this virtual showcase is completely different in style and story to the next.”

Magazines and fashion are still navigating how to interpret the next phase of the internet, which promises to be at least as influential as the advents of e-commerce and social media — and equally as antithetical to tradition and heritage. Asia might offer fertile territory for pushing these boundaries. “Digital and virtual art has become such an integral part of the local visual language — not only in the art world, but also among China’s most innovative fashion designers,” Zhang says.

Zhang adds that the Vogue China audience, regardless of age, is extremely tech literate, meaning that they are more familiar with how to navigate virtual worlds, especially on mobile devices. Even food delivery apps, she says, might have a virtual gamified experience. “Mobile video gaming is on an exponential trajectory.”

Gaming — often considered a gateway to metaverse experiences — has an estimated audience of 488 million in China alone, according to data from gaming platform Geeiq. The global gaming audience is approximately 3 billion users, with 1.6 billion users in the Asian-Pacific region, according to data firm WARC, and the popularity of South Korea-based Zepeto — often compared to Roblox — has attracted brand partnerships including Gucci, Puma, Marine Serre and Ralph Lauren. This has inspired many global luxury brands to create virtual experiences and assets. Vogue Singapore has also been an early adopter, having introduced multiple metaverse and Web3 projects — including Balmain’s first-ever NFT via a flaming digital dress — and a virtual world on virtual reality platform Spatial.io to coincide with its September cover.

Most recently, Vogue China partnered with tech company Alibaba on an augmented reality fashion show in which “super mascots” from luxury brands walked virtual runways. In August, Burberry, partnered with Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) to dress its avatars in 18 free virtual outfits; the related hashtag generated 15 million views on Weibo (a microblogging platform), Geeiq reports. Air Jordan recently teamed up with Tencent’s immersive interactive space Super QQ Show to dress avatars and virtual homes with virtual goods.

Ridler notes that the Vogue China community seems to have more of an appetite and understanding of the relationship between technology and luxury, than his native Australia, which is “quite conservative in that regard”, he says, adding that most commissions in the past three years have come from relationships within China and the US. “For fashion, it’s a natural extension of what we create on set. It seems like the Vogue China community is more excited by ideas within this space.”

In September, Vogue China launched a video-first cover story for which digital artist Sølve Sundsbø captured China’s next generation of supermodels in a hybrid 3D-scanned and photographic tableau, designed to generate conversation on whether fashion imagery should use technologies such as digital art, 3D scanning and beyond; this led to total reads of the two “owned hashtags” for this issue reaching almost 27 million. On Wechat, a social media and messaging app, Vogue China has 3 million followers, according to data provided by Condé Nast.

“The formats and possibilities for creators are boundless and the barriers to entry are relatively low, so we see much greater diversity in thought,” Zhang says. “We’re excited to see how it continues to evolve as we discover more creatives around the globe.”

Additional reporting by Madeleine Schulz

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