Pranksy (a play on Bansky) wrote in an email Saturday: “I was really excited about D & G entering the NFT space, especially as my wife, Magpie, and her close friend, one of my company directors, Josephine Dwyer-Mann, have a real passion for haute couture.” Like many wealthy crypto natives, Pranksy keeps his real name secret and would only communicate by email or voice-distorted Zoom. dollars at the market rate, and pay Dolce & Gabbana, less an auction commission. Menon said, because “of provenance rarity - there were only nine, sold at once craftsmanship and utility - people can use them in the metaverse and have physical experiences, too.” In the coming days, he added, UNXD will convert the prices to U.S. The pieces commanded such high prices, Mr.
Dolce & Gabbana did not respond to a request for comment.įive of the pieces were physical creations, designed and executed by Dolce & Gabbana, with virtual iterations by UNXD for the metaverse: two versions of The Dress from a Dream, in gold and in silver, both with shimmering beads and crystal accents The Glass Suit, an emerald green men’s suit, similarly embellished and two gold-plated and gem-studded silver crowns, called The Lion Crown and The Doge Crown. Together, they created Collezione Genesi - or the Genesis Collection (there are said to be more coming). “They were instantly taken with it,” he said - even though the brand is known more for its over-the-top luxury happenings than its pioneering technological spirit (see its semiannual couture Alta Moda weekend, most recently held in Venice in August, during which Jennifer Hudson belted out Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” during the women’s fashion show and Helen Mirren danced to Ciara performing “1, 2 Step” at the closing party). The project was born in April, when Shashi Menon, the Dubai-based publisher of Vogue Arabia, and the founder and chief executive of UNXD, approached Dolce & Gabbana with the idea. “We are moving toward a virtual reality world, and when we get to that state - sooner than we think, in a matter of years - luxury goods will be part of that world.” “In fact, I thought it would come sooner,” Dr. Merav Ozair, a leading expert on blockchain and FinTech professor at Rutgers Business School, concurred. It makes perfect sense that there would be an NFT collector in the world who would value it.” “You have world-renowned designers creating something absolutely unique, with attention to detail - it is beyond what you expect to see in a typical digital rendering - and it’s a one of one. “These prices are not surprising,” said Nick Jushchyshyn, program director for Virtual Reality and Immersive Media at Drexel University. The purchasers included Pranksy and Seedphrase, two leading NFT collectors Boson Protocol, a company building a crypto-commerce protocol and Red DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization formed in the crypto community to invest in digital fashion. Since the announcement, the cryptocurrency’s value has climbed - up 10 percent as of Friday - making the collection now worth $6.1 million as the payment to Dolce & Gabbana will be made at market rates rather than values at the auction’s close. 30 it had sold at auction a nine-piece collection of digital NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, alongside some actual couture for a total of 1,885.719 Ether (Ethereum cryptocurrency), or the equivalent of nearly $5.7 million.Ĭollezione Genesi, conceived with and auctioned by UNXD, a curated marketplace for digital luxury and culture, was said to be the most complex fashion NFT created and offered so far. How else to interpret the fact that the brand announced on Sept.
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The digital world’s cancellation of Dolce & Gabbana after a series of offensive statements about race, sexuality and size, which reached its apogee in 2018 when the fashion house released a video in China featuring a Chinese model clumsily eating spaghetti with chopsticks, appears to have reached a multimillion-dollar end.