UNXD: The Collision of NFTs and Luxury Goods

Source: Crescent, Rhythm BlockBeats

2021 is known as the "Year of NFTs." In this year, NFTs have been sold for astronomical prices, reshaping people's perceptions and making them realize that "images" can indeed be sold for such high amounts.

When it comes to why these "images" are so valuable, it naturally stems from their fundamental characteristics, namely the immutability, indivisibility, and uniqueness of NFTs as non-fungible tokens. In addition to people's consensus, the endorsement from artists and celebrities has also significantly increased the value of certain NFTs.

Of course, not all NFTs hold extremely high value, but those high-value NFTs share similarities with luxury goods in the real world.

Luxury goods emphasize brand culture, corresponding to the artistic nature of NFTs. Like high-value NFTs, their rarity is created by being hard to obtain, limited in quantity, and having high demand from users. Furthermore, their scarcity brings certain social capital to owners, as well as serving as a means for value expression and collection.

With such similar characteristics, what kind of sparks will fly when luxury goods and NFTs come together?

The Collision of Luxury Goods and NFTs

Some luxury brands have already begun to explore and gradually provide answers.

To celebrate its 200th anniversary, LV released golden postcard NFTs in a game. Last April, its parent company LVMH, along with Richemont brands Prada and Cartier, jointly developed the luxury blockchain Aura alliance chain, and recently announced its virtual ambassador image, making frequent moves.

In addition, many luxury brands have turned their attention to NFTs. At the end of November last year, the French fashion brand Givenchy collaborated with digital artist Chito to launch an NFT series, consisting of 15 different NFTs all minted on the Polygon chain, primarily to promote its Spring 2022 collection. Numerous brands like Gucci, Jimmy Choo, and Burberry have also jumped into the NFT wave.

Dolce & Gabbana is not to be outdone; in August last year, the Italian fashion brand launched an NFT series called "Collezione Genesi" on the luxury market platform UNXD, consisting of 9 items made up of women's wear, men's wear, and jewelry, with a final sale price of about $5.7 million. Today, we will discuss this UNXD platform.

Introduction to UNXD

UNXD is built on Polygon, merging luxury goods with the virtual world to create a curated digital luxury marketplace. It currently supports payments in USDC and ETH, and it is said that more tokens will be added in the future. Just a few days ago, UNXD completed a $4 million funding round, with investments from Animoca Brands, Polygon Studios, and Red DAO.

As a platform for digital art, fashion, luxury goods, and culture, UNXD differs from other NFT trading platforms by focusing on providing high-quality authentic digital products derived from luxury goods. The company's co-founders, Menon and Nick Gonzales, both have backgrounds in the fashion industry. The team claims to have ten years of experience in creation and luxury goods, and they manage Vogue Arabia and WIRED Middle East.

The Arabic version of Vogue (a fashion lifestyle magazine) has reached over 300 million people. Items sold through UNXD not only have digital versions but can also be exchanged for physical versions, allowing users to capture the physical value of the goods and unlock certain privileges. These features belong to the additional functionalities of purchasing NFTs. The connection between the physical and digital worlds provides more usage scenarios for both.

UNXD Offers Unique Works and Experiences

The emergence of UNXD gives brands an opportunity to enter the NFT market. Co-founder Shashi Menon describes UNXD as a "B2B2C" platform. When creators' portfolios undergo "primary sales," UNXD will auction them on the homepage for several hours to days, depending on the scale and complexity of the products.

Collectors can purchase items during the primary sales period using Metamask or the UNXD wallet, and can later view their collections in their profiles. However, UNXD states that to protect the security of users' items, all NFTs on the platform are currently restricted from being transferred outside of it. In the future, once the market launches, collectors will be able to transfer or sell their NFTs owned on UNXD for "secondary sales."

According to UNXD, it is collaborating with well-known brands and will later create its own NFT collections and NFT marketplace. UNXD plans to hold a Metaverse Fashion Week in collaboration with Decentraland from March 24 to 27, featuring runway shows, pop-up stores, and after-parties.

Users can watch fashion shows in this virtual environment and purchase clothing for their avatars (or avatars) to experience the novelty of the Metaverse. Decentraland is also calling on designers, brands, and fashion enthusiasts to prepare to showcase their virtual series of artworks in the Metaverse.

Furthermore, UNXD will soon launch Dolce & Gabbana's DGFamily Boxes, and owning a box will make one a member of DGFamily, unlocking different rights corresponding to three levels: black, gold, and platinum. Additionally, UNXD has collaborated with luxury watch brand Jacob & Co. to create an exclusive NFT series called Astronomia Metaverso, personally designed by Jacob Arabo, the founder of Jacob & Co., which is set to be released. The promotional interface on the UNXD homepage features a unique narrative technique through comic stories.

Combining Physical and Digital

In this ever-evolving Metaverse, avatars and virtual clothing are commonplace, and virtual image companies and wearable devices have emerged. We often want to reflect everything in our reality into the virtual world, so the emergence of virtual luxury goods is not surprising.

Often, after purchasing luxury goods, we worry about buying counterfeit products, but purchasing luxury goods NFTs on-chain is different. It's easy to create an NFT on-chain, and one can easily build a "similar NFT" that resembles a big brand's style. So how do we determine authenticity? The key lies in brand IP; who holds the IP and whether the issuer has authorization are what can certify the "genuine product" for consumers, allowing for easy verification of authenticity and avoiding disputes over genuine and counterfeit luxury goods.

Unlike NFT platforms like Opensea, UNXD focuses on luxury goods, belonging to a niche segment of the NFT platform market. It emphasizes the combination of physical and digital. Other players in the digital fashion space include RTFKT, DressX, The Dematerialised, and The Fabricant.

RTFKT is a crypto fashion brand that has been acquired by Nike, known for creating an NFT sneaker for Elon Musk that once reached a bidding price of 65 ETH. DressX is a virtual fashion platform deployed on ETH, which has collaborated with many designers and brands to create and trade various virtual fashion products.

Users can purchase digital goods from this platform, upload their photos, and receive NFTs that are digitally wearable. The Dematerialised is also a fashion NFT trading platform where users can buy NFT clothing, engage in wearing, 3D interaction, etc. It has also launched a series of NFTs featuring the "Old Buddha" Karl Lagerfeld figurines in collaboration with LUKSO.

Moreover, there will be updates on fashionable clothing for wearable NFT figurines. The Fabricant is also a decentralized digital fashion company that has collaborated with brands like Adidas, Marques Almeida, and Buffalo London to create NFT fashion, allowing ordinary users to create their own outfits and trade or wear them.

In addition to these clothing-related NFT fashion projects, there is Exclusible, a luxury NFT platform primarily designed to release limited edition NFTs for luxury brands in vertical fields such as fashion, beauty, watches, jewelry, lifestyle, and supercars. Another luxury NFT market closely connected to reality is LuxFi, which is backed by real-world luxury asset.

Users can use cryptocurrencies and traditional payments to obtain real physical luxury assets within it. On LuxFi, only verified projects can be converted into NFTs, associating physical items with corresponding NFTs, proving ownership and authenticity through on-chain and NFT characteristics.

The offerings include not only luxury watches and branded bags but will also support shoes, jewelry diamonds, gold precious metals, wines, and artworks and collectibles from artists like Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami, and Yoshitomo Nara (Bearbrick, Kaws, Funko Pop, etc.).

The combination of physical and digital characteristics in UNXD gives works both virtual and physical forms, but currently, its NFTs can only circulate on its own website, which still has certain limitations.

This year, more and more people have begun to show interest in the virtual world, and the emergence of virtual characters like Luo Tianyi and Liu Yexi has continuously brought people closer to the Metaverse. Some luxury brands have also seen business opportunities in this and are actively embracing digital development, trying to carve out a piece of the pie. As traditional brands continue to enter the virtual world, new opportunities are being brought to the market.