My research includes work on developing digital twins [see ‘Digital twins that thrive in the real world‘ on June 9th, 2021] of aircraft, power stations and other engineering systems.  And I am aware of similar work in other disciplines [see ‘Digital twins could put at risk what it means to be human‘ on November 18th, 2020]; but I was surprised to learn about the demand for digital clothing.  Three-dimensional virtual spaces or metaverses exist in computer games, chat rooms and more recently virtual spaces designed for socialising and shopping that are populated by avatars that need to wear something.  So, some fashion brands are producing digital clothing and charging you for the privilege of attiring your avatar with their logo.  In other words, you can buy clothes that don’t exist for people who are not real.  However, DressX has gone a step further producing a ‘digital-only collection’ of clothing for your digital twin or, at the moment, two-dimensional images of real people.  So, now you can buy clothes that don’t exist, superimpose them on pictures of real people, and upload the results to social media.  Perhaps it’s not as crazy as it seems at first because it might alleviate the need for fast fashion to produce single-use real clothes at enormous cost to the environment.  However, dressing up your digital twin does not seem to offer the same level of anticipation and excitement as getting dressed up yourself. (Except in a lockdown? Ed)

Source: Alexander Fury, Virtual fashion: the next frontier?, FT Weekend, 28/29 August 2021.