METAVERSE FASHION COUNCIL

WHAT ARE TOKENIZED COMMODITIES? Cointelegraph Key Takeaways: 🤖 Tokenized commodities are digital versions of real-world items like gold, oil or crops recorded on a blockchain. Each token represents a part or whole of a commodity, making it easier to divide and trade. This simplifies buying and selling small portions for investors, provides more liquidity, and offers access to markets that are usually hard to trade in. 💭 Imagine you have a giant pizza that’s too big for one person to eat alone. Instead of giving the whole pizza to one person, you cut it into slices. Now, each person can buy and enjoy the right amount that suits their appetite. Tokenizing physical commodities works similarly. A commodity, like gold or oil, is the giant pizza. Instead of buying the entire commodity (which can be very expensive and impractical), it is divided into smaller pieces called tokens. Each token represents a small portion of the commodity. 🦄 Tokenized commodities become digital tokens, opening up new channels for trading and access for investors. Here are the steps involved in the tokenization process: reate tokens representing the commodity. One way to accomplish this is to establish the property owner’s identity as a legal entity. The tokens enable holders to have a share in the value of the commodity; Smart contracts implement the distribution, monitoring and payment of rewards derived from digital tokens. Once initiated, these programs operate without human interference;  Tokens are distributed to investors via smart contracts through private sales, public sales or a combination of a whitelist model. Whitelisting is a setup that allows only preapproved or trusted users, entities or actions to operate.  💎 Commodity-backed cryptocurrencies are digital assets designed to be more stable than volatile cryptocurrencies. This stability is achieved by linking their value to tangible commodities such as real estate, gold or oil. A company or organization holds the actual goods and issues tokens representing a specific amount of that commodity. The token’s value fluctuates in line with the cost of the underlying commodity.  🎓 While promising, tokenized commodities face challenges. Rules aren’t always clear, as existing ones may not cover them completely. The technology behind tokenized commodities must be appropriately tested to handle the complexity of creating and trading these tokens. LEARN MORE: https://lnkd.in/ecmvSHD8 #web3 #investment #fashion #ai #metaverse

THIS AI PIONEER THINKS AI IS DUMBER THAN A CAT Christopher Mims for The Wall Street Journal Key Takeaways: 📀 Yann LeCun helped give birth to today’s artificial-intelligence boom. But he thinks many experts are exaggerating its power and peril, and he wants people to know it. While a chorus of prominent technologists tell us that we are close to having computers that surpass human intelligence—and may even supplant it—LeCun has aggressively carved out a place as the AI boom’s best-credentialed skeptic. 🦄 On social media, in speeches and at debates, the college professor and Meta Platforms AI guru has sparred with the boosters and Cassandras who talk up generative AI’s superhuman potential, from Elon Musk to two of LeCun’s fellow pioneers, who share with him the unofficial title of “godfather” of the field. They include Geoffrey Hinton, a friend of nearly 40 years who on Tuesday was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics, and who has warned repeatedly about AI’s existential threats. 💡 In person, LeCun has a disarming charm: mischievous, quick-witted, and ready to deliver what he sees as the hard truths of his field. At age 64, he looks simultaneously chic and a bit rumpled in a way that befits a former Parisian who is now a professor at New York University. His glasses are classic black Ray Ban frames, almost identical to one of Meta’s AI-powered models. 🤖 Today, LeCun continues to produce papers at NYU along with his Ph.D. students, while at Meta he oversees one of the best-funded AI research organizations in the world, as chief AI scientist at Meta. He meets and chats often over WhatsApp with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who is positioning Meta as the AI boom’s big disruptive force against other tech heavyweights from Apple to OpenAI. 👾 LeCun thinks AI is a powerful tool. Throughout our interview, he cites many examples of how AI has become enormously important at Meta, and has driven its scale and revenue to the point that it’s now valued at around $1.5 trillion. AI is integral to everything from real-time translation to content moderation at Meta, which in addition to its Fundamental AI Research team, known as FAIR, has a product-focused AI group called GenAI that is pursuing ever-better versions of its large language models. 💎 His bet is that research on AIs that work in a fundamentally different way will set us on a path to human-level intelligence. These hypothetical future AIs could take many forms, but work being done at FAIR to digest video from the real world is among the projects that currently excite LeCun. The idea is to create models that learn in a way that’s analogous to how a baby animal does, by building a world model from the visual information it takes in. LEARN MORE: https://lnkd.in/dZySPcdf #web3 #investment #fashion #ai #metaverse

MEET THE LVMH PRIZE FINALIST PIONEERING PHYGITAL FASHION Bethanie Ryder for Jing Daily Key Takeaways: 🤖 Buzzwords like non-fungible token (NFT) and Web3 may have fallen off the radar this year, but that hasn’t stopped a wave of new talent from charting digital fashion’s path. Next to join the band? LVMH Prize finalist Julie Paskal, founder of eponymous brand Paskal. In partnership with virtual fashion platform Syky, the Ukrainian designer is fusing two current overarching trends – phygital technology and bag charms – in her latest project. 💥 Luxury fashion platform Syky has unveiled the latest release from its Syky Drops series, curated by Artistic Director Nicola Formichetti, on October 3. The limited-edition Butterflower collection by Ukrainian brand Paskal features handcrafted debossed leather key cases in black, baby blue, and pastel pink. Each piece is stamped with the message “Love Is the Key” and comes with a unique Syky-branded butterfly motif, made from recycled materials. This marks Paskal’s digital debut, with every key case purchase including a digital version of the item. 👾 Like Formichetti (former artistic director of Diesel and stylist to Lady Gaga), Paskal’s industry credentials will no doubt play a role in encouraging consumers to splash out on the product, leveraging phygital fashion’s reputation across the sharply critical high-fashion set. As for this drop, the product taps into Gen Z’s current obsession with bag and key charms – albeit with a cutting-edge twist. 🤝 AR startup Ffface.me partnered with communication agency Mazarine and Valentino’s beauty arm to deliver a tech-driven, immersive experience at Valentino’s Spike Me Pop-Up in New York City from October 4 to 5. Central to the event was an AR photo booth, where guests could virtually try on Valentino’s new Spike Valentino Buttery Matte Lip Color collection, before receiving a printed photo of their personalized look. 🐊 Lacoste has launched its first Bitmoji fashion store on Snapchat, in collaboration with Snapchat and DressX. The Fall/Winter 2024 collection, designed by Pelagia Kolotouros, brings Lacoste's iconic tennis-inspired style to digital avatars. This move marks the brand's initial step into the gaming world, offering users a new way to express their personal style digitally. 👻 Lacoste’s launch of a Bitmoji fashion store on Snapchat signals a strategic expansion into the digital and gaming spaces – a natural progression for brands seeking to engage with younger, tech-savvy audiences. By partnering with DressX and embracing digital avatars, the label is positioning itself at the fore of the intensifying virtual fashion movement, where self-expression in the metaverse is becoming as important as it is in the physical world. LEARN MORE: https://lnkd.in/dCVrz3NS #web3 #investment #fashion #ai #metaverse

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URBAN OUTFITTERS SCRAMBLES AFTER IT FAILED TO PIVOT FROM MILLENIALS TO GENZ Chloe Berger for Fortune Key Takeaways: 🍀 In an August earnings call, Urban Outfitters announced one of its main concerns: keeping up with the kids of today who aren’t as down to wear ‘90s-grunge inspired garb. Previously a mainstay of millennials, the retailer has seemingly found itself lagging behind. Now, it wants to court younger suburbanites and pre- and post-collegiates with more focus on denim, loungewear, and newly work-approved athleisure.  📢 “Our segment has seen rapid and seismic shifts as the generational passage from Millennial to Gen Z occurred amidst a global pandemic,” Shea Jensen, president of Urban Outfitters, North America said. “As these shifts occurred and a new generation began coming of age, we lost focus on our customer, and we lost track on how to win with them in today’s dynamic retail environment.”  👾 The lifestyle retail chain behind bohemian-inspired brands with hefty price tags such as Anthropolgie and Free People is reeling not just from a lack of new customers but a loss of repeat ones—citing a decline in retention rates and slowing retail sales in July and August.  “Over time, Urban Outfitters has lost its charm,” said Jessica Ramírez, senior research analyst at Jane Hali & Associates, noting that the store has not had “a good streak in some time.” The mall mainstay was known for its quality and fun lifestyle pieces and now it’s not “the place you would go to anymore for trends,” she added. 🤖 Urban Outfitters shunning the first part of its name for the ‘burbs is perhaps not all that surprising. Abercrombie and Fitch successfully launched a rebrand, noted CNN, although it looked to a more senior clientele and in need of workwear. “There’s a lot of migration going on and retailers are having to follow those patterns,” noted Jessica Ramírez, senior research analyst at Jane Hali & Associates. “Younger generations have been priced out in bigger cities.” 💭 “Even though the consumer is strapped for cash, they’re very laser focused,” Ramírez said, adding that more heritage brands like Levi’s and Ralph Lauren have succeeded by focusing on quality.  Calling Urban Outfitrer’s predicament “self-inflicted,” Ramírez said modern brands must always iterate and respond to the retail state of play. If “you just stay there, that will come back down the line and hurt you. You do have to continue to evolve and I don’t think Urban Outfitters did. It’s outdated.” LEARN MORE: https://lnkd.in/e7-jddWR #web3 #investment #fashion #ai #metaverse

MICROSTRATEGY AIMS TO BE 'BITCOIN BANK' WITH TRILLION-DOLLAR VALUATION:MICHAEL SAYLOR Murtuza Merchant for Decrypt Key Takeaways: 💥 MicroStrategy Inc. is positioning itself to transform how capital is preserved and transferred globally, according to a recent report by Bernstein Research—and the company’s outspoken co-founder Michael Saylor says the company aims to become a “Bitcoin bank” with a potential trillion-dollar valuation. 💰 Bernstein has rated MicroStrategy as "Outperform," with a price target of $290, reflecting a 39% upside from its current price of $209, according to Google Finance. The report states that MicroStrategy’s significant investment in Bitcoin is the key driver behind this optimistic projection. 👾 MicroStrategy has gained attention for its large-scale Bitcoin acquisition strategy under the guidance of Saylor, the firm’s Executive Chairman and former CEO. Since 2020, the company has accumulated 252,200 Bitcoin, or $15.8 billion worth as of this writing, making it the largest publicly traded corporate holder of the cryptocurrency. 📢 “We are in the core business of creating Bitcoin capital market instruments across equity, convertibles, fixed income, and preferred shares,” Michael Saylor said. This approach aims to give investors exposure to Bitcoin’s price movements while offering various risk-adjusted instruments. 📊 Bernstein’s report emphasizes that MicroStrategy’s innovative approach to securitizing Bitcoin has positioned the company as a leader in the space. By creating capital market products backed by Bitcoin, the company provides investors a structured way to benefit from Bitcoin’s performance. 💥 According to the report, MicroStrategy’s strategy gives it a competitive edge in the digital assets ecosystem. The company’s ability to raise capital through debt and equity and reinvest it into Bitcoin has allowed it to capitalize on the growing acceptance of cryptocurrency in traditional financial market. 🐂 Saylor remains so bullish on Bitcoin that he believes each coin will be worth millions of dollars in the future—which is why the firm believes that its current strategy will turn it into a trillion-dollar company, he noted. MicroStrategy currently has a market cap of about $42.5 billion. Only a handful of companies in the world—including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Nvidia—currently boast a valuation of at least $1 trillion. LEARN MORE: https://lnkd.in/dmz4Dqub #web3 #investment #fashion #ai #metaverse

HOW META DECIDES WHAT HARDWARE TO MAKE The Verge Key Takeaways: 🕶 When I recently met with Meta’s top executives, I wanted to know about more than the company’s first AR glasses, Orion.  In the weeks leading up to our meeting, reports had surfaced about new devices the company’s hardware division, Reality Labs, was working on, from camera earbuds to mixed reality goggles. I had also been hearing rumors of tinkering on new variations of AI-enabled wearables. During my interview with Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth just before this year’s Connect conference, we discussed not only some of these possible future products but also how Meta approaches hardware development in general, which I haven’t seen the company explain publicly before. 📢 If there’s a concept that you could imagine, we either have had or do have somebody building a thing around it,” Andrew Bosworth told me. He described a multiphase development process for how Reality Labs takes products from inception to shipping. First, there’s a “pre-discovery team” that is “prototyping the craziest stuff.” They put a “proof of experience” together, and then, after executive review, a “small number” of these concepts graduate to what Meta calls its “discovery” phase, where a product is assigned “a few” dedicated employees to examine what the industrial design would be, along with other factors like cost.  💥 Then, a device enters prototyping, where there are “maybe 10 times more people involved” to build hardware and software that works together. After successfully going through prototyping, a device gets onto the official product roadmap. At that point, “we’ve got a full team assigned to it and the presumptive plan is to ship it.” Roughly half of the devices that get through prototyping go to the final “engineering validation test” phase, which determines whether management kills or greenlights a product to be manufactured at scale and released. According to Bosworth, “about half” of what gets through final validation testing actually ships publicly.  🤖 He acknowledged that, somewhere early in this process, the company is tinkering with the idea of earbuds with cameras, which would presumably be used to sense the world around the wearer to aid the usefulness of the Meta AI assistant. (“We know Apple’s doing a thing there,” too, he mentioned.) He also confirmed The Information’s reporting that there is work underway on a pair of steampunk-like goggles for mixed reality. They recently moved from prediscovery to the discovery phase. LEARN MORE: https://lnkd.in/dPDeTwjn #web3 #investment #fashion #ai #metaverse

WHAT I LEARNED AT FASHION MONTH Imran Amed for The Business of Fashion Key Takeaways: 🔻 From the get-go, the most recent round of fashion weeks felt different. I didn’t make it to New York this season, but as I started meeting with CEOs and creative directors for catch-ups in London, Milan and Paris, it became more clear than ever that the industry is mired in a deep malaise. One CEO with 40 years of experience in the luxury fashion sector said he had never before witnessed such a marked shift in consumer sentiment in all major markets around the world, all at the same time. ♻ The big question is whether the current downturn is a shorter-term cyclical shift, or a longer-term structural cataclysm that will require the luxury sector to make fundamental changes to its business model. The combination of customer resistance to dramatic price increases amid declining quality and ongoing questions about industry ethics and sustainability have dented the perceived value of big brand luxury. 👚 As our sustainability correspondent Sarah Kent reported in a BoF investigation published at the beginning of Milan Fashion Week, the luxury fashion sector is in crisis mode as the industry awaits the results of a government probe into the luxury supply chains of as many as 12 luxury brands, after Armani and Dior were the first to be exposed for relying on an operating model that Italian prosecutors say prioritises profits over worker welfare. 📉 The rapid deceleration in the critical Chinese market was also a hot topic during fashion month. As one person put it to me, a strong performance in China over the last quarter is flat or single digit declines in revenue. The most challenged brands are seeing declines of up to thirty or forty percent, decimating profitability. Consumer confidence in China remains low, as shoppers continue to grapple with a real-estate crisis which has had an impact on their perceived sense of wealth. Chinese customers are trading down, leaving luxury brands in the lurch. By most accounts, the next 12 to 18 months in the luxury sector are set to be very challenging indeed. 💥 Outside the shows, fashion month is usually filled with extravagant dinners and parties staged by brands to create more content and opportunities to wine and dine industry leaders. But, there was a notable pullback in these activations in London, Paris and Milan, and even some of the show sets and venues seemed dialled back as well. I can’t even count the number of times I heard the words “budget cuts” uttered this season. LEARN MORE: https://lnkd.in/dGmn_GVr #web3 #investment #fashion #ai #metaverse

BRAND ACQUISITIONS TAKE ON A TECH COMPONENT, AND CREATIVE CHALLENGES TO AI CONTINUE The Interline Key Takeaways: 💥 Next month, The Interline will be hosting a live, free-to-attend webinar in partnership with TradeBeyond – building on the themes of this year’s AI Report and Sustainability Report to examine how, and where, AI is transforming fashion’s supply chains. The webinar will run for an hour, at 9AM New York (2PM London, 3PM Paris) on 7th November 2024, and will feature scene-setting opening remarks from our Editor-in-Chief, Ben Hanson, a deep-dive presentation from Jeff Alpert, Founder & Ceo of Pillar AI, and a back-and-forth discussion about the tangible applications of AI in the supply chain with André Von Appen, TradeBeyond’s VP of Retail Solutions in Europe. 👾 Swiss luxury group Richemont is breathing a sigh of relief. This week, the company finalised a deal to sell its underperforming digital business Yoox Net-a-Porter (YNAP) to German online retailer Mytheresa – marking the end of a costly venture for the Swiss luxury group.  Mytheresa acquired 100% of the share capital of YNAP, with a cash position of €555 million and no financial debt. Somewhat reciprocally, Richemont will receive a 33% equity stake in Mytheresa. More particulars of the deal include that Richemont will not be able to sell any of its Mytheresa shares for one year, but will be able to nominate a member to the Mytheresa board with a final decision to be made in early 2025. Richemont will also grant a six-year revolving credit of €100 million to assist with YNAP’s general expenses. 💰 They see a big opportunity, clearly – despite it being a tough moment for online luxury – and that their proprietary technology and infrastructure savvy will see them reap the rewards of the future market, projected to balloon to $170 billion in 2030 from its current $80 billion. And they could be right. Mytheresa has solidified its position as a leading luxury e-commerce player, capitalising on the collapse of competitors like Farfetch and Matchesfashion over the past year. 💭 “With this transaction, Mytheresa aims to create a pre-eminent, multi-brand, digital luxury group worldwide,” CEO of Mytheresa, Michael Kliger, said after the deal was revealed on Monday. The acquisition, he added, will create significant value “for our shareholders, brand partners and most importantly for our high-end customers.”  💦 Another brand at risk is Off-White. This week, French luxury conglomerate LVMH announced that it would sell the brand (founded by the late American designer Virgil Abloh) to Bluestar Alliance, a brand management company with a roster including labels such as Tahari, Bebe and Scotch & Soda. LEARN MORE: https://lnkd.in/gzgNxiPB #web3 #investment #fashion #ai #metaverse

WITH THE LAUNCH OF VALIA FASHIO, LECTRA PROPELS FASHION BRANDS AND MANUFACTURERS INTO A NEW TECHNOLOGICAL ERA The Interline Key Takeaways: 🌈 Lectra supports the digital transformation and the transition towards Industry 4.0 of fashion, automotive and furniture companies. The Group has announced the launch of Valia Fashion, its new intelligent digital platform designed for the fashion industry. It combines the power of artificial intelligence and Lectra’s unique expertise in fashion. Valia Fashion connects, automates and streamlines each stage of apparel production, from order processing to fabric cutting, while optimizing the use of materials. It revolutionizes the fashion ecosystem by breaking down the barriers between the various industrialization and production processes to better meet the requirements of brands, manufacturers and subcontractors. 👾 Faced with the technological challenges posed by the transformation of a market constantly requiring more agility and cost control, the transition to Industry 4.0 is a key factor in the performance, profitability and sustainability of production processes. With Valia Fashion, brands, manufacturers and subcontractors in the fashion industry can adapt more easily and quickly, whatever their type of production (small, medium and large series, or on-demand production). 🤖 With the rise of online shopping, the popularity of personalized products, the rapid evolution of trends, costly inventory management and an increased focus on price as well as environmental and social issues, consumers’ patterns are changing profoundly, impacting supply chains and clothing production. Many brands now favor the production of small series, along with and in addition to their usual seasonal collections. 💦 Manufacturers and subcontractors must produce a larger number of smaller orders, limiting economies of scale. They must gain agility and control their production costs while addressing environmental issues. To successfully carry out this transformation, the different stakeholders involved in production must communicate and process information in real time. Digitalization thus becomes essential to collaborate effectively and preserve industry expertise. 💭 “Valia Fashion represents a major technological breakthrough as, thanks to artificial intelligence, it truly brings fashion players into a new era, that of Industry 4.0. It will help them make a leap forward that goes beyond any advance made in recent decades. Valia Fashion has no equivalent on the market. It offers the whole fashion industry a totally new way to meet the challenges it faces during production,” explains Maximilien Abadie, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Product Officer at Lectra. LEARN MORE: https://lnkd.in/gqsxFerj #web3 #investment #fashion #ai #metaverse