Luxury Brand Gucci Reportedly Eyeing NFT Space

Luxury Brand Gucci Reportedly Eyeing NFT Space

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Key Takeaways Gucci and a host of other luxury fashion brands are weighing up releasing their own NFTs, Vogue Business has reported.

NFTs could be used to create digital fashion items and certificates of authenticity.

Despite the fashion industry’s interest in the space, some signs suggest the market is overextended.

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NFT Gucci slippers? According to reports, it may be happening soon.

Gucci Looking at NFTs

Gucci and several other luxury brands are considering launching NFTs, Vogue Business has reported.

A Gucci representative told the outlet that it’s “only a matter of time” before a brand such as theirs enters the NFT space. The report mentions “multiple industry sources” that have suggested other luxury fashion houses are preparing to launch their own NFTs.

Natalie Johnson, CEO of digital fashion startup Neuno, also told Vogue Business that the company is working with five luxury fashion brands. She said:

“We want to be the universal 3D wardrobe that plugs into everything. For example, imagine if somebody bought the iconic J Lo Versace dress on our site.”

Neuno appears to be targeting the NFT space; it will run on the Flow blockchain from Dapper Labs.

NFTs, otherwise known as “non-fungible tokens,” are digital assets that get tokenized on the blockchain. Mostly found on Ethereum, they can be used to verify the rarity and ownership of digital art, music, tweets, or another type of asset.

In games like Decentraland and Aavegotchi, NFTs represent rare clothing items, something the fashion world could adopt. They could also be used to create digital skins of popular brands and provide certificates of authenticity. For example, when someone buys a $5,000 Gucci handbag, they may also receive a token that verifies the item is a real Gucci piece.

NFT Market Shows Signs of Cooling

Despite the fashion industry’s reported interest in the space, several indicators suggest that the NFT market is overextended.

CryptoPunks, among the earliest and now most sought after NFTs, have seen a crash recently. The floor price for a punk has fallen roughly 40% to around 15 ETH, about $30,937.

Meanwhile, The Weeknd, one of the world’s biggest pop artists, raised a relatively modest $2.29 million from his first NFT drop over the weekend. The most valuable piece, featuring a full unreleased song, sold for $490,000 and attracted few bids in the closing hours.

In another sign of a bursting bubble, a tokenized version of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi,” the most expensive piece of artwork ever created, is currently up for auction on OpenSea. Author Ben Lewis minted the piece, telling The Art Newspaper he planned to share the profits from the sale with the Hendry family, who sold the painting for $1,175 in 2005. He said his target price was $450 million, the same price “Salvator Mundi” sold for at Christie’s in 2017.

However, bidding is at only 0.23 ETH (under $500) with 19 hours to go.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.

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Gucci, other luxury fashion brands are poised to launch NFTs: Report

Gucci and a number of other luxury fashion brands are reportedly close to launching non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Vogue Business reported the news on Monday, saying Gucci recently confirmed to the news outlet that it’s “only a matter of time” before it will release an NFT. Several other luxury fashion brands are close to releasing NFTs, Vogue Business reported, citing “multiple industry sources.”

Fashion collectibles platform Neuno, for instance, is currently working with five luxury fashion houses on launching NFTs, CEO Natalie Johnson told the news outlet. “We want to be the universal 3D wardrobe that plugs into everything,” said Johnson. “For example, imagine if somebody bought the iconic J Lo Versace dress on our site.”

Neuno is built on Dapper Labs' Flow blockchain, according to its website. Johnson said customers would be able to buy NFTs with their credit cards, removing the need to own cryptocurrency.

NFTs are digital certificates or tokens tied to unique collectibles. They have grown significantly in popularity in recent months, especially after one of Beeple’s NFTs sold for nearly $70 million last month.

More than $300 million worth of NFTs have been traded in the past 30 days, according to tracker Dappradar.com. NBA Top Shot remains the top marketplace, followed by CryptoPunks and Rarible.

Luxury fashion brands poised to join the NFT party

Non-fungible tokens are all the rage, but for luxury fashion brands they pose questions — in abundance. Will the crypto-wealthy, who are mostly young and male, be interested in luxury fashion NFTs? What would they look like and would buyers get any utility from them? Would they be brand dilutive? And will the complexity of setting up cryptocurrency wallets be too much of a bother for luxury consumers?

While each new day brings another breathless story on a new non-fungible token (NFT) record sale, the luxury fashion world has remained relatively quiet. But that’s about to change. Fashion brands have been studying the wild, wacky world of blockchain and all its creative and business possibilities. Now they are poised to jump in.

Gucci recently confirmed to Vogue Business that it’s “only a matter of time” before a brand like Gucci will release an NFT. In addition, Vogue Business has confirmed with multiple industry sources that a number of luxury fashion houses are close to releasing NFTs. “The question is just who will pull the trigger first,” says Marjorie Hernandez, founder of Lukso, a blockchain platform that works with fashion brands. “Luxury brands were behind on the e-commerce trend, so there’s now more of a willingness to experiment with new technologies like blockchain.”

In recent months, says Hernandez, “every single fashion person I’ve ever talked to” has asked about what they can do in the NFT space. Anything digital, from art to music to fashion can be turned into a unique NFT with its ownership recorded on a digital ledger, or blockchain. Proponents say that NFTs are the next evolution of digital fashion skins, which have already been embraced by luxury fashion brands. They claim that NFTs’s scarcity and ability to accrue value can bring digital fashion closer to real fashion.

The race to create the Net-a-Porter of NFTs

NFT use cases are currently in their infancy, especially for fashion. “Right now, fashion being sold via NFT is fashion as art, and not necessarily fashion as a utility,” says Cathy Hackl, CEO of the Futures Intelligence Group, a company that advises brands about how to approach new technologies and virtual goods. “We’re eventually going to get to the point where there’s more utility, but we’re not there yet.”