Luis Fernandez has been working– through his multi-disciplinary @LUISFERN5 Creative Design Agency – in fashion, tech and experience, and on projects from architectural design to creative branding, fashion, and FashTech ventures. Formerly of CraftAtlantic and Number:Lab, the CFDA member is deeply immersed in the NFT, Digital Fashion, and Metaverse worlds and sees much value for fashion. We spoke to Luis about these new frontiers and how fashion can benefit from them.
What have you been up to since moving to LA?
The move to LA was a much welcome change of pace and scenery. There is a growing creative energy out here that is really exciting. It’s enabled me to really push forward as a hybrid-creative. I’ve been focusing on projects that combine the different disciplines that I’ve spent my career in – architecture, fashion design and retail – all linked by creative design and strategy. The projects have been fairly diverse ranging from residential and retail architecture and experiential spaces to fashion brand collaborations. Lately, I have been immersed in the NFT, Digital Fashion and Metaverse worlds, creating a couple of projects in the various platforms.
What inspired you to explore the Metaverse field?
It was a total fluke that I fell into the Metaverse (no pun intended), but the more I was researching it and learning about the technicalities and opportunities that it presents, it just really made a lot of sense. I have long been on the search for a convergence of the digital and the physical as a kind of holy grail to the experiential “Store of the Future,” and the Metaverse as the future of innovation and technology really allows for that kind of integration quite seamlessly. We are still miles away from an “Oasis” type of world, but it’s sooner than we think. I see the kids from my son’s generation who have already developed quite a natural language in the Metaverse (think digital video game worlds) so it only makes sense that this next generation will be much more fluid living in the two worlds simultaneously. And that’s exciting, especially the utilities that these digital worlds will offer.
Describe what it is and some of the projects you have worked on.
Simply put, the Metaverse is the collective linking of all digital worlds. Even though we don’t exactly think of it that way, we already spend quite a lot of our time in some sort of Metaverse – Zoom, Instagram, Amazon, Facebook, Uber, etc. Now, imagine a digital world that could stitch all those platforms together, and give us a digital space that we can ”walk into and around in,” to execute utility that we can’t achieve in the physical world. I end up citing Steven Spielberg’s’ movie “Ready Player One” a lot in order to explain what it could be, but also to warn of the danger of what it could become. For me, as with all technology, it has to be seen as an enabler of efficiency and an enhancer of the physical world, not replace it; hopefully, there is the opportunity that through both, we are building a better world collectively.
At the moment, I’ve got a few projects going on in the Metaverse aside from creating and selling “digital art” NFTs and learning the space, the community and the key players and platforms. As funny as it sounds, my first project was a commission to conceive and design a house in the Metaverse for an art collector. When I accepted it, I thought it would translate fairly easily from my architecture work, but as we got going on the project, we really started to re:think everything – how you use space in the Metaverse, what is the purpose and use, there is a loss of physics and materiality that can be a great opportunity, how do you travel through it, and so on and so forth. Now we have several other clients and projects going – an art gallery space that will be sold as an NFT, a yoga and meditation pavilion, and a conceptual strategy for digital fashion and a “retail” space (with major emphasis on the air quotes!).
What is it about Metaverse that excites you?
It’s all exciting, really, especially that feeling of being at the edge of something new that is pushing boundaries (quite literally). Having spent a large part of my career in fashion and design, it is the utility that the Metaverse offers to creativity, retail, and design that I find the most exciting. Don’t get me wrong. I love the craft, the materiality, and the fabrication of ‘real’ physical design, especially when they are beautifully made, but in the last couple of decades, we have been burdened with MAKING, making lots of STUFF, tons of STUFF just for the purpose of consumption and selling more. That over-manufacturing has had a huge toll on the environment. So here we have an opportunity to design, make, create things that don’t exploit the environment and resources, while returning to making less in the physical world and making it “better” and only what we need. As I mentioned before, one of my missions in the work that I am doing in the NFT and Metaverse is to have one foot in each so that the outcome is a cohesively “better” world all together.
How can fashion benefit from it?
I think every brand and designer can script the benefit they want to get from it with the exception of ignoring it or just not adapting. It brings to mind the mid-2000s when brands/retailers questioned whether they really needed to have a website or an eCommerce site, and whether it “devalued” their brand. In this case, multiply that utility x 1000. There is a lot to gain from the convergence of storytelling, content, and “experiential” that is at the root of it, but also the ease of the purchasing transaction, and even a transfer of profitability into a whole other world and sector. We have already seen some major design brands developing and participating in digital fashion and the Metaverse, and I’m really excited to see how some utilize this new technology to a whole new level in the upcoming shows in Paris and Milan.
How do you hope designers can maximize this new technology?
The options are endless, but for me is the use of this new technology to really tie these five pillars together seamlessly: product, image, narrative, space, and experience. I know that’s a mouthful, but it really just all comes down to those senses, and it’s up to each brand to determine how to effectively activate all those “senses” to build a complete world for their consumers. I think there is also the hope that as an industry we can use this new technology to make a better impact and just be less wasteful, but more creative.
