Virtual fashion: DressX, the first virtual couture e-shop

Before founding the DressX label in July 2020, Daria Shapovalova – who notably launched the Mercedes-Benz Kiev Fashion Days to promote Ukrainian fashion – and Natalia Modenova, took care of the More Dash showroom in Paris. Passionate about fashion, digital and technology, the two Ukrainians had the idea in 2019 of creating an e-shop dedicated to 100% virtual clothing inspired by or reproducing couture creations. While, in real life, the prices of this type of item reach tens of thousands of dollars, for a maximum of $200, DressX offers on its e-shop extraordinary virtual dresses, as glamorous as they are sophisticated, which after purchase, will be digitally added to a photo provided by the customer. Number interviewed the founders of DressX about virtual fashion and its impact on contemporary fashion.

ISSUE: How did you come up with the idea of ​​launching an e-shop entirely dedicated to virtual fashion?

Daria Shapovalova: After more than 10 years in the traditional fashion industry, we wanted to contribute to a meaningful transition to a more sustainable, affordable and digital future. After some research, we discovered that 9% of customers in developed countries buy new clothes with the aim of having a photo taken for their social networks. So we created a new way to buy content to feed these networks. Advantage of the virtual: each girl has the possibility of wearing any dress, and it costs her 10 times less than in the physical world. As we spend more and more time on social media (up to 100 million images are uploaded daily), content becomes a major asset, as important as our physical possessions.

What convinced you that customers would be willing to pay to buy 100% virtual clothing?

Natalia Modenova: To test our idea, we first launched several digital content-oriented pop-up stores in Los Angeles in 2019, and came to the conclusion that people like to create dedicated fashion content for their social media posts, share it with pleasure, and are willing to pay for it. So, since many fashion items are only used for content creation, these garments don't need to be produced – they can only exist in cyberspace. One of the biggest challenges in growing online retail today is returns after taking a photo in the delivered garment.

How many people work for your brand and what are their jobs and skills?

Daria Shapovalova: Currently we have 12 people in DressX core team plus other collaborators located all over the world. Key members of our team are the Head of Product, a first hire and expert with more than 15 years of experience in the technology and mobile software industry, as well as a Chief Technologic Officer, who has developed various products for 10 years consumer technologies for international markets, who lead the technical team. Our company is also supported by a Chief Sustainability Officer who leads the development and execution of our eco-responsible activities, an art curator, a strong marketing team, 3D and 2D designers and account managers.

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Natalia Modenova: In the 6 month period since the launch of the DressX platform on July 27, 2020, when we were just 3 people, we grew up mainly in the technology and development. The demand for virtual fashion is growing rapidly, and we provide high quality service and powerful technology solutions to our customers.

What is your ambition today with your DressX virtual brand?

Daria Shapovalova: With DressX, we want to revolutionize the fashion industry and make it more sustainable, by digitizing physical clothes and replacing them with virtual models for digital content creation . Our primary goal is to sell one billion digital fashion items. Knowing that the fashion industry produces 150 billion physical garments each year, we aim to replace at least 1% of traditional physical goods with the digital alternative. We also aim to do this in a transparent and convenient way for customers.

What is your relationship with real fashion, like ready-to-wear and couture?

Daria Shapovava: Most of us will never be able to buy a real high fashion outfit that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. We like the idea of ​​making them more accessible, and allowing more people to be able to afford these exceptional creations in their digital version.

Natalia Modenova: As for the ready-to-wear collections that we have digitized, we have designers whose outfits or accessories usually cost several thousand dollars, which you can wear for less than $50.