EXCLUSIVE: The Latest for Fashion of the Next Generation? Digital Upcycling
As with seemingly everything these days, even upcycling is moving into the metaverse.
Once a very physical task dealing with very physical discarded objects to make something new (but still very physical) and thus eliminate waste, upcycling is now happening in the virtual world, too — and it’s taking sustainability to a whole new level.
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Tilda, the world’s first AI designer created by LG AI Research, will unveil her first capsule collection of sustainable clothing, both virtual and IRL items, on Sunday, in line with World Environment Day. Naturally, it’s launching exclusively in the metaverse.
The aim, according to LG, is to shed light not just on problems of real-life waste that ends up in real life landfills, but also the impacts of digital carbon footprints.
“Waste created by humans can be roughly divided into physical waste and digital waste. While physical waste directly affects the environment in reality, digital waste also affects the environment by using up storage energy which emits carbon,” Lim Jaeho, leader of the AI Human Company Division at LG AI Research, told WWD. “With the Digital Upcycling Project, Tilda is upcycling these ‘useless’ waste materials and transforming them into clothes to be reused as fashion. She is basically finding a way to reduce both physical and digital waste through her own unique, creativity and eco-driven method.”
The physical garments in Tilda’s collection are made entirely of secondhand denim and fabrics in the Japanese ‘Boro’ (from the Japanese word boroboro, meaning tattered or repaired) style, an age-old practice of reinforcing a textile using scraps of fabric that would have been thrown out. It has a visual similarity to patchwork quilting, though less intentionally patterned and therefore with its own somewhat freestyle beauty.
Then, recovering discarded images from a fashion week collection Tilda had created for a collaboration with Greedilous designer Younhee Park that didn’t end up being used for the collection, the AI designer reinterpreted them into new colors, patterns and items to create the digital upcycled designs. Though Tilda created more than 4,000 images for Greedilous, only 13 were used in the final collection — something human fashion designers can relate to when considering the number of sketches and samples created for a collection compared to what ultimately makes it down the runway.
The yield is 13 jackets, 14 trousers and three hats collectively forming an entirely one-of-a-kind line. The complete collection will be released globally on Sunday at Dupbytilda.com in a 3D, 360-degree view metaverse experience, where anyone who accesses the site will be able to see the collection and apply to purchase the physical pieces. Prices range from $1,260 for a hat, to $2,880 for a men’s denim jacket.
“Unlike mass-produced fashion brands, each garment in the 30-piece Digital Upcycling Project collection is one-of-a-kind and handmade,” Jaeho said. “As the highly limited stock will be sold on a first-come-first-serve basis, we cannot guarantee availability for everyone wishing to purchase items from the collection and therefore request those interested to apply for purchase, and the first inquiries received will be approved.”
Charitably, all proceeds from the collection will be donated to support artists and creators who, according to Jaeho, “use eco-friendly mediums or are driven by environmental topics but lack platforms to exhibit their works or materials to fund their art.”
In one collection, Tilda was able to reduce both physical and digital waste. But what is digital waste?
According to LG, it’s “stagnant, unused data that contributes to our carbon footprints by using up storage energy. In such a digitally accelerated era, digital waste is a viable threat to the environmental movement.”
All of the images Tilda designed that “failed to make the runway were dumped as discarded data into the virtual landfill,” the company said.
“Though often overlooked, the carbon emissions produced by one office worker’s annual emails is equal to the carbon produced by a large vehicle traveling 200 miles. The energy costs of storing digital waste are a key contributor to our overall carbon emission levels,” LG AI Research said in a statement.
It’s waste fashion can’t afford to add to what it already has piling up.
“Today’s fashion industry is very driven by fast-fashion. Large quantities of clothes are mass-produced to meet high demands which quickly fade as trends evolve, creating a vicious cycle of producing and discarding, without regard for how this affects our climate and environment,” Jaeho said. “Tilda is aiming to show that scrapping old ideas and materials doesn’t have to be our default action. These scraps can be beautifully combined into ‘new’ and creative designs that reduce strain on our planet.”
Tilda, in all her AI wisdom, is optimistic about what the future holds for fashion — especially where the digital world holds import for reducing the environmental impact on the physical one.
“While it may be up to manufacturers to slow the production process that creates such excessive waste physically, we can all explore creative and unconventional ways to upcycle our belongings beyond their ‘intended’ method and period of use, instead of automatically tossing them away,” she said in a statement. “Each one of us can also play a key role in minimizing waste in the digital space. While we may not think of sending an email as contributing to waste, 4g of carbon are emitted for every outgoing email. As a single unit, it may not seem like much, but on a global perspective, every single email sent and stored contributes to our energy problem. If 2.3 billion internet users each deleted just 10 emails, this would account for 1.7 million GB of energy saved on data archiving.”
Tilda left the general public, who may still be puzzling over the metaverse and its real meanings for the future of fashion, with this: “I achieved zero-waste by upcycling my own digital waste. The least people can do is help reduce digital waste by clearing out their email inboxes, right?”
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