The industry's challenge is "lack of venues to showcase"
Realizing a new fashion experience
As interest in NFTs and the metaverse grows, their use in the fashion industry has also been explored in recent years.
As a global example, Nike, a well-known sports brand, obtained a patent for digital sneakers in 2019. Since then, the company has focused on the Web 3.0 field, and last year announced .SWOOSH, a platform that allows users to issue shoes and accessories that can be used in games.
In Japan, Joyfa, led by CEO Hiroshiro Hirate, is also working on digital sneakers.
The digital sneaker issuing platform Freedom is characterized by its use of NFTs from famous projects such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and Azuki, and its high design quality may attract even more attention in the future.
Hirate: I was in charge of business development at Enjin, a company that deals with NFTs and entertainment. When I joined the company in April 2020, there was almost no interest in NFTs, including people in the crypto industry.
However, since then, the NFT market has grown at an astonishing rate, and as a business developer, I was also looking into use cases other than entertainment, and I felt that the field of "NFTs x digital fashion" had great potential.
If we could create a system that allows fashion items with asset value in the digital world to be redistributed, we might be able to create a new market. I've always loved sneakers, so after thoroughly researching this area, I founded Joyfa in May 2021.
In a word, I think the current challenge facing digital fashion is the "lack of a place to show it."
Even though it's digital, it's still fashion, so it only becomes a user experience when other people see it.
However, at present, the NFTs you purchase are just images and videos, so there is no particular fashion experience. Also, even if you buy an NFT that supports the metaverse, there are few participants, and I think many people have had this experience.
I think the key to the future of digital fashion is how to create a place to show it. At Joyfa, we are also taking on various challenges this year and hoping to build new use cases.
◉Kojiro Hirate
Profile│After graduating from a university in the United States, he worked on launching new businesses at a venture company. Since 2017, he has been involved in the blockchain business, leading blockchain projects in the fields of data management, securities trading, energy trading, and other fields at companies in Japan and Singapore. In April 2020, he joined Enjin, a company developing an NFT x entertainment ecosystem, and is promoting business partnerships with domestic and international companies. In May 2021, he founded Joyfa Co., Ltd.
