NFTs are gaining popularity in luxury fashion. Tiffany & Co. began selling personalized jewelry for CryptoPunks holders, Byredo partnered with RTFKT to develop “future perfume in Web3,” and Gucci is doing fine, as usual. Luxury brands’ relationship with the digital marketplace is complicated. Web 2.0 was built on abundance, lack of differentiation, and personal data exploitation — not luxury codes. NFTs are a Web 3.0 antithesis. NFTs value scarcity, provenance, community, and knowledge. Luxury quickly adopted them.
Access to the secondary market through NFTs fascinates premium brands. NFTs feature smart contracts, so the developer gets royalties when they’re resold. Imagine Dior and Air Jordan getting a cut every time a Dior x Air Jordan 1 is sold. Secondary market sales of the Dior x Air Jordan 1 bring close to $10,000 with many transactions a week. Cue the Gucci Superplastic and Prada Timecapsule NFTs. All these businesses perform digital NFTs, but combining them with actual things is difficult.
“Billions of dollars of brand equity are at stake for these premium firms with their tangible items. If they botch it, it’s a tremendous dent,” says Web 3.0’s gmoney. He possesses a rare CryptoPunk, launched adidas: Into The Metaverse, and vaulted two Air Force 1 x Louis Vuitton by Virgil Abloh NFTs.
gmoney launched crypto-native luxury brand 9dcc last month. ITERATION-01, his first 9dcc T-shirt, may not appear high-end to us. 9dcc pairs physical products with NFT technology from the start, and these NFT projects fetch high-minting prices (around 0.05/0.1 ETH). If successful, they may sell for several times this sum. gmoney and 9dcc are redefining “luxury” and kickstarting what previous luxury companies haven’t done.
gmoney’s moniker came early. In high school, I constantly made money. He was trading stocks at the time, but he “would’ve loved StockX” He appreciates the secondary market’s worth and possibility so much that he “designs for the secondary market” with 9dcc.
gmoney is releasing a limited amount of T-shirts for Admit One NFT holders. Admit One NFTs are reselling on OpenSea for just under 8 ETH (roughly $12,000). This T-shirt has an embedded NFC tag, proving its authenticity. “It’s one thing for a firm to say, ‘We manufactured 100 T-shirts,’ but you don’t know. As a consumer, I want to know because it affects resale.
“What’s a Ye shirt worth?” If someone owned something, it may have more value. In-game Jordan shoes fetch higher prices than regular Air Jordans. The NFC tag can track if Ye West wore a 9dcc shirt and scanned it during an album drop. StockX doesn’t just show you an ITERATION-01 on the secondary market; it shows you when and where Ye wore it. Its aftermarket potential is high.
Let’s consider the archive. Brands quickly lose control of their archives, and it takes years to rebuild. “When brands are starting out, they’re leaner, so they may not have the budget to store product in a vault and keep it pristine. When they start keeping stock, much of the early magic may be lost. Archive diving is a crucial new branding tactic; see Gucci Vault.
9dcc’s open source vault tracks NFC. They can stay connected to their product, and if they want to use ITERATION-01 T-shirts in an archive play, they can buy them back from the community instead of scouring vintage stores and secondary markets. Traceability tracks ownership. 9dcc can trace the owner of a product not listed on OpenSea and offer to buy it back.
gmoney: “Everybody wants to bring their crypto flex into the real world.” By wearing a 9dcc ITERATION-01 shirt with an NFT, you increase the value of 9dcc and the product and NFT you are holding. Imagine you’re courtside at a Lakers game when LeBron James had a career-defining night. What if the tee performs a “check-in” function at the game? The secondary market may value that shirt more.
If an ITERATION-01 bearer is encouraged to wear the brand, everyone wins. The holder gains cultural experience, and 9dcc’s product value rises.
High-value cultural items are currently vaulted to prevent damage. 9dcc will offer this as well, but now holders have a choice: vault their ITERATION01 shirt to preserve its value? Or do they use it in cultural events to increase its value? 9dcc is ready for either.
gmoney’s large community and demand for his NFTs show the potential of launching a crypto native brand. His differentiation lies here. “You might buy a Dior shirt, and it might mean a few things to a few different people, but no one will think it’s crypto native.” In early pitch decks, RTFKT said they were building Nike’s digital roadmap. In many ways, 9dcc is building the new secondary market roadmap for fashion. “I’m going to push boundaries. Not everything is going to work, but at least I’ll learn from it and get a step in the right direction. Disruption is what happens in this space.”
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