Metaverse Side Hustles: Avatar Stylist

Fashion has been one of the more receptive industries to the metaverse. Digital fashion has been a major part of Fortnite for over half a decade, with brands like Balenciaga designing skins for the game. Digiphysical goods and NFT wearables did particularly well during the NFT boom. Over 30 retailers have produced metaverse experiences, with brands like Nike leaning heavily on this future. Metaverse Fashion Week in Decentraland consistently draws big names like Tommy Hilfiger and DKNY.

The retail side of metaverse fashion is a great shiny object, with billion-dollar forecasts thrown out constantly. The cat is out of the bag on that one. Most clothing retailers are thinking about strategy in the metaverse.

What I haven’t seen much of, though, is the services side of metaverse fashion: avatar stylists.

Personal Metaverse Stylists

Every few years, I hire a stylist to design my wardrobe. I give them some parameters, the main one being the color black is a must for everything. And they come back with an entire style guide with suggested pieces and fits. It’s one of the best services I use because it takes the stress off shopping and thinking about my style.

Personal stylists will exist in the metaverse. In fact, I think that metaverse stylists will be one of the first services to go big in the metaverse. Why? Because every metaverse user has to style their avatar. It’s just a given. The first thing we do is customize our avatar. And the options are limited.

Metaverse Stylists will provide a service of styling your avatar, and designing unique wardrobe pieces to fit who you are. Imagine having a 1-of-1 metaverse wardrobe.

The role of Metaverse Stylist is a little different than being a stylist in the natural world. One, you need a knowledge of 3D design, on top of your style sense. You need a technical skillset to understand smart contracts, how to mint NFTs, and the necessary 3D file types and upload requirements for metaverse platforms.

But this also comes with new benefits to the stylist. The path to making your own fashion label will be easier than ever. You design, style, and sell your fashion all in the digital format. It’s liberating in many ways.

It may not make sense now. But when you look a few years out, we’re going to be using the metaverse for a variety of purposes, each with different norms. A metaverse stylist can design your entire wardrobe with 5+ complete fits – one for a professional setting, workout attire, metaverse clubbing outfit, social and casual fits, etc.

Avatar styling is a viable side hustle. The demand might not be present today. But I commend these people for starting early and building a brand in this hidden gem of a niché that is metaverse styling:

• Freelance Metaverse Stylists – Julia Levshina, Gemma Sheppard, Michaela Leitz, Monica Quin
• Digital-Native Fashion Houses – AUROBOROS, Placebo, The Fabricant, and Institute of Digital Fashion
• Countless people posting their metaverse fits or selling virtual clothing on DRESSX

There are numerous reasons I think it makes sense to bet on Metaverse Stylist services.

Identity and customization are a huge draw of connecting in the metaverse. This is a premium service that “power” users would be receptive to. When I was recently designing a metaverse I use for content capture, I spent a lot of time dialing in my avatar’s outfit because it’s difficult to make something that looks good and natural in the metaverse. I’d pay for that service one day.

We see more and more celebrities investing in this space, hosting parties, holding concerts, etc… We know this population values fashion, and having the freshest fits in the metaverse is an accolade no one has claimed yet.

Lastly, retailers are clamoring to sell digital fashion in the metaverse, as I covered in the intro to this note. Getting ahead of the culture of metaverse fashion and learning what people want out of their clothing in the metaverse are all competitive advantages in this new landscape. I guarantee RTFKT won’t be the last digital fashion company to get acquired by an incumbent brand.