During this year's "618" shopping festival, the reporter brushed the dynamics of a beijing fashion institute student in the circle of friends, he was accompanied by several hand-drawn sketches and appeared on Tmall Big Name Day to create the "M-" series of virtual clothing, which was the first time that the reporter saw the graphic design sketch of the virtual clothing and the conversion of the final effect in its entirety.
In the past two years, the fashion industry has accelerated its digital transformation, virtual fashion has flourished, and virtual fashion and virtual image spokespersons have emerged in an endless stream. From major brands choosing CGI (computer-generated imagery) virtual characters as brand spokespersons, to the emergence of Tribute Brand, a brand that specializes in "virtual fashion", to the holding of Meta-Universe Fashion Week (MVFW), brands and companies are trying to connect with the new generation of fashion enthusiasts through new technologies and new platforms.
This magazine interviewed the design team of the "618" Tmall big name day "MOMagazine Meta-Universe Show" virtual clothing, designer Gai Gai will talk about the hottest virtual clothing at present from her point of view.
Is virtual clothing the inevitable direction of future clothing development?
The Tmall "Meta-Universe Show" is themed "Mobius" and is performed by the hyper-realistic digital people AYAyi and Noah. Brands such as Off-White, Xiaopeng Motors, Yunnan Baiyao, Budweiser, MAKE UP FOR EVER, AMBUSH, and Lu Xue have launched corresponding virtual costumes.
Regarding the view of virtual fashion, Gai gai said: "In my personal perception, virtual clothing is the inevitable direction of the future development of clothing. In fact, for those of us who studied clothing engineering, virtual clothing is not a new word, I was exposed to virtual fitting very early in school, but at that time this software was not yet commercialized, it was a tool for research and learning. After the epidemic, activities such as virtual fitting and online exhibitions have unique development conditions. As far as the Taobao platform is concerned, at present, consumers can enter their height, weight, three circumferences and other data online, and can get a recommended size when purchasing clothes, with the improvement of technology, consumers can also add body proportions, 3D appearance images, etc., more intuitively see the virtual image of these clothes, so that for merchants and consumers can better save time and economic costs. ”
Compared with the traditional physical clothing design, virtual clothing does not have to consider the landing of clothing materials and processes, and has greater freedom in design. "The happiest point of doing virtual fashion is that you can not consider the possibility of process implementation, you can maximize the design, how to come out of the sky, and the effect of 3D presentation is much better than two-dimensional space, and the content expressed after rendering will sometimes be closer to the inner thoughts than physical clothing." Gai Gai is happy that she can express her design concept more freely, but as a designer under traditional clothing education, she also has her own headaches, "From the difficulty point of view, the technical support for making virtual clothing is more complicated, and the texture of the fabric depicted in the software is more complicated, and the hardware requirements for the computer are also very high."
The cover briefly describes to us the steps of virtual clothing design from flat 2D to 3D virtual sample: "The front is the same as traditional clothing design, first use paper and pencil to draw your own ideas and design sketches, and then use PS or AI to draw renderings, indicating color, material, texture, style drawings. The production of 3D renderings, we are working with Style 3D software company to complete, 3D clothing modeling technology, they are professional. ”
In the past, most of the design and training done by fashion designers in the process of learning professionals was mainly hand-drawn and plate-drawing, and rarely 3D modeling software was used as the main design software to learn and use, but with the development of technology and the diversification of social needs, the requirements for clothing designers will be higher and more diverse, and designers can only keep up with the wave of digitalization, continuously learn new technologies, and open up new horizons to not be eliminated.
Will virtual clothing compress the living space of traditional clothing?
Low-carbon, environmentally friendly and sustainable is the general trend of the development of the apparel industry, like the environmental protection trench coat with 100% polylactic acid content launched by Xtep a few days ago, which reduces the harm to the environment by using biodegradable environmental protection materials.
Virtual clothing directly reduces pollution and waste in the process of clothing research and development and production from the source, so will its emergence and popularity compress the living space of traditional clothing enterprises? Gai Gai believes that "virtual clothing is a sublimation of traditional clothing design, from the cost control and low-carbon environmental protection level, can reduce a lot of unnecessary paper and waste of facial accessories, the effect of clothing can be seen directly from the computer, to avoid a large part of the time cost and production cost of waste." Regarding the living space of traditional clothing brands, it is mainly to look at the market." Brands and enterprises that do design with care and a sense of social responsibility are more aware of the convenience and benefits brought by virtual clothing and technology, and can seize the opportunity to go to a higher level, while enterprises without original ability will lose competitiveness or even be eliminated.
Can the original protection of virtual products only rely on raising technical barriers?
As long as there is design and creation, it is inseparable from the eternal topic of original protection, and the NFT digital art collection is no exception, and the "MetaBirkins" virtual handbag created by american NFT artists at the end of last year was accused by Hermès of plagiarizing the design of hermès platinum bags. Whether it is the plagiarism of physical designs by digital collections or the plagiarism between virtual products in the same category, infringement cases in the apparel industry occur frequently, and if original products cannot be effectively protected, it is undoubtedly a blow and harm for original designers.
As a designer, Gai Gai rational analysis: "If the virtual product is two-dimensional, only the serial number is protected, for the current degree of science and technology, it is very difficult to protect, but if it is three-dimensional technology, it is more difficult to imitate it at present, and it needs relatively high technical support, so for now, I personally feel that the originality of the virtual product is mainly based on the technical content of the final effect of the product." ”
Interview here, the same study of design from the reporter himself, can feel the helplessness of the cover cover to say these, there are too many brands in order to save design costs and deviate from the original intention of the design, choose to directly buy clothing that meets the preferences of the public consumers for disassembly, copy, revision, and then sell at a price lower than the original design, such vicious competition squeezed out many high-quality original design brands and designers.
In the era of digital economy, the means and methods of infringement in the apparel industry have become more and more diversified and complex. It is urgent to comprehensively strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights in the garment industry, and only by maintaining the order of fair competition in the industry can we promote the high-quality development of the industry.
In order to better protect the intellectual property rights of garment enterprises, the China Garment Association and 28 brand enterprises issued the "Self-Discipline Convention on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in China's Garment Industry" on June 16 to jointly promote the healthy development of China's garment industry.