Maison Margiela is deepening its ties with both Web3 and the wider gaming universe. The Paris based house helmed by John Galliano is launching digital collectible versions of its iconic Tabi split-toe shoe silhouette.
Dubbed the Maison Margiela MetaTABI, two editions, in white and black, will be available to mint as nonfungible tokens (NFTs) which come with a range of digital, physical and mixed-reality utilities.
The project has been created in collaboration with digital fashion house, The Fabricant, and supported by Brave Virtual Xperiences (BVX) which is the Web3 and virtualization unit of Margiela’s OTB Group owner.
“In a time where we are seeing technology being integrated more and more with the physical world, it is fundamental for the luxury industry to experiment and explore these digital realms,” Maison Margiela chairman Stefano Rosso who is also CEO of BVX.
Rosso’s statement, shared with Forbes, continued that the maison believes it is innovation that holds the key to advancement within the industry. It also underlined the value of fusing such digital innovations with physical craftsmanship.
The Fabricant co-founder Kerry Murphy added that the phygital pieces represented “a revolutionary format for Maison Margiela’s iconic Tabi boot,” one that blends tradition with innovation and “redefines the fashion experience.”
The Fabricant has previously partnered with both physical and digital design houses including Off-White, adidas, Diesel, and RTFKT.
Murphy described how users can experience “an immersive preview of the Tabi boot via augmented reality (AR), while the physical-backed token offers access to a new world of utilities and benefits.”
The white edition, an ultra limited run of 15 MetaTABI digital collectibles comes with an exclusive, custom-made physical Tabi boot while the black, a larger run of 1,500 comes with a custom Maison Margiela leather wallet.
Both will also allow owners to experience the product via AR utilities and also flex within a range of Ready Player Me compatible gaming integrations and metaverse worlds. The collectibles also represent a mint-pass that will give their holders priority access to future collections in the maison’s Web3 roadmap.
The MetaTABI Collection will be deployed on Ethereum mainnet, and available to mint on The Fabricant platform via a Multi Token Minter smart contract from Aura Blockchain Consortium. They will be tradeable on OpenSea and any ETH marketplace integrated with ERC-721 smart contracts.
This new initiative follows Maison Margiela’s launch of Numbers last year—a gamified Web3 minting experience based around the famous numeric coding system of its physical collections.
Both MetaTABI editions are scheduled for release towards the end of March. All those who successfully secured Numbers tokens, Maison Margiela very important customers, The Fabricant community members, and also those signing up for the pre-sale newsletter and Discord channels will be invited to mint the exclusive MetaTABI 12 hours ahead of the public launch.
Margiela joins other luxury brands like Dior, Gucci and Louis Vuitton in linking digital and physical assets via blockchain while the gamification angle has notably also been incorporated of late by adidas, Gucci and Lacoste to name but a few.
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