How NFTs are Changing our Understanding of Fashion

An interview with Jacob Safar from LOAK

Written by Giovan Michael at Mesh Mosaic

Since we moved out of the caves and into our houses, clothes have served a deeper purpose for humanity than simply keeping us warm. The way we dress tells others about our values, our political disposition, and our social status. Senator Alexandria Ocassio Cortez demonstrated what a powerful tool fashion could be when she showed up to the Met Galla in a designer dress that read “Tax the Rich” along the backside. Both her supporters and her detractors have been debating about this dress for weeks, and if a simple piece of white fabric with red lettering is enough to incite on-line screaming matches, I think it’s clear to say that fashion is important to absolutely everyone, no matter what we say.

The way we dress constructs our persona, and fashion represents the way we all tell the world the story of who we are. It’s form over function. But what happens to fashion when form overtakes function entirely and the physical element of our garments simply ceases to exist? With the current renaissance of NFTs and Augmented Reality(AR), fashion designers are having to consider these questions in ways that they have never needed to before.

Even If you are unfamiliar with the term “Augmented Reality,” you probably use it every day. The filters on Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok that change our faces, give us sunglasses and tattoos, or adorn us in flower crowns are all examples of AR technology. But imagine a world where a set of AR glasses is as commonplace as a smart phone. Where everyone would have a pair and we could take these filters with us into our everyday lives. More than that, these filters can cover our bodies and our clothes, allowing us to have outfits that defy the laws of physics.

Through AR glasses you will soon be able to wear a flaming tux to work, or go out to eat in an astronaut helmet, only the flames won’t burn you and the helmet won’t get in the way of your meal. Any outfit you can imagine, any character or costume, will be available for you to wear. What’s more, is that through the power of NFT’s you will be able to own these non-physical items of clothing.

Recently, I sat down with Jacob Safar, the CEO and founder of the NFT fashion brand LOAK. LOAK makes designer sneakers, hats, headdresses, and everything in-between. Each LOAK item is an NFT, meaning you can prove that you own it through the block-chain, even if you can’t touch it. In our interview, we touched on topics like the future of the fashion industry, the utility in NFT fashion pieces, and the very meaning of fashion. So without further ado, lets get into the interview:

Giovan: Were you a shoe collector before you started LOAK?

Jacob: I used to be a huge sneaker head. That’s kind of where all of this clicked for me. I was already in the fashion hype industry: I was into wearables. I had Yeeezy’s, I had air Jordans. I was a big Sneaker head.

G: Since NFT’s and sneakers have a similar collector culture, was it an obvious move to sell AR sneakers as NFTs?

J: Honestly, when I first started playing with NFTs I didn’t really connect the dots right away. I was distant to the idea of NFTs for a hot second even though I knew about them, but I thought “what’s the point?” And for most NFTs I still think “What’s the point?” Other than pure art you can still right click and save the file. You have literally the exact same thing. But after having a lot of conversations about NFTs, it kind of clicked because I was thinking about how people care about having authentic sneakers even though you can have the exact same replica from the black market. You can buy a fake Yeezy or a Fake Jordan, but you’ll know it’s fake. No one else knows its fake. You could own an NFT image, but you know it’s not the real thing. People love knowing that they have the real thing. It’s all psychological.

G: So, before LOAK, were you selling sneakers, or just collecting them?

J: Prior to LOAK, I was building a curating a platform. A digital marketplace where people could buy and sell their sneakers. And then it took a complete 180 pivot when we stared working with NFTs.

G: What is the design process like for these NFT sneakers?

J: We have designers on our team. Digital renderers, 3D renderers, animation artists. Right now, we’re working with celebrities like Hip-hop artists — I can’t disclose their names because of NDAs — but what’s interesting with these artists is that it’s almost like we’re fulfilling a dream in the digital space that couldn’t happen in the physical space. Like some of these artists didn’t get the opportunity to get their own sneaker like Kanye West. They’re just not there yet. But we take the production line away and we tell them: “This is actually going to be the future of fashion, and you can be the beginning of it.” It’s kind of fulfilling a dream of theirs. They can have their own line of clothing, sneakers, and merchandise, but in this entirely new space.

G: So is LOAK exclusively a sneaker company, or do you make other things as well?

J: We’re doing all kinds of clothing. Sneakers is the easiest concept for people to get their head around because it’s already such a thing. But imagine you’re going to a concert, right? Like, you’re going to Travis Scott’s concert and alongside his physical merch store, he has his digital merch store.

A lot of these artists are super into fashion, and now they can make clothing lines that are super cool, and you can defy physics in some cases because it’s all digital. You can let their creativity go wild in creating these fashion pieces that are collectible, and actually wearable in augmented reality.

G: So, as far as AR goes, do you think we’re looking at a world where everyone is going to have glasses? Do you think these glasses will be as ubiquitous as the smart phone?

J: Yes. The iPhone removed friction that was there in people’s lives right? Whether it’s writing things down or taking pictures, there were all different types of friction, and the iPhone removes that friction. So, what’s the friction that’s currently existing that is going to be removed next? It’s picking up the phone. So, if you remove that friction point because these glasses are always on your face, it allows you to basically interact with everything in a new way.

G: What is the relationship between NFTs and AR?

For us it’s about building utilities into these NFTs. In my opinion NFTs need to have utility in order for them to really carry long-term value. And Augmented Reality is definitely a utility within that. They need to have utility to hold their value indefinitely. You can wear them, you can show off these NFT limited edition digital sneakers you bought by a certain hip-hop artist. It starts off with augmented reality, but there’s so many other spaces that the ball is also rolling in, which is super exciting.

What if your NFT AR sneaker, — jacket, headdress, whatever you’re wearing — what if that is also transferable into decentralized application and decentralized gaming? So, what if you could take your NFT clothing piece, not only wear it in augmented reality and real life, but what if your characters clothing piece also turns into some sort of special power and you can use it within a game? So all these different things are in motion, and it’s super exciting, because we’re trying to be the leader in these spaces.

G: So what would you say to people who think that going into AR and the Metaverse would be a bad thing?

J: It’s an interesting future that we’re building, and we’ve just got to build it in a non-dystopian way. We have to avoid the dystopia that everyone is worried about, and make sure that it doesn’t become Ready Player One.

Digital assets are similar to any other assets that people own, and people who own the majority of certain assets are going to have certain powers in certain fields. Web3 was founded on the Basis of decentralization and giving access to everybody. But if it’s accessible to anybody, than somebody with a bunch of money can completely buy control. And that’s exactly what is happening. People are constantly manipulating these markets. I mean, Elon Musk manipulated the market. You tell people Tesla accepts bitcoin and prices will get jacked up, and then you pull the rug out from under them. So it’s happening in front of our eyes currently, not just in some distant future dystopia.

G: Are the big names in fashion like Gucci and Prada going to become involved in this space eventually?

J: In the terms of the big fashion brands, they are 100% going to be in the digital wearable space very soon. And that’s something that I want LOAK to be front and center for.

G: So that you can get a head start against these bigger brands?

J: No, it’s not really that.

G: Oh?

J: We want to be making these wearables FOR companies like Gucci and Prada. We want to be able to work behind the scenes. All these fashion brands who want to get into Web3 e3ventually, who are going to have to get into Web3, we want to be who they come to.

G: Do you have any competitors.

J: It’s interesting. There’s people who are making augmented reality fashion pieces. But there’s no one I know of that’s really doing it where they’re trying to build the infrastructure behind it. There are people making NFT sneakers, that’s not new. There’s also people who are building in AR, but that’s not what we’re trying to do. That’s only the front-facing side of LOAK, but that’s not the infrastructure that we’re trying to build. We’re trying to build the infrastructure behind all of it: allowing people to express themselves, in whatever way that may be, whether its fashion pieces or avatars, it’s allowing people to express themselves in ways they couldn’t imagine on this new decentralized web.

G: So less like a fashion brand and more like a textile mill?

J: I like to compare it to Lexotica. They are a physical sunglasses manufacturer. They make almost every single designer sunglass. So, if you’ve ever bought a designer sunglass, whether it’s Ray-Ban, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, you name it, they make it. But you have no idea who they are. But, it gets a little bit deeper than that. because they don’t just create the sunglasses, they also own the Sunglass Hut.

G: And Sunglass Hut owns every sunglasses store ever, right?

J: Exactly. So basically, something like that, but for the entire fashion and self-expression industry within Web3. But we are also trying to do that in a way that doesn’t take us down that weird Dystopian rabbit hole.

G: Ok, so this is getting into the field of Ethics, now.

J: Well, I took a class on Data Ethics at UC Berkeley, and it influenced a lot of what I do now. I love data and the things you can do with it, but data comes with certain responsibilities. And Facebook obviously is a company that doesn’t care about people’s data, or as far as we can tell. But that class I took showed me all the things you can do with data, and all the ways it’s been misused in the past, even before we had the internet .So, ethics in data is extremely important.

G: So are you trying to avoid becoming a Facebook?

J: I think any startup that has any kind of ethics should try to avoid becoming a Facebook.

I also hate the idea that this could be limited to somebody. I want everyone Ideally to be able to own an NFT if they wanted to, to be able to purchase one of these without having that insane financial burden. I don’t want to limit people from getting into that new space that allows them to express themselves in ways they couldn’t imagine. And everyone should be able to do that, right?

G: So do you think that the AR world and the Physical World will be able to exist in harmony?

J: Yes. Take these artists we work with as an example. They give us their ideas. They give us what they want to make, and we’re basically making their dream come true with these clothing pieces. And it’s super exciting because imagine you’re going to a show in Japan, and there could be some special NFT drop that’s happening at each of these cities, specific to each of these venues. And that also doesn’t only translate to the physical world. There are already concerts that are happening online. So what if there’s a booth, like a literal merchandise booth right next to a digital one?

G: It sounds like you want the best of both worlds. A deeply involved digital space that also enriches the physical space.

J: Exactly. It’s literally the merging of everything. It’s making that mixed realty become a thing. I think augmented reality will be very much appropriated in our everyday lives. Hopefully in the next 5–10 years. Who knows, but there might a drop in the next week. Snapchat might just become an Augmented reality company. They’re already spending billions of dollars on Augmented reality. If you think about it, a face filter is AR. People don’t realize that as they change the way they look in the digital space, they’re already engaging in AR.

G: So do you think this new NFT fashion industry will disrupt the physical fashion industry, or do you think they’re two different worlds?

J:I think it’s two different worlds. Because you can wear whatever you want to wear. Like ideally you can turn on a LOAK lens from your AR glasses, but you can also be wearing whatever you want underneath it. The cool thing is, if you’re not feeling whatever you’re wearing you can change your AR clothes at any minute. There’s no restrictions.

But also: maybe we need to question what fashion is. Is it only clothing pieces? Or do people literally want to be AR characters? Our imagination is our only limit. We can take it wherever we want to go in our minds.

LOAK will be making some very big drops very soon. If you want to keep up with them you can find them on Instagram: @LOAK or online at www.LOAK.co/ for