Five Metaverse Creators You Need To Know
PAIGE SILVERIA
FASHION
20 NOVEMBER
Five Metaverse Creators You Need To Know
Tap these creators for your next luxury product or space.
Editor’s take
Web3 has officially taken over the industry as this generation’s pivotal platform — following the emergence of e-commerce and social media in the early ’00s. From Kering’s new CEO appointee of Gucci Vault and Metaverse Ventures, the launch of web3 hub Balmain Thread during PFW, Carolina Herrera selling a digital dress for $5,000, and everyone from Tommy Hilfiger to Vans buying spaces on Roblox (where more than 50M users are active daily), it’s indisputable that major brands investing themselves in web3 is paramount to survival — and installing a CEO-led team is well-advised. However once firmly in the realm of meta, there’s always the constant trial to break through the noise and dominate headlines and feeds. The right digital design collaborators can keep a brand competitive and culturally relevant.
With this in mind, here are our five favorite boundary-pushing digital designers:
Crosby Studios
Known for his monochromatic, yet vibrant industrial aesthetic, Russian-born, New York- and Paris-based artist and designer Harry Nuriev of Crosby Studios creates both physical and digital interiors, design objects and garments. The latest output from Nuriev was a VR-driven pop-up retail space with Zero10. Presented during NYFW, the temp space featured five virtual clothing designs by Crosby Studios, which guests were able to try on in AR using a special QR code. Others he’s collaborated with on digital projects include Valentino, Nike, Hypebeast and Vogue. It’s rumored that currently, Nuriev is working on a design game in The Sandbox where players can create their own interiors.
Max Arnautov
Digital artist and designer, Max Arnautov has been gaining recognition for his fake collaborations with Kanye’s Yeezy and Demna’s Balenciaga. What started as an experimental Instagram account, has morphed into something of a calling card for the Russian artist. Regularly modeling his original digital garments and accessories, inspired by the aforementioned designers, the rendering of a face-helmet version of the Yeezy foam shoes especially had many in the metaverse vying for the physical manifestation. It can only be a matter of time before this artist is picked up for a proper partnership.
Actual Objects
Since opening shop in 2018 with producer Nick Vernet, Rick and Claire Farin of Los Angeles-based experimental creative studio Actual Objects have worked with major brands, magazines and artists including Marine Serre, Hood by Air, Vogue, Ssense, Travis Scott, and Trippie Redd to digitize their visions. With a truly radical and particularly transgressive approach, the AO team’s work is almost immediately recognizable. Despite their differing backgrounds — Claire’s in drawing and painting and Rick’s in architecture and music — the two collaborated for several years before the formal outfit was established. Now they specialize in digitizing not only famous faces like Grimes’, but also whole metaworlds, using the platform Unreal Engine, to exact their unique uncanny photorealism.
Freeka Tet
Freeka Tet is a Paris-born, multi-city-based experimental artist and designer whose broad practice includes coding, prosthetics, animatronics, hacking, video plunderphonics and more. Inspired by Internet culture and the sometimes irrational social behavior within, his work critically, yet playfully reflects what he sees. Collaborations include multiple Collina Strada campaigns, including the animatronics for FW22 and Collina Land video game with GucciFest for SS21; an animated NFT with the cult musician Aphex Twin; the digitally manipulated stage video for Machine Gun Kelly and Travis Barker’s performance at the VMAs in 2021. Other clients include Childish Gambino, Chromeo, Google, Prada, Nike and The Whitney.
Zyva Studio
Zyva Studio is a Paris-based architecture firm, founded by artist and designer Anthony Authié. An active participant in the exploration of both physical and virtual architecture, since 2019, he’s since further developed his concept of “trans-design,” bridging the two worlds and their occupants. Inspired by a broad range of influences from reality TV to Manga to body builders, his work’s quickly recognizable by its vibrant colors and almost cartoon-like, unreal presence. His most recent project, commissioned by Elle Décoration France for their Paris Design Week project D3SIGN CAPSULE, was an NFT collaboration with fellow designer, Sam Buckley. The two pulled from their shared appreciation for computer games to create a digital chair, whose many Tetris-inspired, multi-hued parts can be rearranged to the owner’s liking.
Cover Image: Crosby Studio/ Balenciaga
the web 3 hub to fashion sciene and culture
the web 3 hub to fashion sciene and culture
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