The 16th edition of Blenders Pride Glassware Fashion Tour, powered by Fashion Design Council of India, has reimagined its iconic legacy to bring a more youthful, inclusive, and innovative edition this year. In its cutting-edge new avatar, the Fashion Tour has stepped into the Metaverse in an industry-first move to create a first-of-its-kind amalgamation of fashion and technology.
As a first mover in the Metaverse in India, the Fashion Tour launched ‘Blenders Pride Glassware Fashion Tour Park’ in Decentraland, a global web3 platform, where renowned global brands have created immersive metaverse experiences for their fans. Aligned with the new vision of Blenders Pride Glassware Fashion Tour, the Metaverse experience allows the brand to engage with young audience and build a community that is youthful, inclusive and takes pride in evolving with the changing times.
The highlight of the Fashion Tour Park in the Metaverse—India’s first metaverse-exclusive fashion show—premiered on December 10, 2022. It featured outfits from the ‘Style Gallery’ exhibit of the Fashion Tour called ‘This is not a T-shirt’ project. These were uniqueT-shirt outfits designed by 60 designers & homegrown fashion labels, who embellished and/or deconstructed the basic T-shirt to celebrate their authentic interpretation of the four themes of ‘Pride’ showcased in the four city chapters this year. Among the celebrated designers and labels are Shantnu and Nikhil, Amit Aggarwal, Falguni Shane Peacock, Kunal Rawal, Anamika Khanna, Gauri and Nainika, Rina Dhaka, Payal Jain, Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna, Huemn, Jaywalking, Satyapaul and Lovebirds, among others.
Besides the exclusive fashion show experience, the Blenders Pride Glassware Fashion Tour Park features multiple interactive areas, gamified zones and showcase areas, with several engaging activities in store for users to interact with. The overall metaverse experience has been designed to be inclusive, highlighting themes of body positivity, gender fluidity and freedom of expression, among others. Decentraland, the chosen web3 platform for the Fashion Park, is a highly inclusive, decentralized entity that has actively shown support for LGBTQIA+, and differently abled communities.
Among the various fashion & lifestyle experiences available in the Fashion Park in Decentraland, guests can visit the Lounge, a zone that houses all the information about Blenders Pride Glassware Fashion Park, where they can claim a free ‘Proof of Attendance NFT’ from the POAPBooth. At the Designer & Trial Zone, users can try-on and buy one-of-a-kind wearable NFTs from renowned designers of the tour – Shantnu and Nikhil, Amit Aggarwal, Falguni Shane Peacock and Kunal Rawal; buying the NFT also gives users access to the real, physical outfit, making the experience truly one-of-a-kind. Users can then head to The Ramp, where they can strike a pose, walk the ramp as the showstopper or watch the live streams of the ultra-glamourous fashion shows from the Fashion Tour itself. Visitors could also visit unique Selfie Spots all around the Fashion Tour Park. And then there’s The Metaverse Treasure Hunt, an engaging activity where users must collect clues from across the Fashion Tour Park arena to stand a chance to get their hands on an iPhone 13, stylish Bluetooth earphones worth INR 15k or online shopping vouchers worth INR 5k. The Hunt began on December 1, 2022.
The Metaverse experience of Blenders Pride Glassware Fashion Tour has been incorporated and extended into on-ground shows as well, amplifying the pride narrative and making the fashion experience truly borderless. Guests attending the exclusive shows of the Fashion Tourat the 4 city editions have the opportunity to ‘Step into the Metaverse’ – an experience zone that extends various elements from Fashion Tour Park metaverse platform. Guests can interact with a Smart Mirror, where they can try-on unique wearable NFTs designed by the Fashion Tour designers, take selfies in the outfits and even get their hands on the outfits by buying these one-of-a-kind wearable NFTs – an incredibly new experience for the fashion & lifestyle elite.
Speaking about the exciting new metaverse experience, Kartik Mohindra, Chief Marketing Officer, Pernod Ricard India, said, “The 16th edition of Blenders Pride Glassware Fashion Tour has entered a new era of fashion & lifestyle in a cutting-edge new avatar. Taking the Fashion Tour to the metaverse is an attempt to make fashion more inclusive, accessible and futuristic. We take pride in bringing the first metaverse-exclusive fashion experience in Decentraland to India. It is part of our endeavour to build a community and celebrate the ‘Pride’ of today’s youth.”
