Header image artwork by Auroboros
On 29th November, The Interline was invited to host a cornerstone panel discussion as part of the first Exthereal event – a new virtual conference dedicated to exploring fashion’s role in extended reality (XR), and to charting the course that the fashion industry will take as its digital transformation progresses post-pandemic.
Leading the panel was our Editor-in-Chief, Ben Hanson, whose opening statement captured the wide-ranging discussion that followed – emphasising the extent to which different areas of fashion are intertwined, and underlining how digitisation upstream can have a strong downstream effect, and vice versa.
Ben was joined by a multidisciplinary roster of speakers who each had a unique perspective on how the different disciplines that will contribute to the future of fashion will evolve and interact:
- Raffaella Camera, Head of Brands & Advertisers Solutions, Epic Games
- Erkut Ekinci, Head of IT, Hugo Boss Textile Industries
- Natalia Modenova, Co-Founder, DRESSX
- Linda Pimmeshofer, Industry Advisor, Microsoft
- Daria Shapovalova, Co-Founder, DRESSX
- Jill Standish, Global Retail Lead, Accenture
A full replay of the hour-long panel is embedded and timestamped below (it begins from 04:57:20 for readers who would prefer to watch the entire day’s sessions in order on YouTube), and covers a great deal of ground in just over one hour – ranging from how the fashion industry can balance its environmental and ethical responsibilities against brands’ and retailers’ requirement to make a profit, to how the vision for a fully digital closet can be translated into a viable business model for brands looking to make the most of the Metaverse.
Stay tuned for recaps and reports of more of the series of events that The Interline helped host in the last few months of 2021 very soon, and look for a briefing on our upcoming Interline Initiators workshops and other industry events we’re participating in early in the new year.
