Many fashion brands have experimented with forays into the world of videogames. An interesting phe-nomenon of several platforms, given the possibility of personalizing avatars, is the production, by users, of personalized outfits. There are profiles where these digital dresses are re-shared, re-mediated, pro-cessed, especially on Instagram. Another signal of this “cross-fertilization” can be found in the fashion shows hosted in digital enviroments. Both users and brands develop skills and practices by reworking the tools of the game platform, but even more, brands themselves remediate their own productions, in a circle of imagery creation that becomes a coproduction. The paradigms of consumption/production be-hind the fashion objects seem to emerge from the trajectories traditionally followed and studied. What are the drivers of fashion consumption in this new context? Are the traditional answers provided by the sociology of fashion valid tools for interpreting the phenomenon? To try to answer these questions, it was decided to adopt a mixed methodological approach: a netnography and a visual ethnography of these media productions could aim to reconstruct a visual imaginary of this phenomenon, starting to provide some elements for reflection, with regard to mediacontexts similar to that of a “metaverse”.
Molti marchi di moda hanno sperimentato varie incursioni nel mondo dei videogiochi. Un fenomeno interessante, proprio di diverse piattaforme, data la possibilità di personalizzare gli avatar, è la produ-zione, da parte degli utenti, di outfit personalizzati. Esistono profili in cui questi abiti digitali vengono ri-condivisi, ri-mediati, elaborati, soprattutto su Instagram. Un altro segnale di questa “fertilizzazione incrociata” si trova nelle sfilate di moda ospitate negli ambienti digitali. Utenti e brand sviluppano competenze e pratiche rielaborando gli strumenti delle piattaforme di gioco, ma ancor più i marchi stessi rimediano le proprie produzioni, in un circolo di creazione di immagini che diventa una copro-duzione. I paradigmi di consumo/produzione allabase degli oggetti di moda sembrano uscire dalle traiettorie tradizionalmente seguite e studiate. Quali sono i driver del consumo di moda in questo nuovo contesto? Le risposte tradizionalmente fornite dalla sociologia della moda rimangono strumenti validiper interpretare il fenomeno? Per cercare di rispondere a queste domande, si è deciso di adot-tare un approccio metodologico misto: una netnografia e un’etnografia visuale di queste produzioni mediali potrebbero mirare a ricostruire un immaginario visivo di questo fenomeno, iniziando a fornire alcuni elementi di riflessione, rispetto a contesti mediali sotto molti aspetti affini a un “metaverso”.
Varini, M., (Meta)morphosis. The giant “bug” in the fashion system, <<CONNESSIONI REMOTE>>, 2023; 2023 (6): 87-102. [doi:10.54103/connessioni/22044] [https://hdl.handle.net/10807/265294]
(Meta)morphosis. The giant “bug” in the fashion system
Varini, Michele
2023
Abstract
Many fashion brands have experimented with forays into the world of videogames. An interesting phe-nomenon of several platforms, given the possibility of personalizing avatars, is the production, by users, of personalized outfits. There are profiles where these digital dresses are re-shared, re-mediated, pro-cessed, especially on Instagram. Another signal of this “cross-fertilization” can be found in the fashion shows hosted in digital enviroments. Both users and brands develop skills and practices by reworking the tools of the game platform, but even more, brands themselves remediate their own productions, in a circle of imagery creation that becomes a coproduction. The paradigms of consumption/production be-hind the fashion objects seem to emerge from the trajectories traditionally followed and studied. What are the drivers of fashion consumption in this new context? Are the traditional answers provided by the sociology of fashion valid tools for interpreting the phenomenon? To try to answer these questions, it was decided to adopt a mixed methodological approach: a netnography and a visual ethnography of these media productions could aim to reconstruct a visual imaginary of this phenomenon, starting to provide some elements for reflection, with regard to mediacontexts similar to that of a “metaverse”.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.