Global Designers Challenge Borders, Identity, and the Limits of Physical Fashion at Metaverse Fashion Week 2025

April 2nd, 2025 – London, UK

Decentraland’s flagship virtual event returns April 9–12, showcasing digital fashion as a new canvas for storytelling, activism, and global identity.

Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW) returns to Decentraland from April 9–12, amid a shifting fashion landscape characterized by declining traditional luxury sales and evolving consumer preferences. MVFW 2025 highlights digital fashion’s growing relevance as a meaningful response to these industry transformations. Under this year’s theme, “Infinite Identities,” more than 47 global designers and brands leverage digital mediums to challenge creative boundaries and articulate nuanced cultural identities.

Hosted on Decentraland 2.0, the platform’s newly redesigned desktop client offers improved visuals, greater interactivity, and better accessibility. These enhancements, developed during the event’s hiatus, provide an immersive and engaging environment for attendees and creators alike.

“This year’s Metaverse Fashion Week comes at a critical moment for fashion and our society at large; one marked by rethinking priorities, authenticity, and connection,” says Bay Backner, Head Producer of MVFW. “I’ve had the privilege of working closely with every designer and brand taking part, and I’ve seen how digital fashion can elevate unheard voices, ask important questions, and spark real cultural change. In a time like this, when the physical world feels increasingly heavy or limiting, third spaces like Decentraland become places where people can breathe, create, and truly be themselves. MVFW 2025 channels that energy into a live moment for fashion’s next breakout names and creative economies.”

Runways: Fashion as Cultural Dialogue

Runways have always been the cornerstone of fashion weeks worldwide, but MVFW 2025 reimagines this classic format through immersive, collaborative, and interactive experiences. Attendees can anticipate creative surprises as designers redefine the runway with innovative animated collections that blur the line between digital and physical fashion.

Cyberdog: London’s iconic brand brings its neon-infused, rave-culture aesthetic into the virtual realm, blending futuristic fashion with underground electronic subcultures.

Free The Youth: Ghanaian collective Free The Youth highlights African streetwear and creativity, celebrating bold, culturally driven designs that bridge physical and virtual worlds.

The Banners We Wear: Decentraland’s inaugural MVFW Prize unveils deeply personal collections from emerging designers. With a $15,000 prize pool, this unique competition challenged designers globally to create digital wearables that convey powerful messages about identity, activism, and resilience. Winning entries will debut on a dedicated runway, spotlighting urgent social narratives and elevating voices often marginalized in mainstream fashion.

Interactive Designer Showrooms: Digital Fashion as Storytelling

At the heart of MVFW 2025 are 16 interactive designer showrooms, each exploring the interplay between fashion, technology, and cultural narrative. These showrooms are divided into two thematic zones, Augmented Self and Storied Self, offering distinct yet complementary perspectives on digital self-expression.

• Augmented Self: This zone highlights innovative uses of AI, AR, and digital-physical (“phygital”) fashion. Showrooms include AI-driven styling by Digital Drip, AR-enhanced virtual fashion by FFFACE.ME, NFT-powered wearable collaborations from Another-1 X Templa, and microchip manicure technology from Chipped.
• Storied Self: Dedicated to fashion as cultural storytelling, this zone spotlights global narratives and identity-driven collections. Key highlights include adaptive fashion for prosthetics by Ukraine’s SVD Denim, mycelium-inspired digital wearables from Amsterdam’s GLTCH Atelier, and culturally resonant digital storytelling from Puerto Rico’s Spatialgineers Collective.

Immersive Experiences & Insightful Conversations

Beyond runways and showrooms, MVFW 2025 invites attendees to experience transformative fashion installations and conversations exploring identity, technology, and culture:

• “Entangled Q” by Cansy: A quantum-inspired art installation featuring avatars that dynamically morph, exploring fluid identities.
• “OFF-WORLD Galactic Expansion” by The Immersive KIND: A futuristic display merging AI-generated beauty, robotics couture, and interstellar aesthetics.

A curated series of panels will dive deeper into key conversations, covering the evolving role of avatars in digital self-expression, AI’s impact on fashion creativity, wearable tech in gaming environments, and the intersection of physical and virtual retail. Panelists include industry leaders from Harper’s BAZAAR Australia, Parsons School of Design, Ready Player Me, Institut Français de la Mode, Boy’s Club, and more.

Metaverse Fashion Week 2025 taps into a growing appetite for fashion that has meaning beyond trends, signaling a shift toward stories that matter and identities that resonate globally. As digital spaces become essential platforms for expression, Decentraland opens new possibilities for creators and communities to craft a freer, more inclusive vision of fashion. With immersive runways, interactive storytelling, and conversations that challenge the status quo, MVFW 2025 invites everyone to experience how digital fashion can reflect—and reshape—our world.

To learn more and get ready for MVFW 2025, users can visit mvfw.org and download the latest client.

About Decentraland:

Decentraland is the first decentralized, community-driven social virtual world. It empowers users to create, explore, and connect within an open, immersive digital landscape where they fully own their digital assets. Whether hosting virtual events or designing their digital identity, individuals can shape a world that prioritizes self-expression and freedom—free from the constraints of corporate control. Governed by its community through a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and supported by a non-profit Foundation, Decentraland operates as an open-source, traversable world that encourages creativity, ownership, and innovation. By fostering collaboration and community, Decentraland is shaping the future of digital interaction, where individuals can truly own and build their digital lives.

Contact

Ana Lezama
press@decentraland.org