ESMOD is joining forces with e-shop DressX, a pioneer in the world of digital
fashion, to launch a certificate in fashion and digital management as of
October 2022.
Real clothes or digital avatar? Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Madenova founded DressX to offer digital outfits for social networkers with an eco-friendly solution to one-wear purchases made for the sole purpose of populating your Instagram feed.
Both passionate about fashion and new technologies, Daria Shapovalova and Natalia
Madenova created e-shop DressX, offering virtual clothes inspired by or recreating
couture designs, in July 2020. Having worked in the traditional fashion industry for
over a decade, the two Ukrainian entrepreneurs wanted to make an innovative
contribution to the industry’s necessary transition towards a more sustainable,
affordable and digital future. The idea was not, of course, to live in a virtual world but
rather to find alternatives to one-time purchases intended to produce content for
social media. Most of the time, these outfits purchased to fuel an Instagram feed are
returned to the shop. The two founders are convinced that these image garments are
not intended to be produced, since they exist only in cyberspace.
And the entrepreneurs’ instinct seems to have hit the nail on the head, with DressX
proving just how relevant a concept it is in the space of just two years. The start-up
has consequently initiated collaborations with Balmain and the LVMH group for the
creation of NFTs, while one of the outfits available from the e-shop was featured on
the cover of a major fashion magazine (L’Officiel) in Ukraine. “We strongly believe
that the amount of clothing being produced today far exceeds the needs of
humankind”, explains Olga Charnysheva, Chief Sustainability Officier DressX, who
goes on to say that, “we share the excitement and passion that physical fashion
creates, but we believe there are ways to produce less and produce more
sustainably. With DressX, we want to show that some clothes really can exist only in
digital format”.
The ESMOD group wanted to get involved alongside this new leader in virtual fashion
by introducing a new certificate in design and digital management resulting from a
lasting partnership that stemmed from an initial contact during which DressX
successfully called upon the talents of the school’s students as part of a competition.
“We put a business case to Fashion Business students and were very pleasantly
surprised by their skills and capabilities and their ability to deliver in-depth market
research on NFTs in a short space of time. We were particularly impressed by the
relevance and realism of the strategic recommendations that the winners made”.
This short course in digital fashion will be delivered in English and take place in
October 2022. Available exclusively to ESMOD students, the programme will be open
to professionals wishing to upskill in this strategic field, as well as to former students,
as of 2023.