After the acquisition of RTFKT, Nike launches its first NFT accelerating digital fashion
The first NFT ever
More and more brands decide to invest time and resources to adapt to the new challenges of virtual fashion. As we wrote in a previous article, in the emerging experiential marketplace of digital fashion or e-fashion, generation z, and not only, will come to dress luxury, in more accessible and sustainable ways in the metaverse, through their avatars. In December 2021 Nike formalized the acquisition of RTFKT, a company founded in 2020 that produces NFT, virtual objects, mainly sneakers. This acquisition, as witnessed by John Donahoe, president and CEO of Nike, confirmed Nike’s growing interest in entering the metaverse ecosystem between virtual and augmented reality: “the acquisition of RTFKT will help the company to” provide articles from next generation collections that combine culture and gaming ”, thus also anticipating future developments in the relationship between sports brands and the world of eSports. For his part, the co-founder of RTFKT, Benoit Pagotto, looked positively at this acquisition: “This is a unique opportunity to build the RTFKT brand … Nike is the only brand in the world that shares the deep passion that we all nurture. for innovation, creativity and community, and we are enthusiastic about the idea of developing our brand, which was formed entirely in the metaverse ”. The project was clear and in fact it took just a few months to prepare the launch of the first non-fungible token, NFT, co-branded by Nike and RTFKT. The collection was named “MNLTH” and launched on the Opensea platform exclusively for owners of Clone X and PodX. This first co-brading is represented by a metallic box on whose sides the logos of the two companies are illuminated. The contents of the box are secret and have not yet been revealed. Not even the current owners of the NFT are aware of it. The selling price? 5.49ETH, approximately $ 17,000. Nike advances into the metaverse. This launch together with the first controversies also regarding the possible copyright infringements of NFTs, Nike itself has recently sued the online retailer StockX accusing him of having sold more than 500 unauthorized NFTs depicting their sneakers, represents the beginning of a real competition between fashion brands within the new virtual fashion production. In fact, Gucci too was not long in coming to launch an NFT collection in collaboration with SUPERPLASTIC, the leading company in the creation of animated celebrities. Let the virtual war begin.
