The world of fashion met the world of blockchain technology at Shanghai’s Fashion Week. When independent, trendy fashion label Babyghost teamed up with Shanghai-based Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) company, BitSE, and its VeChain project, the result was a multidimensional sensory feast for the fashion crowd.
For Babyghost’s 2017 Spring and Summer collection, the brand took to the streets to create a new twist. While still incorporating Babyghost’s core influences, this collection also draws on inspiration from the new age trope of the Indigo Child — the concept of an evolved group of children that embody intelligence, intuition, and supernatural abilities. Uniting with VeChain, Babyghost is now taking their fashion line one step further by providing a link between fashion and the digital world.
VeChain is a cloud product management solution integrated with blockchain technology that puts unique IDs on the blockchain and can verify if an item is genuine or not. It focuses on four areas: anti-counterfeiting, supply chain management, asset management, and client experiences, each of which can be used independently or synergistically.
The result of this union is called FashTech, where a clothing collection can be verified on the blockchain through Near Field Communications (NFC) — which allows devices to communicate with one another when brought into close proximity — or by scanning the QR code on the label. A person’s phone communicates with the small VeChain chip embedded inside the clothing or accessory, which then tells its “story” to the consumer.
The chip holds a unique public and private key pair. The public key is also stored in the blockchain and can be verified by the VeChain app. The app then verifies the public key with the VeChain servers to determine if the public key is genuine. As a result, product safety and quality assurance are maintained, helping to drive customer satisfaction.
Babyghost Co-founder, Joshua Hupper, explaining the fashion designs
With the help of VeChain, Babyghost reaches an elevated level of interaction with their customers through their garments. At Shanghai’s Fashion Week, VeChain and Babyghost presented 20 models who told the stories of 20 new looks.
Embedded with a VeChain chip, those in attendance at the event had the unique opportunity to simply scan the chip on each piece of clothing to receive an interactive memory of who had originally modeled the piece in NYC. Later on, should future customers want to document that they also wore the piece of clothing before selling it secondhand, it would also be possible to provide this interactive memory, according to BitSE.
“Blockchain has become a disruptive technology, but it is really difficult for most people to understand. A lot of enterprises have been attracted to blockchain technology, and the real motivation for them is to develop the new products, features and services for their clients by embracing this technology.
Our mission is to transform this sophisticated technology to a real-world commercial application and make it enjoyable for consumers. That is VeChain, and that is what VeChain has done with BABYGHOST – bringing digital experiences to their consumers and enable them to build up a personalized connection with the products they own.” Sunny Lu, COO of BitSE.
“BABYGHOST, from its inception, has always maintained a sense of cultish belonging, whereas in the past one girl might see another on the street and recognize that they both share the same appreciation for our label in silent revelry. NOW they might be compelled to ask one another- “
What did your dress say to you when it arrived at your home?” With an action as simple as what we’ve become so accustomed to doing when we add friends on WeChat, this technology needs only to be swiped in proximity to a garment and in an instant our customers can exchange what we thought of as the next generation of playing cards. Imagine that each garment now goes from being one of many to a one of a kind. It can literally speak to our fans similarly to the way that we love communicating with them via social media.” Qioran Huang, BABYGHOST Co-Founder.