How a 23-year-old Hongkonger is bringing NFTs to physical fashion to woo Millennial and Gen Z gamers
- Wear, one of the first Asia-based fashion NFT marketplaces, is collaborating with local eyewear brand A. Society and artist Lousy and has plans with Vogue
- Project founder Nick Lau says Wear is ‘losing out’ on the mainland China market, where foreign NFTs are effectively banned
Nick Lau, a 23-year-old Hongkonger, grew up finding himself on the periphery of his immediate social circles – at Harrow, a traditional English boarding school, he took photography classes and started a skatewear brand; at New York-based Parsons School of Design, he co-owned a 300-square-feet electronics store.
“[The electronics store] influenced a lot of my ideas in terms of running, creating and selling things,” he said. “It was my first step into retail.”
With his new virtual marketplace called Wear, Lau plans to eventually allow NFT collectors dress their avatars using art from their digital collections, in addition to having their own dedicated showroom for those collections.
“It’s a hybrid between the traditional NFT marketplace like OpenSea and individual projects,” he said, referring to the world’s largest NFT trading platform that was founded in 2017.
On Wear, buyers can “wear” their digital collection of NFTs by using social media filters and are given access to Wear’s in-house virtual “tailor”, which helps modify the NFT in 3D to fit a customer’s avatar. The platform also has a dedicated showroom where people can showcase their collections.
The first big test for Wear, which launched on January 13, comes next month, when its five-member team will issue 1,000 inaugural NFTs called Wearkey. This will serve as a kind of platform membership that includes access to upgraded showrooms.