“It’s something you’d probably never wear in real life,” she said with a laugh. But Svoboda isn’t designing for the physical world. She’s designing for the metaverse. Svoboda is working in a burgeoning, if bizarre, new niche: fashion stylists who create or curate outfits for people in virtual spaces.
You can’t touch digital fabric, and if you’re not on virtual platforms like Decentraland and Roblox, you can’t even see these outfits. Nevertheless, metaverse stylists are increasingly being sought after as frequent users seek help dressing their avatars—often in experimental, wildly creative looks that defy personal expectations, societal standards, and sometimes even physics.
Most digital stylists balance their metaverse clients with real-world gigs. Michaela Leitz-Askalan, for example, runs a plus-size styling business in the real world but decided to start selling her services as a metaverse fashion stylist after hanging out in the 3D virtual world Decentraland, where her outfits got her compliments from strangers.
Another stylist, British reality television fashion expert Gemma Sheppard, made the jump to styling people in digital spaces after her goddaughter asked her to buy a pair of $60 sparkly shoes for her Roblox avatar three Christmases ago.