Metaverse platform Decentraland is preparing for its first fashion week as digital clothing rakes in big business

• Decentraland will host its first fashion week in March 2022 as the business of virtual clothes heats up.
• The metaverse platform is teaming up with UNXD, which recently hosted Dolce & Gabbana's first NFT clothing collection.
• Virtual land on Decentraland's Fashion District recently sold for $2.4 million.

Fashion is shaping up to be a key area of business in the potentially $1 trillion-a-year-metaverse, and Decentraland will expand its stake in the market by hosting its first fashion week.

The metaverse platform in March will host four days of runway shows and immersive experiences with UNXD, a luxury marketplace built on the Polygon blockchain network.

"Have your collections ready!" Decentraland said in a Sunday post on Twitter calling on designers, brands, and fashionistas to prepare for the event set for March 24-27, 2022.

The metaverse refers to online 3D virtual environments where people represented by avatars can play games, work and socialize, as well as buy and trade crypto assets. Cryptocurrency asset management firm Grayscale last month said the metaverse has the potential to become a $1 trillion annual revenue opportunity.

But all those avatars in the metaverse need virtual clothing, which is emerging as a hot sector.

Fashion brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Balenciaga, and Ralph Lauren have been making inroads into the metaverse. UNXD hosted Dolce & Gabbana's first NFT clothing collection, and the Collezione Genesi group of nine non-fungible tokens designed by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana sold for $5.7 million in September.

Digital clothing from Ralph Lauren and Gucci have been featured on avatars through separate partnerships with avatar app Zepeto, Asia's largest fashion virtual platform with nearly a quarter of a billion users, according to the BBC.

Meanwhile, Decentraland's burgeoning Fashion District grabbed attention in recent weeks after a company paid the equivalent of $2.4 million in cryptocurrency to purchase virtual parcels there.

"We think the Fashion District purchase is like buying on Fifth Avenue back in the 1800s … or the creation of Rodeo Drive," Lorne Sugarman, the CEO of Metaverse Group, told Insider, about his company's deal in November.