Opé Majek: NFT in Fashion & Design and Wearables in the Metaverse
OPÉ has had a love for fashion ever since she was a child. She has been drawing clothes since she could hold a pencil.
Born in St. Louis, MO. to Nigerian parents, Opé was able to see Nigeria for the first time as a teenager attending high school there. Living through huge cultural changes at the time, it tempered the way she sees a colorful world around her.
Opé worked for Betsey Johnson for several years after leaving Howard University and fell into assisting stylists who would pull clothes for the local TV shows in the Washington, DC area. She later had an epiphany that she enjoyed doing this and worked as a stylist assistant for a year and a half after her discovery. Years later, she blossomed into freelance fashion styling.
Notable Magazine clients like Italian Vogue Curvy, Elle, Zink, People and Blink.
Transcript
Opé Majek: NFT in Fashion & Design and Wearables in the Metaverse
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
wearables, metaverse, people, fashion, create, voxels, nf, space, crypto, piece, avatar, learning, wanted, community, thinking, fashion styling, friend, sketch, building, blockchain
SPEAKERS
Holly Shannon, Opé Majek
Holly Shannon 00:06
Welcome to Culture Factor. I'm your producer and host Holly Shannon. Our new season looks at creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs. Why? Because the creator and gig economy is emerging. Talent has gone to work for themselves. The new year starts with the 101, or the beginner guide for NFTs, blockchain, cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and all those Metaverse and Web3 topics we keep hearing about. We're all going back to school on culture factor to understand this decentralized economy, from creator coins to the tax implications of selling crypto, let's unpack these emerging technologies in really simple terms. Join me and feel free to send in your questions. Would your brand like to sponsor Culture Factor? It is your opportunity to be a part of a podcast that is ranked in the top 2% globally and heard in over 89 countries. Email holly@hollyshannon.com. Subscribe to Culture Factor and share with a friend now. Okay, let's start with our class. Let's get our next guest on.
Holly Shannon 01:11
Welcome Culture Factor family. Today I have Opé Majek I hope I say that right but she will correct me. Hi, how are you?
Opé Majek 01:18
Yeah, you know, that's why I just say M. Yeah, but it's Opé Majek. And that will be the last time I'll be sharing my last name anywhere.
Holly Shannon 01:31
All right Opé, we'll just go with Opé for now. I'm so happy you're here though. We met in Clubhouse. And I think we have a few things in common and I'm just excited to share your story. So without further ado, I'm going to give everybody a little background on Opé and she can certainly elaborate. Opé has had a love of fashion ever since she was a child. She's been drawing clothes since she could hold a pencil. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Nigerian parents and Opé was able to see Nigeria for the first time as a teenager attending high school there. And living through huge cultural changes at the time, it tempered the way she sees a colorful, colorful world around her. Opé worked for Betsey Johnson for several years after leaving Howard University and fell into assisting stylists who would pull clothes for the local TV shows in the Washington DC area, which I'm going to ask her about because that's where I am. She later had an epiphany that she enjoyed doing this and worked as a stylist assistant for a year and a half after her discovery. Years later, she blossomed into freelance fashion styling. Notable magazine clients like Italian Vogue Curvy, Elle, Zinc, People and Blink. So, welcome to Culture Factor, Opé.
Opé Majek 02:53
Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Holly Shannon 02:55
I noticed also that your very dynamic work is on magazine covers for fashion styling direction, with Waterford Crystal, Philip Lim, Tahari, Montclair, Vera Wang, Antik Batik, and our mutual friend, Mimi Plange. It's pretty exciting stuff.
Opé Majek 03:16
You know, I cannot believe you dug all this up. I never tell anybody anything. So I think you might have been doing some research on my site. So you know what, kudos to you. Because I never post all of this. And when people just asked me what I do, I'm like, I'm a fashion stylist. And I'm a fashion futures because my mind is in the future. But yeah, that that is a great summary. Thank you. Oh, that's incredible. Thank you, Holly.
Holly Shannon 03:51
You're welcome. You know, I love doing the research. And I feel like to sort of understand a person, you kind of have to understand their history a little bit, and you have a really incredible history. So it's interesting that you don't share it. You're very humble.
Opé Majek 04:05
Yeah, you know, you just astounded me actually. Thank you so much. I was like, You know what, wow, okay. Thank you, Holly. Yeah, I love fashion. I've always loved fashion. And my parents did not, you know, my father wanted me to be a doctor. So we didn't agree. And I settled for pharmacy. I was I was in I was pre-pharm. And when he passed away, I left pharmacy school. Much respect to my dad, but I I never wanted to do it and it was always our bone of contention. But, you know, he just wanted, as I've gotten older, I understand that he wanted the best for me and he felt that it was a way to you know, to fall back on something, you know if if fashion didn't work and and in those times, you know, fashion was considered like, you know, being an artist, which that's really what I was born to be I was born to be an artist. And I think as, as we go into the the future of fashion with these NFTs and things like this, this was a point of discovery that I could be, I could be into fashion, and I can also be an artist simultaneously. And I think that that's what I'm always trying to encourage other people to do, as they're in the space to see that the possibilities are endless, and that they can do anything that they can conceive. And that they should open their hearts to really attempt to conceive whatever it is that they want to conceive and in opening their hearts to the space, but yeah. Thank you again for, you know, finding all those things. And it's a gift to me for you to to hear it from you. Thank you.
Holly Shannon 06:00
Oh, you're welcome. I would love to dig in actually, because obviously, you started your fashion styling in sort of the Web2 world. And I've given a little flavor for what you were immersed in. But how did you define your style through then like, what was what made Opé, Opé, in a in a web two world? And then maybe we can dig into a little bit how, how that looks for Web3 for you, in Metaverse.
Opé Majek 06:36
Yeah, you know, Web2, I mean, even even before that, you know, we, we, I remember a time when I had I built my first computer, he you know, and a friend of mine. And I think I was, like, a friend of mine, it was saying, Whoa, I'm gonna surf the web, you know, and that was like, the big thing to say it, I feel like, you know, it felt like, I don't know if anybody's ever seen Mad Men, but, you know, they would have these like, you know, epic conversations about "I made an editorial". And it was like that, it was like, "I'm going to surf the web". And, you know, it was that elementary. And those were days when we were just, we were trying to fit in whatever way we could into the fashion space and find our way in. And I, I wanted to get into fashion styling, and I didn't know how so I would read books about how to get in. And, and I would, you know, you couldn't really find much on the on the internet at that time. Because, you know, the Internet was was really new, to the point of fast forwarding to the days when, you know, even as we approached 2000, we thought, Oh, the the computers were going to blow up. I don't know what we thought of,
Holly Shannon 07:57
Y2K. Right? Yeah.
Opé Majek 07:59
Y2K! But then I had a lot of friends who became very wealthy from, you know, we call them dot com-ers, they were the ones who, you know, started the, you know, the websites and things of that nature. And we were still, like I said, we were trying to figure our way into the space. And I ended up, you know, finding my way through, I like I was, I used to dance on a TV show back in the day, because I thought that was gonna be my way to, like, meet some celebrities and style them or whatever, that wasn't it. And I ended up doing, you know, I had, you know, created a portfolio on my desktop at the time, you know, just just very basic things. I mean, the, we didn't even really have, this was before I, you know, realized I could even make a website, you know, websites came later. And then you could put your things on, you know, different places, but until, until those moments came, we connected with each other on certain websites. I think some of you may remember MySpace, and then Facebook came about and, you know, you know, became, you know, a dominating force. Twitter, you know, Instagram, all of these things, you know, that happened, like in the 2000s. You know, where, you know, those things are huge. You know, we see Twitter, Instagram, Facebook today, these are huge spaces today. But they weren't always and we didn't have ways to communicate as as we do today. It wasn't like the, all the information that we have available at our fingertips. These were, it was just coming up. And so we were finding our way through and I found my way through it. You know, and the technology, you know, progressed. I think this time I'm looking to do something different with the technology. I want to, you know, um, you know, get a hold of it, you know, before it gets, you know, really big, and I want to hold on to, you know, the horse, if you will, you know, and make my way through with, you know, with producing content and producing fashion work and producing things and educating my friends in the space on how they can make, how we have maybe didn't work the Web2 technology and really try and work the the Web3 technology to the best of our advantage.
Holly Shannon 10:48
Well, it is nice to stay ahead of things, you know, they everybody calls it early adoption, but there's a lot to be said about that. Because you kind of break the ground and learn it. You know, from the ground up, which is really, really nice. So I guess it's going to push us right into Web3, this conversation. How is it different for you, like how are you creating in a Metaverse? I mean, I would think it's completely different from IRL working with a brand or a client in Web2. So what does it look like in the Metaverse? Or how are you building it out? So that it is in the vision you would like it to be?
Opé Majek 11:35
So yes, I'm, I'm building it out. One, through education. You know, like I said, I want I want to educate my, my peers, so that I'm not alone in the space. And, and two, you know, well, first, actually, I learned about it myself. And I've been just really taking time to look at all the use cases for NFTs, to examine what they are for fashion, you know, I think as we all should be, taking the space, learning as much as we can possibly, you know, that that there is available to us to learn about the NFT space, and then to translate that to our industry and make it applicable to what it is that we do and which is which is what I always tell people when I'm talking about NFTs. You know, I never claim to know about NFTs because the one thing that is constantly changing are NFTs, you know. As I, as I learn about them, I always say, "the more I know the more I really don't know about NFTs" because there's always the, they're always growing use cases for NFTs. So again, I'm looking to take what I know about NFTs, and also, you know, what I know about the metaverse, make it applicable to fashion, and educate my friends about what that is. For me personally, at first because I'm an artist, you know, from in my heart of hearts, I'm an artist who loves fashion. And so I took, the first thing I did when I first learned about NFTs was I took some of the clips that I had created, I do digital fashion sketches and collages, and I turned them into, I turned them into, film type of models, or I don't really know what they what they are. But what I realized was when I first heard the definition of an NFT, you know, or what you could do with an NFT I was like, okay, you know, I have some usefulness now, for the, for the content that I was creating, that had no, otherwise had no use for me, and I was like, What am I going to do with this? You know, I remember taking a picture of a model, you know, because I'm a stylist, and I will sometimes, you know, take my own pictures. And so when I was taking pictures of a model, I remember sending the pictures back to her. And I had created some art from it. And she was she was she was unrecognizable. And I knew I was like, well what is she going to do with this? You know, because it's become art. And when I heard about what NFTs were I was like, You know what, this is what I could do with that, you know, because it was it was a picture, but it was a film, but it was it was it was fashion, so I was able to now take this and have a place and a home for it. And it was incredible to me that I could find it. Now I, you know, I'm in the process of getting you know releases for all of that art artwork that I had done because I wasn't thinking of myself as, you know, as a photographer, or, you know, I was thinking of myself more of as a stylist, and I wasn't, you know, getting the releases, which is why I haven't released any of it, but I will be releasing, releasing them soon as I've gotten all of the model releases together to do so, to release all these, these pieces of fashion and art together that, you know, they're, they're like little snip movie snippets. So that's what it's what that's what I'm doing for myself. Also, though, you have, you have utility function with NFTs where you can use utilize them for your community. We talk about using them for fashion designers, where fashion designers can use NFTs to address their clients. I've talked to fashion publicists where I tell them that they can use NFTs as tokens for for their services. You know, there's there's so many use cases for our industry, as it pertains to, to NFTs. But also, you know, the community that can be had with the Metaverse technology with going into spaces, building, you know, we've, we're working on a fashion district within one of the, one of the Metaverse space is infinite versus the space that we were, we were starting in. But then also you have spaces like Cryptovoxels, where we just had a fashion, a fashion show last week, a wareables fashion show, and you know, looking to expand on that kind of thing, because that was the first time I'd ever produced a Metaversal fashion show. So, you know, I'm learning, I'm learning, I'm growing in the space. And as I'm growing and learning I'm sharing, that's how I'm building out the space, you know, in, in as it pertains to me.
Holly Shannon 17:12
That is the coolest description. You know, I also really find it interesting. You're really on the education side of this too, because you're trying to educate people that you've worked with in Web2, you know, whether it's you know, publicists or, you know, models or whoever, how they can take their content, and use it as an NFT as a token, with utility for maybe attending a fashion show or a perk of some sort. And at the same time, you also have a community that you're educating in Metaverse locations like this infiniverse, or where the cryptovoxels are residing, like you're teaching your community how to use those spaces, and you're doing it in a fun way, like you're having a fashion show there. But then you're at the same time onboarding them, so that they can see how they can maybe have an e commerce Store, right? Or they can just show off their fashion there. If I'm understanding this correctly, I hope I'm just not killing it. This description.
Opé Majek 18:32
You're nailing it, you're nailing it, that's exactly what I'm doing. It's it's learning by, by example, and placing themselves into the situation. To me, like, you learn the best if you're actually doing something. Like if, whenever I've been, you know, I've been a manager, you know, many times in my life, whether I've wanted to or not, and the best way that I teach people how to learn, how to, you know, teach people how to do something, is by example and by putting them in the situation and having them duplicate the, the objective, whatever it is I'm trying to teach them and, and make it applicable to themselves. So if they actually can duplicate what I'm telling them to do, or what I'm trying to teach them, then I know that they know it, but if they weren't able to duplicate it, they don't know it. You know, you can't tell me you know, something that you can't tell me exactly what I'm you know what I'm what I'm saying or what it is, you know, I've said to you, but if you can if you can show me what it is that I've told you, then I feel like you could you know better, you know, I know that you know it.
Holly Shannon 19:46
Yeah, it's it's that old saying, Opé, that give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach him how to fish, he eats for life. Right? It's in practice. It's putting it in practice. The different Metaverse locations, I'm still trying to learn all this, and my show is a basic education for people, because I'm, I'll never say that I'm an expert. I'm just in learning mode here. So you said Infiniverse, and I've also heard of Decentraland. Are they separate? Are they one in the same? Do you prefer one over the other? Are there other ones coming? Can you enlighten me?
Opé Majek 20:27
You know, they're always ones come in, because I, you know, I always say, you know, not only can you inhabit a Metaversal space, but you can build your own. And I think that those times are coming, you know, where we will start to, you know, have our own spaces. I think people are looking for interoperability. I think, for fashion people, we don't necessarily look for interoperability, because you know, why we want to dress as many avatars as we possibly can, you know, so I like, I like all of the different platforms for different reasons. There's some I don't like as much only because I can't, you know, I don't have as much creative freedom with the avatars, maybe. You know, too, I think people who work in fashion, people who love fashion, those things, they may be very important to our experience within a platform. I like all of the ones that I, you know, go into. And, you know, I think, you know, some I mean, that like as much for experience, but for the most part, I enjoy the spaces that I go into, but I do try to show people all of the ones that they have access to, as much as possible, you know, through onboarding them in, directly into the space, or giving them the tour to, to see through my Discord. And so, and not only Metaversal platforms, but also virtual reality experiences that they can have. I teach people how to get into gravity sketch, which is a place where you can create art or fashion. We do fashion on Mondays. I go into Cryptovoxel on Tuesdays, we go into Infiniverse on Wednesdays, I used to go into horizon on on Thursdays, but horizon the experience, I will say, you know, I'm waiting for more developers to go in and develop more spaces so that people can have, you know, really epic experiences. I didn't feel like the experiences right now. Because, you know, it's still trying, you know, there's still being built in that space. I didn't think it was like, the best.
Holly Shannon 22:48
Do they do they have like Discord channels that you can put the, that you can share the user experience with them and maybe be a part of shaping it?
Opé Majek 22:59
Horizon, I haven't really checked, you know. Between between freelancing as a stylist in the day and showing people how to do how to onboard themselves at night, and it's usually like every day of the week, it's become very hard for me to even make time for myself to be honest, to even you know, I always say I love gravity sketch, I love creating fashioning gravity sketch, but I don't find that I can have time because, you know, I may be trying to close the room and then somebody comes in who hasn't been on boarded and I try and wait for them to you know, get on boarded in it could take another hour, you know.
Holly Shannon 23:38
The educational component takes a lot of time like when you spend, when you're mentoring somebody and you're starting from scratch, you don't want to move too fast right? You want you want them to be excited and so it sounds like you're trying really hard to give as much time of yourself as you can but you know there's only so much right because you you have your work that you do as a Freelance Stylist so you have to make sure that you park more time for that, right?
Opé Majek 24:06
I'm trying to. I'm trying to do that. I actually, in my room last night I was like you know I'm gonna really try and do two hours and it ended up being four hours and, I do I need to do better about, you know limiting the time. I'm going to try to do that but it's you know, the passion for getting somebody you know situated and you know, wanting them to you know, get in and understand the space I do need to like curb my enthusiasm.
Holly Shannon 24:36
Well I think it's really special actually. I find that when I'm working in rooms to, you know helping people, I give more of myself than I should at times and then I you know there's a cost on the other side but I get that. I did want to jump into this gravity sketch because I can, I heard like, like your heart light up a little bit. Your voice level changed when you went back to that. And so I would love to find out more about wearable technology. And what is it like to dress an avatar? Does it, does it feel completely different from the work you do, I would assume?
Opé Majek 25:20
No, not really, actually, you know, dressing someone, be it in Avatar form, or dressing someone in, in real life is the same, you kind of have to find what works. You know, I actually last week, I went over how to dress your avatar in all space VR, because some people were saying, Well, how did you get this to look like that? You look really cool. And I really don't think anything of the, of the, you know, how I'm dressing their avatar in, in, in sorry, in all space VR, because when I'm, when I'm in, you know, when I go into any space, right, you, you want to see all of the options. What are all of the options that you have available to dress yourself? And, you know, that could be maybe trying some things that you know, you wouldn't necessarily like, but maybe the mix of that thing, you know, could work out, you know, like, I think my horizon avatar, it was, you know, I use like a long sleeve. Like it looked like a, like the cultural garb. But, you know, with a certain, with a certain headpiece and a certain, you know, accessories, certain accessories made it look more interesting. You know, it just is about the mix, and not being turned off about what you see immediately, right. And then like in all space VR, you can kind of show people how to change the patterns, if they want to change the patterns, or if they want to mix something, you kind of just have to look through it until you find the right thing. And that's the same thing with any kind of styling, you know, you have to kind of decide, you know, I'm gonna mix this up, I'm gonna mix that up, do I want to match this? Or do I want everything not to be matching, you know, all kinds of, it's the same process as dressing in real life is just you're using what swatches are available to you and mixing them up. There used to be a game back in the day called fashion plates. And it just reminds me of that, or if you were doing paper dolls or something like that, that's kind of like, you know, you know, when you were a kid that was the closest thing you may have had to be in a stylist. Whereas today you know, the kids have IMVU, they have Roblox, they can you know, they styling themselves in these spaces, too. It's the same thing. So yeah, fashion. Yeah. Yeah, fashion is is is like, the coolest way to express yourself as an artist. And I think it's the same thing in these in these spaces. And we're going to see much more of it with these, the wearables, in addressing avatars, it's going to be that same passion, because it's going to be like, where did you get that thing from? I remember when Cryptovoxels had no fashion and I was not interested in Cryptovoxels whatsoever, because it was just the mannequins. And when I went back in on a, you know, to take people on a tour and I saw some of the fashion I was like, whoa, okay, I can get into Cryptovoxels now. Decentraland had nothing for most of the year last year and then all of a sudden, you know, people are coming in the space, they're creating wearables, it's more fun when you go and you're hitting the the meteors in the Wonder mines and you're seeing all these people just on the yard just rocking these different wearable fashions it's like oh my gosh, where'd they get this and you want to you know, you can kind of like stalk them you know go around them and and look just just to look at what they're wearing. You know, it's like oh my gosh, this is really cool. So that inspired me of course to, to work on my own wearables for Decentraland which I'm working on but there's like a curve with it because you have to like really understand the decentralized finance of it because now you're you're creating, you have to, not only can you, you know that's the, I think that's the main step and hindrance of of the creation process with this is that now you have to convert your your Etherium to mana and then you need to convert your mana to your Ethereum mana to Polygon mana, and then you have to pay for whatever the amount is for your collection and that has to be approved by the DAO and we still not even talking about minting it, and now you need to buy a madic so that you can convert your you know, it was just like a big it there, there are various hurdles to you know, the creation process, things that happen in the space, you know, before you can get to the end result that I'm hoping in the long run, I'll be able to finally have like, you know, my wearables, you know, as a collection, which, you know, the great thing about that when you're working in a place like Decentraland, to push out a wareables collection or any wearables that they're, they're also NFTs. Same thing with Cryptovoxels. So that's the, that's the, you know, the other side of the reward of that, in, you know, creation of those, those type of things.
Holly Shannon 30:36
See, I'm a little confused, because when I was thinking wearables, I was thinking that we could create an NFT, wearable, and it could be, it could start from a JPEG image or something in real life that maybe they can use, like a 3d scanner, to capture, say, a bracelet, and they could create the NFT, and then somebody could buy the NFT, and apply it to their avatar in these Metaverse locations, if you will. But you spoke of a whole different chain from Etherium to mana to Polygon mana douse and like there was a whole other chain. So like, I guess, from a process point of view, I clearly don't understand it, or are there more than one way to skin a cat on this one?
Opé Majek 31:39
Okay, so yeah, there's no wrong answer. And as, as this platform for fashion builds, there going to be so many different answers for how wearables can be created. I don't even, even for what you just said, I don't think that that could you know, that is necessarily a wrong answer. I think that you could do that if you if you wanted to do something like that. But so for instance, if you want to get into a place like Decentraland, with your wearables, than your wearables, whatever you create, will have to go through the DAO you know, it needs to be reviewed by them and it needs to be approved. And it needs to be it needs to go through their process for Decentraland. Same with Cryptovoxels. Those pieces are then placed on opensea. You can buy it through the the Decentraland marketplace or Cryptovoxels marketplace, and you can also buy them through opensea usually as well. And depending on on what blockchain you use, I know for Decentraland, they, they prefer it is a it's an Etherium Metaverse, however, sorry, Etherium blockchain Metaverse, however, what they wanted me to do was they wanted me to convert my, my, my Etherium mana to Polygon mana for their review. That's that was their price. Their price to for them to review was 100 Mana per piece. That was how it works for Decentraland. I don't know how much it is for Cryptovoxels. But I have friends, they have created wearables, we have the fashion show and I use their wearables for, to show off all that they did individually. And they all created their wearables now. They're different processes, right to create. And I could go that's a whole other like, that's a whole show by itself, the creation of wearables, because I always talk about this in my master classrooms for fashion and fashion NFTs and Metaverse, right? Because, so what you basically do is you create something, you can create a, you can create a file of what what you want as a wearable, and then that that piece now has to have a final, you know, a final I call it a finisher, you know, a finisher, whatever platform that site uses that you have to finish, you could create that in like something like blender, let's say we use Blender to create the 3d wearable, then you if you were going into cryptovoxels, you would have to use magicalvoxels as a finisher, if you are going into all space VR or Decentraland, then you would have to use Unity as a finisher because those that's what's compatible to those spaces for for it to be registered and to be wearable in that world. It has to be compatible to whatever they have. And also it has to be something that's a low polygon count. And that's just the number of triangles that you that you have so that when you go into that space, you're not weighing down the whole experience because you're you're polygon count is high on that piece and won't shut down the whole screen, you know
Holly Shannon 35:05
I have to go back, I'm gonna go back for a second. Because, again, I want to try and give the elementary view of this. So let's just look at Decentraland for a second. So, whatever, so if the foundation of Decentraland is with the Etherium blockchain, that's what they operate on. That's where their smart contracts are. So you have to technically be doing business with Etherium. You want to bring something into Decentraland, so it's got to be finished, in a like a low polygon mode. But it's got to go through polygon first, to before it can be brought into Decentraland and used as a wearable. So do they do polygon because maybe it's a lower cost of entry for the approval phase? And then once you're in and it's minted, then it's under the Etherium chain, and it's a different price to come in? Am I under I'm sorry, I'm probably killing this. I'm just trying to understand it.
Opé Majek 36:14
No worries. Let me let me make it yeah, cuz I do, I do this also for basic people. So,
Holly Shannon 36:20
Yeah, I'm totally basic. So like, Go basic for me. Right, I could be 10 years old.
Opé Majek 36:25
Yeah, I always say I'm gonna explain it, like I explained it to a three year old. So for, let's just use the case of Decentraland. So what you're explaining are like a couple of different things. You're explaining what what I was trying to explain it first was the cost of bringing in the wareables. bringing in the wearables into that space. And that's completely separate, then, then the experience for a user who is trying to make a wareables and make it make it work so that it is functional, inside of the Decentraland world. Okay, and I'll explain both of those. So with with the cost for someone to create a wareables and bring it into Decentraland. So one, Mana is the currency of Decentraland. It's like, the you know, it's like the dollar or the naira or the yen, or the pound that's that's their currency is is mana, and one mana right now, I think it's it may be almost $3 for, for one mana. So if I wanted to create one wearable, if I wanted it reviewed by their DAO, which is their, you know, their ruling system and Decentraland then I would create my wearable, and then I would send it to them for them to approve and I will be paying 100 mana for them to approve my wearable. And then after I do that, then I can mint the, I can, I can make it into an NFT which will go into their, which will go into their system, their marketplace and will also be on opensea. It is an NFT and it is also a wearable. I hope I made that clear.
Holly Shannon 38:33
That was perfect. Thank you. I knew I was not explaining it well, but I just-
Opé Majek 38:37
No, you know you were, you, I was, I probably confused you with going too fast. So that's just, that's just the process for creating a wearable in Decentraland. However, okay, I also go into this thing where I talk about you know, to designers what that means like so, you know, you're creating you want to create something. The the place to create wearables could be someplace like blender, although it's not the only place, I'm just I was just giving an example, that blender, it could be the place where some people start their, their wearable. And when you create that wearable, you have to make it so that it's not heavy. In in any scene that you take it into, like if you go into a space and you're wearing your wearable, you don't want it to be so heavy where it shuts down people's screen. Was that clear? Did I say that?
Holly Shannon 39:33
Yeah, so it's like, it's almost like memory in a way like how much it, yes, yeah, I understand that.
Opé Majek 39:38
So that was why I was saying that you want to make sure it has a low poly count. And basically what that means is you know, and this is not I'm not talking about blockchain, I'm just talking about the actual triangles that it takes to create your wearable it's created in polygons and and when you're creating any wearables you want it you want it created on a low poly count so that, and different places will tell you how many polygons that they want, so that you don't weigh down their scene. So I won't even go into any other things about that. Because that could be a whole other thing as well, you know. But yeah, this is counted. So it's basic mathematics, actually. When you're in a scene, all of the people in that scene, the whole design, the whole, everything, the scene, the, the trees, the sky, all of these, all of these different things have, you know, shapes that, that were created into that scene, and then you're factoring yourself as an avatar, and you're also factoring in the pieces that you're wearing. And sometimes people can go way overboard with what it is that they are creating. And that piece can be rejected because the piece is too heavy, right? So you want to you want to make sure that your your pieces that you create are on on the right count for whatever it is that they have. So some people may, I've seen people, you know, in their, in the in their Discord say, oh, you know, I didn't get you know, approved, it said I didn't have, my polys were too high or whatever. And it really is part of the approval process, you do need to make sure that you're watching your polycount with your outfit, your wearable creation
Holly Shannon 41:26
Just, and that's something that would be identified in using like the gravity sketch program, like it's going to be giving you a count, like if you're writing a Google Document, and it tells you how many words you're at?
Opé Majek 41:40
So you know, I haven't, I'm still I'm still working through my process of of learning gravity for wearables. I am still learning how to mold out shapes because it's a new process for me, it's nothing like drawing in 2d. Drawing on pencil, with pencil and paper is completely different than creating in a space like gravity sketch. Because basically, when you're creating in a space like gravity sketch, you are molding, it's almost like you're creating something with a Play Doh, because it's completely, it's rounded, you're going around it, you have to think about your front, you have to think about the back, you have to think about, you have to really think while you're creating, for me anyway. Because like I said, I'm not used to creating in 3d. It's not it's not natural to me.
Holly Shannon 42:31
Let me-
Opé Majek 42:32
Go ahead.
Holly Shannon 42:33
Oh, sorry. Sorry, finish. I'm sorry.
Opé Majek 42:35
No, I was just saying that I'm used to drawing on a flat piece of paper. And I think in anything like, what I write down on that paper, or what I draw out on that paper, I'm thinking of the front of it. In, in creating in 3d, you have to think about the front, the back and the sides. So you have to go around the leg, you're not just you're not just drawing it flat onto the leg, you're going around the leg, you're, you're you're creating a pattern, and, and dimension. And you don't think of that in 2d. You know what I mean?
Holly Shannon 43:08
I do.
Holly Shannon 43:12
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Holly Shannon 43:53
Thinking about artists, I'm an artist, I was jewelry design artists for about 10 years. And one of my last collections was a 3d printed, I called it Honeycomb, collection. And I took a drawing that I had made of like a honeycomb pattern. I took a picture of it, I use the JPEG file and then I uploaded it into a series of different softwares to turn it into a 3d printed item. So it went through you know, Adobe, this Adobe that it got a dot svl, it got a dot STL at the, SVG at the end or whatever ended up.
Opé Majek 44:35
Wow.
Holly Shannon 44:36
Yeah, so I went through all those different layers and then I ended up in it was Tinkercad when it was 3d and you can see all the way around the item. So like say it was going to be you know, a bracelet or an earring or whatever, I could see the whole thing. So I only bring this up because I'm curious if that final 3d rendering, if that could be uploaded as an NFT, and somebody could use that as a wearable on their avatar and they can like size it down or you know, up depending on the size, like, do they want that to be a bracelet on their avatar? Do they want to be a choker or headband or something like that? And I might have just gone off course, but when you said 3d, I immediately was taken aback to that.
Opé Majek 45:29
Yeah, you're not wrong. It absolutely can be used as a wearable, and people are using, they're using gravity sketch to start their process before they take it into their finisher, and create wearables for different places. I know a lot of people who have created wearables, they started in gravity sketch and taken it into unity, so that they can use it in alt space VR. I don't know about any other spaces, because, I would suppose that you could use it in Decentraland, you know, because like, it is a 3d, you do need the back end the front, you know? So I'm sure you could use it in Decentraland. But yes, you can absolutely do that. And it has been done. And I've worked with people who say that this is where they started their design process. This is the first step for them is in gravity sketch. And then they finish in Unity. Or they finish wherever for their pieces. But yeah, I do that room on Mondays with bluebird and, and we, I'm still learning, like I said, I'm still learning gravity sketch. And I have a collaboration room. So I have up to four people inside the space. And we're all creating different pieces in different spaces of the room.
Holly Shannon 46:57
Very cool. I love all the teaching that you're doing. And I'm sure you're coming up with a multitude of ways like for your own work, as well as identifying where other people could use the platforms like you're saying. Like you were reaching out to people that you know you had worked with before. You know, are you thinking about using the Metaverse? Let me show you the way, which is really cool. What is your dream project?
Opé Majek 47:28
Oh, that's a good question. Um, I would like to, I would like to, you know, one, I would like for this wearables line that I've been working on getting through to Decentraland to workout. And I would I would love to collaborate with, you know, a bigger brand and, you know, do some creative direction. I do have a couple of a couple of projects that are coming out. You know, I don't know, by the end of the year, maybe. I don't I'm, well, maybe mid year, more mid year, I have something that's working out. And I would love to be able to share that when when I'm able to. And I'm working on some other things because I do want to be able to educate people on on the space. So you know, having conferences where, where people can learn more about this as it pertains to fashion, you know, that that I want to do, I want to do some collaborative projects with, with people on wearables. You know, I because it's not my designing it is not my thing. I am learning it, but it's not it's not my thing. And I believe in letting someone else do the excellent work if that's what it is that they do. And you know, me bring in what it is that I do, you know, as far as creative direction. I'm very good at that.
Holly Shannon 49:00
Right. And the styling of course, like they kept the item. Yeah, I have to believe that a lot of the companies that you have worked with before like Tahari, Montclair, Vera Wang, you know, all these people. You know, I'm wondering if you couldn't reach out to come up with some sort of brand collaboration in the Metaverse with them because I'm seeing brands all over the place, showing that they're combining forces, you know, like, Prada and Adidas, for example, are making an NFT. And I can, I can completely see you there. Because you're such a visionary, but you're also at the front of the line learning all this. I think you should do that. If you haven't already.
Opé Majek 49:52
No, thank you so much, Holly. I actually um, last year, I did a project with WalMart where I did their, I actually cast and did art direction for their Z kit project, which was a virtual fitting room. And I cast 50, women of all ages, all races, all shapes and sizes for a virtual fitting room where anybody can go in. It's still up, if you go there and you do the try on with them, you can try on pieces from their website and put whatever you want on their body. If you relate to this particular body shape, or size, we didn't, we didn't get to do this with the men. But it's now an ongoing project with them. But yeah, I was the one that got the first the first one together. And then I just worked with them on the second installation of that with their team. This time it was with their team, and they did the casting and everything. But the very first one, I did the casting for all 50 women. I did the like I said the art direction and and worked with all of these women to create, you know the format of how it was. I work closely with Z kit to do it. It was an augmented reality project. Yeah. So
Holly Shannon 51:19
That is really cool. That is really cool. Very innovative too, and forward thinking for Walmart. I like that.
Holly Shannon 51:30
I feel like because we are almost talking two different languages, I feel as though there might be something I'm not asking you. Is there a question that I'm not asking you or something that you want to share?
Opé Majek 51:43
No, not at all. I think that you, I think that you are, you think we're talking two different languages? Oh, my gosh, I hope I hope I haven't become you know, that person that just talks a bunch of jargon, because I really wanted to be clear in how I was communicating. You know, I guess-
Holly Shannon 52:03
No, you were clear. You were clear. I'm sorry. I didn't mean, what I think I was trying to say is, you know, the questions I'm asking you were based on some of the things you were saying, of course, but, you know, maybe there was something in there that you wanted to go deeper on. And I just wanted to open the door for you if I didn't ask a certain question. Because they are kind of like different languages that we're speaking and I might not be, you know, I might not be asking the question in future tense if you know what I mean.
Opé Majek 52:35
Um, you know, there's so much in the in in fashion that fashion people can discover with with NFTs, with the Metaverse technology. And they can use it any way that they like. I am always very open about, you know, what it is that, I'm, to say what it is that, to say this: that this is the technology, and now what is it that you can use this for in how you do your business, because it can be applied to any situation, any lifestyle, any business format. And so yeah, maybe there's some things we didn't get to touch on today. But I think that the important thing is to to get the knowledge about NFTs and all of the use cases, and to delve into all the different platforms. That's why I started to to do this with with the Metaverse meetup because my club was originally the Style Lab Lounge. But then the Style Lab Lounge was dominated by my my interest in NFTs and the Metaverse. And so I was like, Let me have a separate club. And that way I can visit all of these different platforms, and see what all of their different uses are. And and then I can, you know, apply whichever one, you know, I wanted, to my space, you know, of what it was I wanted to do. And so, right now, I'm working on building a fashion district with, not a fashion district, let me take that off. To building a community within Infiniverse that shows off all of the different talents and the people that I've come to know in the space. And I do the tours in in allspace VR, to show you you know, what are all the fun things that you can do in an interactive, immersive experience. I do the gravity sketch to show people how you can you know, delve into building, I started with art, but it was the fashion that that was like a lot more intriguing to me. You know, likely because I'm into fashion. But you know, people build cars, people build all kinds of different things in gravity sketch, and then Cryptovoxels. You know, I've seen like all the different things that people can create with fashion that are more fantastic. You know, I've seen people wear windex bottles as clothes. I've seen people wear Christmas ornaments as clothes, avocados as bikinis and, you know, fruits, you know, it's, it's amazing, you know, to the demonstrated imagination of people, you know, with different wearables, you know, you can take anything and make it into a wearable in Cryptovoxels. I've seen the path really light up in Decentraland. I've had the opportunity to speak to people in spatial and also people in Infiniverse, you know, and in those spaces and say, Hey, can we work more on these avatars? I would love to be able to work with a company on developing the avatars, you know, and the fashion that that, that the fashion options that they have within the space. Yeah, so I mean, I think the opportunities are endless. And then also, I speak to designers about, you know, increasing their utility for their NFTs. Because they don't just have to be artwork. They can also be, we have digital spaces where, you know, designers who are already having physical content can also create unlockable, sorry, yeah, they can use those physical designs as unlockable content for their digital files on their NFTs, or they can create an experience where they are saying to the, to their community, hey, you have first dibs on coming to our fashion show because you own this NFT. Or you have an ability to do this because you own this NFT like, you know, the different utilities that come along with NFTs, and utilizing that for their communities activating their communities that way. So yeah, I can go on and on.
Holly Shannon 56:54
So phygital, can you just describe what phygital is again?
Opé Majek 56:59
Sure. Phygital simply means that you have something that is both physical and digital at the same time as your NFT. And we usually use it as what we call unlockable content. So that let's say you created an illustration of your digital piece. And then you you had the unlockable content that now they can get the dress. They can actually get the dress for that digital file that they own. A good case, use case for this was Dolce and Gabbana did their Haute Couture, which is the ultimate collectible is having a piece of Haute Couture. But then they also made it so that when when they released their Metaverse platform that you'll be able to wear this on your avatar in a Metaverse platform, because now you have the you have not only the Haute Couture piece, but now you have the digital file, which made it the ultimate phygital variants. Yeah.
Holly Shannon 58:00
I love that. That is really cool. That's really cool. Wow, this is this is really mind blowing. I'm really, I have really enjoyed this interview. We've really opened up my mind to wearables, and if maybe I might dive back in a little bit to my jewelry.
Opé Majek 58:22
Absolutely don't, don't- And you know what the thing is, is with this space, the great thing about it is that you don't have to be a person who's in the fashion industry to be a fashion producer in the space, you know. Because it's not, the biggest the biggest fashion community in Cryptovoxels are from grassroots people who are just passionate about dressing their avatars. Those people have now become wearables producers and and designers, and they didn't have a fashion background. And you don't need it. Because I think that the most interesting and most dynamic pieces come from people who have no background in it, because then they just do whatever. And and it's really, you know, if if we were really trying to dress the Metaverse, we don't have to do everything that is the exact exact duplicate of real life, you know, we can do something that is more imaginative. And we can do something that's more fantastic. Which is actually the experience as a as a jaded fashion professional that I'm looking for. I don't want to see the same thing that I see in New York City every day and I see fantastic things in New York City and doing photoshoots believe me, but I want to I want to see something that I haven't seen before you know. I always talk about this jacket that I saw made out of bread slices and I was like, Whoa, this is incredible. You know, because I'd never seen anything like that. Or you know, the the person that wore a car as a wearable in Cryptovoxels and, you know, all kinds of you know, crazy fun stuff like that.
Holly Shannon 59:50
You take me back to Lady Gaga with the meat dress.
Opé Majek 59:55
Exactly.
Holly Shannon 59:56
So that but that bread dress like does it start off as white and after a week, it's like green from mold?
Opé Majek 1:00:04
There you go, see that- But that's what I'm saying. Use your imagination to do just that. If you want to make it a dynamic design that turns from white bread slices to moldy, green, green bread slices, then do that.
Holly Shannon 1:00:18
It's the chameleon dress.
Opé Majek 1:00:22
Exactly! Do that. Just, that's what I, that's what I want to see. I want to see more imagination. So I'm actually working with a few 3d designers to, you know, to create some things that I wanted. I want to see more fashion editorials in this form, too. So yeah, I have like a lot of imagination with it. I just want to work with people who want to, you know, to push their boundaries and their imagination as well.
Holly Shannon 1:00:49
Well, you stole my last question, because I was going to ask you, you know, where will Opé be in five years, but you articulated everything so well that I never really got to ask it. You answered it like, ESP. You knew I was going to ask it. This is really amazing. I, you know, I have to tell everybody, you know, I met Opé here in a clubhouse room. And she was talking about fashion. I was like, oh, you should check out the work of my friend Mimi Plange. She does really cool work. And then Opé answered me back that she had worked with her. She had done styling with her. And I did a collaboration with her when she was at rock aware. So it was like a six degrees of separation. And Mimi Plange was our two degrees actually. Right?
Opé Majek 1:01:39
It was amazing. Yeah.
Holly Shannon 1:01:41
Yeah, she's amazing. She, she is such a star. And if anybody's interested in listening to that podcast, I did interview her a while back, actually. So yeah, she's she is, she's reinterpreting it and calling it un-fashion, which is a really interesting perspective, really trying to democratize fashion and make it available and uniquely usable, no matter what sex you are too. So it's kind of cool. I love what she's doing. So I'm so glad that we had met and that you were open to coming on here and having this very unique conversation on Culture Factor. I know my family here is going to really like your perspective on the Metaverse and, because we haven't really gotten into that conversation on the show. So I thank you so much.
Opé Majek 1:02:35
Yeah, no thank you for, for thinking of me for this. I'm still you know, I'm still learning. I have my my Discord community. It happened by accident, because I was just looking for a place to bookmark all of the different places that I had been to, or had learned about. Because some of the Metaverse platforms, you have to have a more sophisticated computer to get into, you have to have a gamers computer to get into some of the spaces. So I haven't been to some of the spaces I want to check out. And I've just been growing my knowledge and sharing whatever I could and, and also, you know, bringing people on board and, and having them see everything from my headset, even if they didn't have an Oculus headset or VR headset to go in. And I've been expanding it that way. And because of that, and so you know, this has been a journey that that I'm still on. And um, you know, like you said earlier, I'm trying to, you know, manage my time and balance my time because I do have an enthusiasm for it. That's how it started. I really was just trying to learn as I was like, "What is this, this is, this is incredible." And in looking at the future of this, we're going to have the augmented reality, we have the virtual reality, we have the immersive spaces, we'll be able to experience things we'll be able to put on glasses and see things that are not visible to anybody else that's walking around, you know, without the glasses, kind of like a Pokémon Go experience, we'll be able to have that with some of these Metaversal platforms, we'll be able to change, you know, maybe someone may have on some incredible outfit. And you know, we were walking down the street and we can only see it because we have our augmented reality glasses on. I wanted to know so much and what that was about, to the point that it just really was, I mean, it wasn't an obsession, maybe yes. And it continues to be. I had friends, a lot of friends ridicule me about this. And once Zuckerberg made the announcement about Meta, then a lot of them started saying oh, is this what you were talking about? Okay. Oh, yeah, that's that's stuff you were talking about. Oh, and then they start to send me articles. Oh, this is happening in the Metaverse. I'm like, Yeah, I know, that's what I've been trying to tell you guys, are you coming on board yet? To the point where even last night, you know, I had a friend, you know, explain, you know, I just been a little afraid about it and, you know, I walked them through getting onto the Discord and how to, you know, to view things and I had another friend, I put her by force into Infiniverse into a tour that I had, and put her pieces and now she's giving away tours to everyone to come and join a tour that I have to bring them on board to the space because it's, it's fundamentally a way to have your business in, no longer is just is it just a website. It is now an immersive website, or it's an augmented reality site or ways for people to experience your business in an in a more exponential experiential way. So why not take advantage of the technology to do that, or to be able to meet with clients that are not just in your immediate area? Now you can you can confer with people who are across the world, or you can meet with people who are, you know, anywhere in any time zone, you know, at any time, at any place. So why wouldn't we want this for our businesses? And, and if those communities are built in those spaces, why not be able to show your website or your business, if you will, in that, in that immersive experience in a whole other way. You know, and so yeah, I do have a passion about it, I've made that available to my community in Discord and I'm the queen of small rooms, my rooms are not big, but I have people that are just as passionate within the space, you know, with me, who we work together, you know, to, to be passionate about these things and to be enthusiastic about the tremendous growth that's that's going to happen. It will happen this is not a fly by night thing. This is going to grow and you're going to need the knowledge of NFTs and you will need the knowledge of cryptocurrencies and, and all of these things that are now interrelated to grow your business. It's the new frontier. And we we, we will get on board whether we like it or not actually. It's going to happen.
Holly Shannon 1:07:39
I love your passion and your obsession. These last few minutes I could actually hear like your energy just like rise, rise, rise. Like you were like talking from your heart. Like you almost couldn't say everything you wanted to fast enough you suddenly just were on fire. I really loved it. I love to hear that real enthusiasm. And, and as for having a handful people in your room, I never have gigantic rooms either. And, you know, as far as the people who you know, follow Culture Factor. I'm not sure how big it really is. You know that data is not available to podcasters. But I always say that I have a small and mighty community and it sounds like you're building one too.
Opé Majek 1:08:25
Thank you so much, Holly. I really appreciate your time today.