Peyton:

Hello. Welcome everyone, and thanks for joining us, uh, today. I'm thrilled to be here with Aditya Mani. A digital fashion expert and co-founder of Yologram, we're in for quite an exciting conversation as we explore the future of the digital fashion industry. So, without further ado, let's jump in. Welcome, Aditya, if you could just intro a little bit about yourself and what you do.

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Aditya:

Yeah, thanks for that, Peyton. Um, I'm, kind of new to the space of fashion. I, I, got to know about the whole concept of 3D and digital fashion around the pandemic because I saw a pretty amazing experience. I saw, um, a celebrity in my own home in augmented reality, and I thought that this would be an amazing way in which content can be consumed in the future.

So I kind of jumped into the world of retail and digital fashion around about 2020. Prior to that, I've been a healthcare entrepreneur, so I've run about, uh, multiple companies in the last two and a half decades. I have about 25 years of work experience and, um, yeah, so excited to be here and excited to be in the ever-changing world of digital fashion and metaverse.

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Peyton:

That sounds amazing. Let's continue that and talk a little bit about Yologram and how they're transforming the world of fashion and introducing digital fashion to new people, um, who are new to this exciting field.

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Aditya:

Yeah, so hologram was born out of a concept that it's your hologram.

So can you create a holographic avatar of yourself with just your mobile phone? So we kind of envisioned that the metaverse is gonna happen, but it's not gonna always be with your headsets on. It's not always gonna be in front of your MacBook Pro or your laptop. You're gonna be mobile, you're gonna be walking around.

So can you spin up a holographic avatar of yourself? And not just that, can you also create, you dress it up with branded fashion? So that's how the whole concept came about it, and very democratic. And back in the day, the only way you could do a 3D capture of yourself was if you went into a studio. This is a volumetric studio where, you know, you did game creation.

So it's a very expensive, multi-million dollar studio where celebrities would go in and you needed a lot of artwork to, you know, craft the avatar of yourself, which is what, uh, The Marvel Studios and the Pixars of the world do, uh, we said the whole concept needs to be democratised. Uh, so back in the day, we didn't really know much about avatars, but we figured out that, you know, there's this very cool thing out there, which has been part of the gaming universe called avatars.

And then we figured out that, you know, you can go super photo-realistic like you have with the meta humans, and you can go cartoonish like you have with Ready Player Me. So there's a whole spectrum of avatars available - could be blocky, like how you have it on Sandbox and uh, there's always a need to express yourself using these embodiments.

So whether it's the kind of expressions you have on your face or the movements you have, which you can put on your avatar, or the kind of clothing you have, it all speaks a lot about your choices. And we thought that, you know, let's give people a tool to basically have a 3D TikTok or a 3D Instagram where you're dressing yourself up, creating all these moves and expressing yourself, whether it's placing yourself in virtual words or placing yourself in augmented reality.

So that's Yologram. It's just like spinning a digital version of yourself, and placing yourself in different backgrounds.

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Peyton:

That sounds really inspiring. And I think getting it into people's hands and, you know, really letting people get hands on is the best way of accelerating that progress in, you know, in the technology and getting features out to people, um, and really making the most of everything.

I know specifically recently I've seen, um, some cool new features on iPhones and things where you can scan things in real life and then people can pull that into 3D software and they can play with it more. And that just becomes a quicker iterative process and it's really exciting to see. That leads me on to, um, what unique features and experiences can users expect when exploring the intersection of technology and storytelling in digital fashion?

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Aditya:

Yeah, so I, think, um, fashion is just, um, a means of expression and it's a, it tells you a lot about the choices that you make in terms of style, and um, also tells you a lot in terms of what's influenced you in terms of culture, whether it's Hollywood or music. So, you know, we let the consumer choose between how they want to dress themselves up. And more than that, we believe, in addition to dressing yourself up in different kinds of brands, in different kinds of upper wear, bottom wear, where do you wanna place yourself? Do you want to place yourself in, uh, a stadium in Wembley? Do you want to place yourself in the middle of the Wimbledon or, you know, we, we give you the power to do that without actually physically traveling.

So someone wants to see what they look like in Times Square. So that gives you, very interesting storytelling, and it also gives you the power of your voice. And we've also seen that Gen Z uh, likes to communicate with their voice, so it's a completely lip synced avatar, so you can have your camera switched off, it's just tracking your facial expressions or it's just tracking your voice and the avatar speaks that.

So it's your voice with your kind of body avatar, with your choice of dressing, as well as the kind of environment you wanna place yourself in. I think it makes a great combination for storytelling because it's not limited, so you know you're not physically limited. Say if you wanted to do a Michael Jackson move, we've got a platform in there which takes video, converts it to animation.

So if there's something that you're physically not limited by, your avatar can do it. So you can do a 3-pointer basketball move like LeBron. Or you can, do a fancy tennis move like your favorite tennis player and you can place yourself in, you know, whether it's, it's a virtual store, or you can place yourself inside a virtual stadium or inside your own home, right?

You can place yourself on your MacBook Pro or on a coffee cup of Starbucks and you can do that tennis move. So that's where the storytelling makes it very personalised because the augmented reality gives you that personalisation of your own home, and we think that's gonna make a big difference too, where social media interest intersects with storytelling.

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Peyton:

So it really sounds like the sort of exploring, uh, and really personalised and tailored experiences to, each individual person and then being able to share those experiences with friends and family. Um, I know that's a huge part of social media and being able to share those experiences with each other.

Not necessarily, you know, being, you might not both be able to go to a certain place at the same time, but you can experience that, um, together from different parts of the world; that sounds really good. And that leads me on to how does Yologram empower users to personalise their avatars and express their personal style in the digital realm, allowing them to stand out and share their fashion choices?

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Aditya:

Yeah, great question. So, uh, like I mentioned earlier, the, um, personalisation happens on multiple fronts, right? So the personalisation could be about how you want your avatar to look, so we give you a little slider, which lets you adjust the weight so you could adjust how your chest, waist, and hip size are so that you get like a realistic body shape of yourself.

And the personalisation could even be about the choices of clothes you have. Not just the color, but you know, someone wants to wear very sporty brand, someone wants to do, uh, someone wants to wear very stylish brand. So all those choices. And also the power of mix and match. So, you know, you normally don't see an Asos mixed with a Gucci or you don't see a, uh, you know, Nike mixed with, Louis Vuitton. We give you the power to mix and match, which typically e-commerce doesn't let you do, right? E-commerce lets you just see, the clothing the way it is and just add it to cart. Uh, we not only let you see it in terms of on your body, as far as the trial is concerned, we also let you mix and match so, you know, you, you could do something interesting, like you could, you could see what a blue shirt looks like with black jeans, and you can see what it looks like with a green skirt. And then suddenly you see that the shirt looks very different with, you know, both the combinations. So that's where we think the whole concept of personalisation is gonna come in. And that storytelling really speaks volumes of, you know, say if, if you were to pick up a sporty brand and you would've placed it in the right kind of platform, say if you bought tickets, uh, for your favorite, uh, you know, game, and then you had the tickets placed on your laptop, or you have it placed on your dining table and you placed yourself, you know, doing a golf swing or doing your favorite sports move on top of those tickets.

It's not just storytelling, which is promoting the event, promoting the brand. It's also about, we also do something called virtual product placement where you know, you can actually deep link into that, click on that avatar and see what is it that the guy's wearing? Can I buy that for myself physically or digitally?

So it's personalisation, not just about your environment, personalisation, but the kind of music you wanna place. It's also about, um, you know, the kind of clothing you put on, and of course how you want your avatar to be. Uh, we've had interesting cases where people who are disabled wanna just see themselves standing completely erect and doing, you know, a salsa dance and, you know, that's fairly empowering and that makes them feel good about themselves. So, yeah yeah, so that's, that's really where we wanna give the power of you, your digital self, to be able to do anything and not physically limited by what your physical self can do.

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Peyton:

Totally - and I suppose it really removes those sort of barriers to entry almost as well. Like you say, if for example, you're not able to get to a certain place at a certain time for whatever reason, uh, and you want to explore and you want to see new events and things, you're able to put yourself really in those experiences, um, and sort of maximize those, uh, those opportunities that might not be available all the time to everyone everywhere.

Um, Could you just share a little bit about, uh, the exciting ways digital fashion you think will revolutionise the future of shopping, gaming, virtual try-ons, self expressions, and how individuals can get involved in this trend? I know I've personally seen some really exciting examples recently of, uh, lots of companies sort of augmenting, um, bits of technology, bits of virtual with physical, with clothing, with, uh, toys, things like this.

Where do you think that'll go in the future?

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Aditya:

Yeah, I think any, any place that looks forced on would, um, would quickly see, uh, you know, you'd have a hype and then you'd have a die down. So, you know, if you force shoppers to go to a gaming experience, they're gonna do it. But that's not what they do. They're not gamers.

Shoppers are not gamers. Similarly, if you, uh, tell your gamers to go to social media, that's not gonna happen. So we're trying to build a tool that connects. Into gaming, which connects into social media, connects into shopping, and, and it lets you figure out where you wanna go. So you know that that's one way in which I'm thinking it, it may evolve.

And I also think that, um, you know, try-ons is just the first stage. So, you know, you wanna try, wanna see what it looks like, but then you wanna save it because you wanna have that clothing available in your avatar wardrobe because you wanna build content with it because you like the way it looked and it kind of somewhere, you know, echoes your vibe and echoes the way you like, the way you probably dress in real life. Or it could be completely different from the way you dress in real life, but you wanna save that to your wardrobe as well. So I feel that, digital fashion is gonna be more about storytelling in the times to come.

And we, we think that there's gonna be a whole wear-to-earn economy, that, you know, brands are gonna compensate consumers depending on what they wear, whether they're doing it in metaverses. So you can share either in real time by being present digitally at the same time with someone else. Or you could share an experience, record an experience, and I can send it to you.

So I can either send you a recorded video or I can send you a recorded hologram, which you can just, you know, you can just beam in your home of me doing that action with that, you know, with that audio on. So it's kind of that Princess Leia moment that we're able to enable with our app, but, for, as far as brands are concerned, there's an opportunity to be present on those people.

So it's virtual product placement and it's also an opportunity for the consumer to deep link into that and buy that.

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Peyton:

Totally! And I suppose, um, just making things as, as fluid and as seamless as possible, especially with sort of in-person, um, experiences. Be it, you know, going into the Adidas store, the Nike store, et cetera, these things, and having some sort of augmented or virtual experience where you can try on a pair of shoes virtually, and then you can buy that pair of shoes in the virtual world, and take it in. And I anticipate in the future a lot of those sort of, again, those barriers, the language, these things will all become, um, really fluid and will just become part of the experience. Um, even if we end up dropping terms like digital fashion, AR, VR, these things.

Um, Gradually, it'll sort of become the new norm almost.

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Aditya:

Absolutely. So all, all these, uh, trends or buzzwords we, we hear about today, they're all gonna be invisible. Uh, I, I slowly see AI fading out and becoming computing and automation and, you know, you, you're slowly, we are gonna get tired of saying AI for the next one year, and we all gonna see it's just, Automation, you know, we just wanna automate it.

So I, I, I see the same happening with the Metaverse and AR and VR, and I just feel like either you're just gonna say 3D or you know, experiential or immersive or, that's it.

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Peyton:

Yeah, totally, and I think I, agree that a lot of these sort of buzzwords will eventually fade evolved and change like technology does and has and we have seen before.

Um, and that that's a fairly sort of natural process as people decide which features they do and don't want to pick up and keep as well. Um, quite a sort of dynamic process. Could you just share a little bit about your journey into the digital fashion industry and the highlight essential skills and opportunities available for those that want to join and do something similar in this sort of digital fashion world?

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Aditya:

Yeah. So the digital fashion world is, is, uh, very interesting and very evolving at the same time. So I think that, um, back, uh, in the time you took up a track, so you chose which software you worked on, so it could be Cloud 3D or Browzwear, or, but now I think with the, with the rise of AI, I think what's gonna happen is each one of these tools is just gonna have a little text box where you type into it and it just puts things on.

So it's more about. Having your fundamentals correct. So if you've got a good background in fashion or you have an interest in fashion, it'll become increasingly easier. And it's gonna be a, you're probably gonna have, eventually you're gonna have one text box, which lets you choose, hey, which platform do you wanna push this text into?

And we're gonna generate the digital fashion for you. So that's how I see it evolving. It isn't that way as of now, but um, it still requires. Uh, a good knowledge of 3D in terms of knowing textures, in terms of knowing how to apply materials onto clothing, and also a little bit about simulation, about how cloth moves and, you know, how, how to do draw stitch lines and all that.

But like I mentioned earlier, it's all about automation, right? So as, as a lot of this gets repeated and it's the same process all over again, the new versions are gonna be more about just: either speaking into a text box, speaking into a mic, or just typing into a text box, and this stuff will happen. Uh, it, you will stand out from the crowd if you do have a good eye.

If, you understand what is it that's trending, if you do understand what is it that the Gen Z is really looking out for? And of course, you know, the usual, uh, tenets of creativity, which includes, uh, you know, things like, um, customisation of apparel, uh, seeing what, what matches well with what. And, and, you know, the, basics of, you know, understanding style. I think that's something that's, uh, fundamental that, that will go a long way.

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Peyton:

Totally. And it, it sort of almost sounds like, um, As we progress, we'll be able to automate more bits of it and make more sort of apps and programs that can take the sort of heavy lifting and the weight off and convert more of the control, the creative control back to the, the folks that are making these experiences and these products and virtual products as well.

Uh, I mean, as we have seen in other industries and in the past, throughout history, sort of taking the load off a little bit, and allowing computers to do some of the heavy lifting. Um, and then sort of almost helping, letting computers help us be creative as well, um, sort of generating those ideas, um, et cetera.

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Aditya:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, because we're in an increasingly digital world, the input we give, the computer is digital and the output is digital as well. So what happens with that is that, uh, you can just trend all this into an AI and say that every time I tell you a 2D pattern of clothing looks like this is what I want 3D to look like.

You just give it enough, you give it enough samples and it's gonna be able to generate it based on what you give it in real time. So, so, uh, rather than focusing on the tool that you wanna build, you wanna focus on the elements of style and the elements of fashion. And that'll probably give you, you know, give you a longer way, it, like you mentioned, it probably may not be called digital fashion anymore, just could be called generative fashion or just maybe called. You know, fashion and, and as long as you have a keen interest in that, I think you're covered.

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Peyton:

Cool. And I just wanted to ask finally, um, how does Yologram integrate social media and user generated content into digital fashion and the landscape around that?

And how do you collaborate with brands to bring their apparel into the metaverse space?

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Aditya:

Yeah, great question. So, uh, I, don't think we wanna be pulling, uh, social media into digital fashion. We're doing the opposite. In fact, what we're doing is we're taking digital fashion, uh, giving it a lens of, you know, user generated content by letting users uh, play around with it, mix and match, and then push it into social media. We're also not prescriptive of where you wanna post it. So we let you generate the experience, so I, like to call it an experience because you're creating a digital version of yourself, then you're animating it with the, the kind of animations you want, and then you speak it in with your voice, and then you place it where you want.

So you could place it either in augmented reality or virtual reality. And then, you have an experience on whether you wanna record that as a video or you wanna record it as a complete 3D experience that you sent to someone else? The, reason why we're not focusing essentially on sharing on the metaverse is that the metaverse tends to get lonely. Because many times you go to these virtual worlds, there's billions of square feet of virtual worlds out there, and you hardly see anyone out there. So rather than, you know, doing the heavy lifting of trying to tie up with someone and say, hey, let me meet you at this time, on this date, in spatial or decentral land.

Rather than that, if you just record something and send it to someone and they can see it when they want, whether they wanna see it in, uh, 3d, or they wanna see it in 2d, it's totally their choice. So we are not prescriptive on how, how these experiences should be shared. We do allow a real time experience where two friends can kind of beam each other into their living room.

So, you know, if I'm speaking with you, I, you can dress yourself up in, the kind of fashion you want. And then, um, You know, I can place you in my living room and you can place me in your living room. So it's kind of like having a FaceTime call, but it's a real life realtime experience where, you know, we are seeing each other in each, other's spaces.

So that's the kind of thing that we're, these are kind of use case that we are kind of being prescriptive about because we think it's too much work to allow this to be completely built out by itself. But everything else, we're kind of being open, figure out where you wanna push it into, whether you wanna create an avatar and push into a game, we give you that.

Whether you wanna be able to, you know, uh, share to a different, uh, virtual world or metaverse, we give you that experience as well. And if you want to just record in 2D and share it to Instagram, we'll let you do that as well.

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Peyton:

I suppose if you, a, a good way of building, um, products is sort of adding features and letting the users decide what it is they want to use, how they want to use it and how that they can make that interact with friends. Um, and that becomes sort of a very effective tool, especially when you're trying to integrate it into things that people already use. Uh, and really let the sort of users become the, the judge of, um, what this should look like, uh, and build it very fluidly with them.

Fantastic! And from what I've seen so far from pictures and I've, had a quick flick through your website. Everything looks really, really exciting so far, and the direction, is really sort of inspiring. So I'm really excited to see how this can be iterated on, uh, in the future.

I just had one final question for you. Um, what is your most sort of exciting thing about the future of digital fashion? Uh, and lastly, where can we connect with you? Uh, how can people get in touch? Your LinkedIn, your website, um, and sort of what are you thinking and what are you planning going forward?

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Aditya:

Yes, I think that's a great question.

So, um, you know, when we started back in 2021, uh, almost two years back, uh, it was really, we were really limited by the creativity of the users, right? So we said, let's give you the power to, you know, mix and match backgrounds, mix and mix and match clothing, you know, mix and you figure out how, figure, how you wanna, you know, match this stuff up.

Now I think that, We are not just leveraging the creativity of every user out there, we're also leveraging the creativity of generative AI. So what I'm excited about the future is that, uh, you, you're just gonna be able to, you know, type into a text box and say, I'd like to place myself in a stadium, but it should look like it's on Mars.

And you'd get a background, which shows up like that. I'd like to wear, uh, a shirt that looks like balloons and it's gonna be able to do that. So that's what I'm really excited about because it's not just... So if in the, if the first version was about unlocking creativity by saying, hey, you're not, It's not what you're physically limited by, it's what you're digital, what you can digitally do.

I think even the, the creativity can be up one level by letting creativity or creations get unlocked by just the power of thought, right? So you, you're not gonna the, power, the power of generative AI is just think it and it happens. So you think of a certain kind of clothing, think of a certain kind of background, think of a certain kinda experience, and we should be able to pull that into the app and say, hey, you can do this and you can share it the way you want. So I think that's, that's the next iteration we are excited about. And, uh, there's definitely the tech out there that we can leverage. It's just trying to do it in a meaningful way where it doesn't break everything, but I'm sure it's something that we can do in the next year or two.

That's what I'm excited about the future. And in terms of reaching me, I'm most active on LinkedIn and I'd be happy to share my LinkedIn credentials and, uh, sorry, my LinkedIn contact. And, um, uh, I'm not, uh, very active on Instagram, but I do have an Instagram ID, which I can share. And, uh, yeah, you know, you look us up: "Yologram". And hopefully we should be launching very soon and we'd love to sign on as many schools and as many students who wanna come play with the app.

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Peyton:

That's perfect. Well, thank you very much Aditya for joining today. Really exciting, uh, visions of sort of where this technology can go and where we're looking sort of a glimpse into the future almost, uh, really, really exciting to see how this evolves.

Thank you very much for joining.

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Aditya:

Thank you very much, Peyton. I really enjoyed this, I think was a wonderful experience and a big thank you to the hundo team as well.

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Peyton:

Sounds good. Thank you. Take care.

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