The Frntal launches to support emerging fashion/design talent with NFT element

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Jan 27, 2022

Next month will see the launch of The Frntal, a UK-based online retailer that’s also a platform for “representing and showcasing emerging creatives and pioneers in contemporary fashion and design". It's also a marketplace for "selling their physical items and trading their non-fungible tokens”.

It will “offer its members an international cloud solution for creative needs, and a tailored programme to equip designers with the tools they need today”, we’re told.

The company says it’s partnering with brands to offer connected services across retail, marketing, PR and communications, celebrities and talents collaborations, and partnerships.

That means it’s not only an online retailer, but also helps brands to “increase their press by providing them with simple tools to connect with top media online any time, and be seen by buyers and retailers, without pitching to a single one”.

It said there’s a need for this as “young, aspiring designers face enormous hurdles at the beginning of their careers”. So the Frntal aims to offer “access to services that can propel their businesses forward on terms they can afford rather than large and unnecessary PR and sales activations”.

Housing all PR content in an online press room also allows journalists, editors, and stylists “to access everything they need to feature a brand in an instant and, as a result, increases their press coverage results significantly and connect with a global audience of buyers and retailers”.

As for the NFT inclusion in the offer, the company said: “We are building the ultimate online destination for the fashion and design physical and NFT universe. We believe in blockchain technology as an enabler for a more democratic, connected, and valuable way of creating digital fashion experiences. NFTs are the starting point of a fashion experience that you can own, in which we can create new ways to experience and relate to fashion”.

It sees its NFT marketplace becoming not only a tool to sell virtual garments, but also a “platform to provide valuable data about garments, designs, and trends, by virtualising every garment and enabling users to personally wear and experience the digital fashion item”.

And as some people question the point of fashion’s current obsession with NFTs, it added that an NFT can make virtual fashion items as unique as tangible products, “solving the problem of the reproducibility of digital clothing. With NFT, the catalogue of unique products widens. A fashion brand could sell their own show video or individual backstage photos as NFT. In the case of digital copies, the NFT makes it possible to trace the original copy that could be purchased by a collector”. 

And it feels that NFTs “could have an impact on the resale market, not only by keeping an accurate map of changes in ownership of a certain item but also, for example, by providing brands with a royalty every time their product is sold in the second-hand luxury market”.