Following his announcement last week on the release of a NFT collection alongside his physical couture collection set to be released in the coming weeks, we sat with Rami Kadi to better understand his motives behind this game-changing move and what his dreams for the future of his eponymous label are.
It’s rare to use so many superlatives in a sentence, but Rami Kadi seems to justifiably do so, as he proves to be the first to check many boxes in the industry.
“Let me tell you why the brand got renowned as a tech brand; we were the first ones who used glow-in-the-dark embroidery in our collections. We were the first ones to put LED lights into our couture pieces. We used a lot of material that is usually not used to be designed or to be used for embroidery. For example, we’ve used silicon, we’ve used porcelain, we burned sequins and we’ve done a 100% fully recycled dress out of the ocean. We’re also the first ones in the Middle East to do recyclable shows, or online shows before the pandemic even started.”
It’s clear that Kadi has always been ahead of his time, even before the pandemic. The advancements and changes he’s implemented within his own brand have only recently become popular in the industry, mainly because we’ve had to adapt to the changes resulted from the pandemic. But Kadi has already been doing this before the pandemic, when so many couturiers and designers are afraid to experiment with the new digital age. Kadi explained why he isn’t hesitant by stating the undeniable, “obviously, I’m not afraid.”
“I like to always start things. I like to be a pioneer. I’m curious and my team is curious as well. I’ve got lots of support from people that I work with, people around me. We’re all young. We’re all experimenting with the business. We’ve been hearing about cryptocurrency for the past years and it was a thing that you might feel is not real, but after a while, I really believe that this is the new era of everything and it’s more secure. It’s inevitable. I really believe it’s the future. We always need to adapt to what’s coming and it’s always better to adapt when things are at the beginning.”
Kadi continued to explain his most recent announcement, “with this collection, we’re going to have a physical collection which will be launched on the 25th of January during Paris Fashion Week in which we will have physical couture pieces, and these couture pieces were created with the help of the computer; an algorithm. The NFT collection is a collection that was generated by the computer with the algorithm, with all the information that I gave to the computer. Those NFTs, as utilities, will give you a way, that if you own one of these NFTs, you can create a physical dress inspired by these NFTs, or if you have your avatar, or if you’re in the metaverse, or if you have any other NFT that you own, I can dress your avatar in this NFT. In the future when the metaverse will be accessible to everyone, we will have events or parties or shows, and to be able to come to these events, as a user, you’ll have to own NFTs”
“The physical collection of couture pieces are inspired by the NFTs and were done in the same way as the NFTs. So, they are computer-generated but I have translated them into real garments. The NFT collections are different. They’re from the same collection, the same theme, but it’s a different collection, with 120 NFTs in total. When you become the owner of an NFT, you can create a sweater out of it for your avatars, a hat. You can do everything.”
For those of you who would like to understand the concept a little better from Kadi’s own words, the designer took to Instagram to explain the idea of NFTs and how it is inevitably going to become something unavoidable in the fashion industry.
As of the 2nd of February, you can preview and purchase your very own Rami Kadi NFTs.
With several other major fashion brands entering this sphere alongside Rami Kadi, we were curious to know what exactly inspired him to take on this challenge. “The inspiration didn’t come from my own brain or my own head. We’re a small team that’s working together. We always brainstorm. We always seek for new ideas. Things we proceed with, things we don’t. Things that evolve. We have decided to let the machine – the computer, help create this collection. So there will be a utility for others designers to follow in the creation of their future collections.”
With fashion and technology becoming as intertwined as ever; we wondered where the Lebanese designer the future of fashion shows and collections heading towards. Could he even possibly think that real-life fashion shows will become a thing of the past? He responds, “Personally, I don’t think it will become something totally from the past. Because we’re going to have two lives, maybe, or parallel lives that will be lived by each one of us. So, we will need physical clothes, of course. But we will also need virtual items for our avatar, because I personally will have a shop in the metaverse and I will buy a land. I will create my own shop, other people can come and also buy dresses, sweaters. I might do a collab of sneakers, I can do a collab with bags. Believe me, I think in very little time, you’re going to see big big brands going into the metaverse and creating bags, watches; because your avatars needs to represent you.”
Rami Kadi’s spring/summer 2022 collection will be named Lucid Algorithms. Is it possible that math and technology have somehow became fashionable and even sexy? Kadi seems to agree, “Exactly. We named it this because the algorithm created most of the collection. In the process of the creation I’d give the computer colours, patterns, textiles, volumes and things that I liked. With one click, the computer puts, for example, seven colours together with one volume and one pattern or maybe together with a few colours.”
What is the most shocking however, is that Rami Kadi’s team are all learning on the job. It is clear that the designer is so dedicated into ensuring the success of his most recent endeavour that everyone behind the scenes of the brand is learning to adapt to the changes of technology that the industry is facing.
When asked what else we can expect from the designer in terms of the race into the metaverse, he didn’t give much away.
“The sky is the limit. I cannot tell you now. It’s very new to us. We want to do things right. First thing, we’re launching our NFTs. We hope to have events, shows, parties and shops in the meta-verse. It’s still very new. We’re open to all kinds of collaborations. All kinds of new ideas that could be done.”
But one thing is for certain: Rami Kadi is heading for the virtual skies and there is no stopping him.
