On August 27, 2025, the digital and physical worlds of fashion collided in an unexpected way. Holly New, a recent graduate from Arts University Bournemouth with a master's degree in Digital Fashion Innovation, made headlines by designing a fully digital outfit for the emerging pop singer NØELLE. But this wasn't just any custom ensemble—it was created exclusively for an immersive concert held inside the wildly popular video game, Fortnite. With about 400 million registered players, Fortnite has become much more than a shooting and building game; it's a virtual stage where global superstars like Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Metallica, and Travis Scott have performed to massive online crowds. Now, Holly New's creation has added a new dimension to this digital phenomenon, blending cutting-edge technology with the artistry of fashion design.
According to BBC reporting, Holly New described her experience as "an amazing opportunity," emphasizing that designing clothes in virtual reality (VR) was "more exciting" than working with traditional fashion. "I'm the world's first VR fashion designer which is a super exciting place to be in," she told the BBC, speaking with the kind of enthusiasm that suggests this is just the beginning of something much larger. For the NØELLE concert, players entered Fortnite using a special code released earlier in August, allowing them to attend the show and witness the debut of New's digital outfit—an event that blurred the boundaries between entertainment, gaming, and style.
The process behind this digital fashion breakthrough is as fascinating as the result. As New explained, "It doesn't exist in the physical world. It opens up so many opportunities. Not only is it faster to design, it's more collaborative and it reduces waste in terms of sampling and how you're designing and saving fabric." In a world where sustainability is becoming an ever-greater concern, the ability to create, test, and showcase designs in a purely virtual environment offers a tantalizing glimpse into a future where creativity isn't bound by physical limitations—or the environmental costs of traditional fashion production.
New's opportunity came about when Copper Candle, a company specializing in virtual theater and live events within Fortnite, reached out to her with a unique challenge: "They approached me to make this amazing outfit and get it game ready," she recalled. The result was a custom look for NØELLE's digital avatar, a striking blend of futuristic aesthetics and artistic vision. As New sees it, "We're bringing on more artists as we speak... I would love to really push the world of digital gaming and fashion and VR because I think it all really comes together under one umbrella. I'm basically making it my mission to make VR fashion industry-wide."
But while innovations like New's are pushing fashion into new frontiers, the industry as a whole faces mounting scrutiny over its ethical, social, and environmental practices. On the very same day that New's digital design made waves, another publication took a hard look at the darker side of fashion's global supply chain. The article, published on August 27, 2025, explored how the industry has long relied on what French sociologist Jean Baudrillard called "hyperreality"—a world where brand mythology, social media, and idealized images create a reality that's "more real than reality itself." This hyperreal narrative, as the piece explained, often masks the true conditions under which fashion is produced.
Recent investigations in Italy have revealed workshops where underpaid, often undocumented migrant workers produce leather goods for luxury brands such as Armani and Dior. These revelations are hardly isolated; since 2016, similar labor abuses have been reported involving other luxury giants, including Gucci, Prada, Balenciaga, Chanel, Burberry, and Louis Vuitton. The pattern is deeply troubling: as production costs rise and brands demand ever-faster turnaround times, factories are forced to rely on networks of subcontractors, making it nearly impossible to track where and how products are made. The result? Exploitation and labor abuses that run counter to the polished, ethical image many brands project.
The problem isn't limited to luxury goods or distant countries. In 2020, VK Garment Factory in Thailand faced criminal charges after Burmese workers endured appalling conditions while making jeans for Tesco's F&F brand, a UK supermarket label. Meanwhile, in Leicester, UK, garment workers were found earning as little as £3.50 an hour—well below the legal minimum—and working in unsafe conditions. Across the Atlantic in Los Angeles, factories producing for well-known brands were caught paying workers just $5 an hour, flagrantly violating U.S. labor laws. These cases, as the article noted, "underscore the unsettling reality that such exploitative practices are not confined to distant supply chains but are embedded within the very fabric of Western production."
How did things get this way? The roots of the problem are tangled in decades of outsourcing, lax oversight, and a relentless drive for profit. Since the late 1960s, clothing production has increasingly shifted to countries with lower labor costs, a trend that accelerated in the 1990s as unions gained strength in the West. The system of social auditing—originally intended to ensure ethical standards—has been undermined since the early 2000s, when financial responsibility for audits shifted from brands to factories. This conflict of interest has allowed abuses to persist, even as brands tout their commitment to ethical sourcing.
The article invoked the writings of Karl Marx, noting that "the brand image exists to repress the human trace"—a phenomenon known as commodity fetishism, where the real labor behind a product is obscured by its status as a desirable object. Philosopher Slavoj Žižek and economist Thorstein Veblen were also cited, highlighting how fashion's appeal is built not just on material quality, but on the myth, the trophy, and the promise of transcendence. As the late French designer Paul Poiret once observed, "As they have no understanding of the value of objects, they go by the labels only."
So, what will it take to change the system? The article argued that real progress requires more than transparency or virtue signaling. Brands must forge genuine, long-term partnerships with their factories, allowing for ethical and sustainable operations rather than perpetuating a cycle of desperation and exploitation. Consumers, too, have a role to play—by educating themselves about the true origins and value of their clothes, and by demanding more from the brands they support.
In the age of digital consciousness, where narratives are shaped as much by social listening as by actual practice, the fashion industry's next chapter remains unwritten. As Holly New and others push the boundaries of what fashion can be—whether in the virtual world of Fortnite or on the runways of Paris and Milan—the challenge is to ensure that innovation goes hand in hand with integrity. Only then can the industry truly bridge the gap between its dazzling image and the reality behind the seams.
